Tlatoani: Aztec Cities

Game is very fun, if you enjoyed classic caesar style city builder you might enjoy this game. I like the festivals, the economy, the graphics are pretty nice too.

I'd like to play more of this game, I find it really fun. But I feel I've at least played enough to leave a review as really it is quite a straight forward 2d city builder/city management game. And the TLDR is, decent. Not amazing, but a solid 7/10. One of those games where the up/down review system is tough to capture just how I feel. The game is built in the vein of Pharaoh or Caesar, classics of the genre. You build housing, so you can recruit workers, so you can farm food, so you can build/recruit more, so you can make a military, so you defend yourself. Classic gameplay loop. The twist comes from the Aztec aesthetic & building types, as well as the EXCELLENT layout controls. The game def gives you tools to make great looking cities, and I feel like the screen shot cities on the store page are very makable with the tools you see in game. It also does seem to lend itself to cool cities, not hyper optimized builds which is nice. The problem is the game tries to make you think its very deep with mechanics, its got the classic Paradox 1001 map layers. Supposedly every agent has a ton of agency and complicated demands. But the info is kinda useless? The game is abstract enough that often times I'm not really sure what my problems are, or if I even have problems. For example, the game tells me I have a homelessness problem. Cool, build more housing. But how much? You can see a % of your homelessness, but when you click on your citizens they tell you theyre actually unhappy with overcrowding. Is that flavor text, or is overcrowding different than homelessness? Am I building the wrong kind of house? Or too close together? Building houses, the classic solution, seems not to solve homelessness but rather exacerbate it as more people try to move into your city. There are several mechanics which are core to this kind of builder which the game unfortunately obfuscates or fails to explain via tool tip. The failure can be quite frustrating. There is a tutorial and a campaign to dive into, and that goes a long way to helping teach the mechanics. The ingame encyclopedia, though, sucks. I really would rather see that fleshed out, and the game surface some real numbers about what is happening behind the scenes. Give me a way to just see the numbers and do the math myself. And worse, even in my short playtime I am very much wondering if there is really even a lot of depth here. My big problem with this genre has been building cities just seems to be a very straightforward dash down a production tree till you reach self sufficiency. Tlatoani suggests that 'no, there is more to our production chains! You can manage agents in depth.' But I don't actually think so. Its an awesome vibe game. If you love this kind of city builder, youll love this. But it doesnt seem to do much new or innovative here. Hence the topline score. 7/10, good not great. I would LOVE to see a major revision to how agents work, and perhaps a DLC that adds a bunch more production variety and sophistication. A workers and resources style realistic mode would take this game to the next level, I feel. Of course the price is GREAT for what this is, $20 (full price atm) is very worth it for even just a weekend of play.

A thumping improvement on every impressions-style builder to come before it.

Complex city builder. Love the theme. Learning experience is a bit rough. Lots of details I have yet to get a grasp on

My initial first impression is that this is a good Impression-style city building game, in the same vein as Caesar III or Pharaoh. Will give it a more detailed review later on.

Best traditions of Pharaoh and upgraded

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