Who even owns these IPs today? How come no one wants to use them? I remember back in mid 2000s every year you had at least one game set in Roman period and being city builder. Biggest problems with them were that majority of them were low-mid budget, usually came with bunch of bugs and little to nothing new to offer. There's now gap of like almost a decade since the last big release in this genre, let's call it historical city builders.
I know that company that made Caesar IV started development on Medieval Mayor but thanks to financial hardships that game has been put on ice and so has the company itself.
It's quite a pity no one makes these historical city builders with charm. What I mean by charm is that though serious, they are not super serious, there are all these quirky things about them like funny one liners every citizen says when you click on them which depend on their mood,personality and state of city, interactions between different npcs (like in Caesar III when I found out that invading troops would get eaten by lion tamer's lion who walked down that street when they attacked, I found that quite funny and useful) and so on. It doesn't have to be even in 3D, it can be in some stylised 2D and it would be probably for the better.
The same problem was evident with latest Stronghold Crusader II. Devs put emphasize on big battles, multiplayer and DLCs not getting it that the charm of Stronghold lied in different Lords and their personalities, your peasants and soldiers reacting in all manners of funny and quirky yet believable ways like for example depending on whether you have increased or decreased rations, easily defendable, hard to build and hard to take castles with all manners of defenses on your disposal from traps and boiling oil to different types of towers etc.
TL. DR. - Where my quirky 2D historical city builders in last 10+ years at?!?
I know that company that made Caesar IV started development on Medieval Mayor but thanks to financial hardships that game has been put on ice and so has the company itself.
It's quite a pity no one makes these historical city builders with charm. What I mean by charm is that though serious, they are not super serious, there are all these quirky things about them like funny one liners every citizen says when you click on them which depend on their mood,personality and state of city, interactions between different npcs (like in Caesar III when I found out that invading troops would get eaten by lion tamer's lion who walked down that street when they attacked, I found that quite funny and useful) and so on. It doesn't have to be even in 3D, it can be in some stylised 2D and it would be probably for the better.
The same problem was evident with latest Stronghold Crusader II. Devs put emphasize on big battles, multiplayer and DLCs not getting it that the charm of Stronghold lied in different Lords and their personalities, your peasants and soldiers reacting in all manners of funny and quirky yet believable ways like for example depending on whether you have increased or decreased rations, easily defendable, hard to build and hard to take castles with all manners of defenses on your disposal from traps and boiling oil to different types of towers etc.
TL. DR. - Where my quirky 2D historical city builders in last 10+ years at?!?