In a regular review, I'd usually start with what drives a game to be unique on its own or rather talk about what inspired the developers to begin with. It helps settle the topics and creates a nice opener for the readers because having a topic you can reference is excellent. While playing Builders of Greece, I have thought a lot about what I should touch upon or talk about before basically mentioning how it plays, but for the love of every other city builder game in the market, I just couldn't. And this is not remotely the fault of Builders of Greece either.

When creating a city builder game, a strategy game, or even a management game, there are very limited ways to choose the theme. Once you get the back story or the theme, the gameplay aspect of the title seems to be exactly the same as what you would see on the digital shelves. Unfortunately, it gets flooded with copy-paste games, and it ultimately leads to stale games being produced over and over again. In short, Builders of Greece feels like that Viking game I played a few months back but managed to be somehow even worse.

I mentioned management games, and I honestly feel like some games push forward unique ideas that convey more interest than blatant copy-paste city builders. News Tower, a game I recently had fun playing through, is one of the small examples as it does not brute force me to build a city to conquer the world but instead wants me to do publishing business while keeping my attention on my employees in an understandable and manageable way. However, the opposite happened with Builders of Greece when I started playing.

As the name suggests, Builders of Greece is about building your own polis- meaning city in ancient Greece- and managing it to prosperity. Does it remind you of anything? Of course, it does because it has the same goal as any other city-building simulator game in the market. The game does not provide any other story to catch up on besides a scenario mode and a perma death mode, therefore you are kind of on your own with no proper goal to go for.

The tutorial seems rather bare to the bones, showing how to handle your city after landing on a barren island. The main hall needs to be settled first, then cottages, and then a marketplace. Once settled, you can start investing in certain buildings that provide sources like rock, wood, or meat. I guess I have to credit Builders on Greece for being unique because it is trying to simulate the daily lives of the Greek people of the past. Not only do you have to keep an economy in the loop, but you also have to keep your citizens happy.

The idea of keeping them happy correlates to ancient Greece being filled with wine, beer, and bread, making it a rather doozy place to live due to heavy drinking. I can't remember a simulation game that I played that employed little nooks as providers of happiness, but I swear, these are relatively niche and unnecessary options to keep you at least somewhat interested in the title.

There are three different types of citizens in your little city, starting from Theotes, which are peasant families who work for their good in agriculture, hunting, or fishing. Later, you can assign these families to work in vineyards to create wine or bakery to make bread. They are quite essential for a working environment as their taxes help you get your city making money; in turn, you get them comfort and serenity, just like how it is supposed to be in real life.

Since we do not have extreme conditions where you have to take care of your city with transportation or transportation of current life goods such as water and electricity, Builders of Greece falls short of how you create roads. The walk paths, later stone roads, are the only roads connecting transporting goods and letting people reach their cottages. Since there is only a limited leveling up, transportation doesn't advance much besides building ports for sea travel.

One thing that made me notice right away is the lack of a day and night cycle in the game. At least other games enforce the day and night cycle to make the city-building sim enthusiastic. You'd watch a city that never sleeps or a work environment that chases profit. But nope, the game is set entirely during the noon for some reason, and speeding up the time doesn't change anything either. I guess this is to hide the flaw of not having proper lighting added to any buildings or having separate buildings that have lighting.

But one must imagine that Ancient Greece DID have nights, just like how we usually have one, and if the game wants to reach the point of realism, it should have included at least a bit of nighttime action and accurate tools that Greeks used in order to light their streets. It is rather primitive, but fireworks work well in any circumstance, I guess? It's odd not to see it here as a source of anything.

Just as you think the sameness is over, the game throws in the mechanic of being raided by outsiders. We know Ancient Greece was ruthless and conquered many lands during the first millennia. So did the Vikings, Japanese, and any other nation. What happens in Builders of Greece is that sometimes you get raided by enemies or pirates and have to defend your town. With the troops you got. All you have to do is build a barracks and get some soldiers on the line. Since the advanced soldiers require technology, you must do with some foot soldiers first.

Moving your soldiers from point A to point B was a hassle because the game doesn't exactly tell you which buttons to move. After realizing I could move the troops with an M2 click, I was too late to battle in an open forest. Instead, I fought in my semi-polis, and for some reason, the remnants of the war were still visible in the city hall. It was one of the most frustrating moments because even after playing for a good hour, they were still there with no other way of removing them. In short, the war mechanics of the game are as vague as the game's goal.

Another mechanic that didn't fit well with me was the prosperity of the inhabitants. Once you open up workshops and stores, you'll require people to run them. Obviously, as they get stressed, the efficiency drops, and you have to fulfill their needs. Although their food and water sources were on top, the civilians required resting. This is where the Lesche comes in. But for the love of Athena, I couldn't find how you make it work to begin with.

Lesche is an actual place where Ancient Greeks would meet and rest for the day. It would include places to lie down and tables to chat with other people, just like a cafe. When you click on buildings, you can see information about them and what is being crafted there. Clicking on the Lesche reveals that I needed wine for it to operate, so the civilians could rest, and potentially open up an upgrade to add another layer of wealthy and cultured people.

So what I did was build a pottery workshop and wine cellar so that these two places could distribute wines to the Lesche. Despite having 20 or so wines in stock, that building would never get stocked, and people just wouldn't visit. The strange part was that it would just work regularly in the tutorial. Despite following the guidelines in the tutorial, I just couldn't progress past the point where I would advance further to the next level.

I will tell you what Builders of Greece does well, at least to some degree, and that is the UI. It was readable, not clunky, and fused well with the game. What's better is that you can customize some elements regarding the UI, such as adding what items you have in your stock. Since every building, action, or creation takes some bit of your resources, keeping the vital ones on top without clicking on selected buildings is great.

The minimap is okay, not too detailed, but colors are assigned for each type of building, so you can click on the map to check on the facility or house you desire, though the construction menu on the bottom could use some magnifying to help players notice it. The only problem that I came across with the menus is when you click on your soldier's tab. It doesn't go away until you click off, which can be confusing as it overlaps with the building menu.

There aren't many problems you'd come across playing Builders of Greece; despite becoming an early access title recently, I haven't encountered any bugs or actions that would completely wipe off my saved file for no reason. But then, even if it is a perfect game, it falls into the category of being rather simple and bland, which can be replicated with another theme. So please do not expect much while going into it.
 

Builders of Greece does look promising initially but falls short due to its limited possibilities of becoming the next city builder game. The core mechanics do not feel refreshing nor ground-breaking enough to pique your interest, and most likely, you will not change your ideas regarding them even if the developer team starts adding new content in the future. Unless you are a completionist on finishing every management and city builder game and want to hunt for achievements, there is no reason to get Builders of Greece.

Atilla Turan (@burningarrow)
Editor, NoobFeed