Builders of Egypt is an economic city-building game that transports players to the fascinating world of Ancient Egypt. Developed by Strategy Labs and published by PlayWay S.A., this game allows you to build legendary cities along the Nile. The story begins in the early dynastic period, offering a rich historical backdrop for your city-building endeavors.
The game uses Unreal® Engine, and it allows you to explore the land of the pharaohs through the ages, from the Nile Delta to Nubia. You will need to build cities, manage trade, economy, and resources, make strategic decisions, control armies and engage in battles, foster religious development, and ensure the well-being of your citizens.
You can play through a complete campaign or unleash your creativity in Sandbox mode. The game spans the entire history of pharaonic Egypt, beginning your journey in Memphis during the Early Dynastic Period under King Narmer's rule and concluding in Dendera during the Ptolemaic period under Cleopatra VII Philopator. With Builders of Egypt, you’ll explore Egyptian history and uncover lesser-known facts along the way.
Gameplay Mechanics and Features
The most important aspect of Builders of Egypt is the skillful management of urban planning. This involves shaping the grid of streets and placing buildings in strategic mutual relation. A well-designed city will greatly improve economic efficiency, which may convert into city income. The governor will face very difficult choices to be made in a constantly changing political environment.
Costly expeditions, Pharaoh and other cities requests, military threat and a mixture of different cultures will be a commonplace. A series of wrong choices can cost the loss of trading partners and low interest in the city by settlers. Moreover, the total lack of obedience to the rulers may end up with a civil war.
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Key Elements of Gameplay
- Urban Planning: Skillfully manage urban planning by shaping the grid of streets, placing buildings and considering their mutual relationships.
- Economic Management: Well-designed city will greatly improve economic efficiency which may convert into city income.
- Political Environment: The governor will face very difficult choices to be made in a constantly changing political environment.
- Trade: Trade is the most important element in the royal treasury; without it, economic stability is difficult to achieve.
- Religion: Satisfying the need for access to places of worship, providing supplies for temples, and organizing festivals are crucial.
Trade is the most important element in royal treasury. Without it, it is very difficult for economic stability built solely on taxes. Therefore, to set up a trade route, ensure you are producing items that other settlements are willing to buy. Check the world map and mouse over each neighboring settlement to confirm what products they are willing to buy, as well as what they are selling. You can then set those products to be exported using the Economy Tab.
Deity will be able to interfere with daily life but it will be done implicitly. The main aspect of religion will be satisfying the need for access to the places of worship, providing supplies for temples or organizing festivals. Neglecting this sphere may result in a dangerous social unrest on a par with e.g.
The residents of your settlement need regular access to places of worship. Key aspects include organizing the Opet festival and other celebrations, along with consistently supplying goods to the temples. The gods have a tangible impact on the city’s growth, so neglecting religious practices could lead to serious social unrest.
Monuments and Construction
What would the real Ancient Egypt be without its monumental sacred architecture? There are mastabas, obelisks, Karnak among others, the Ramesseum and of course the pyramids that are waiting to be built. You will be able to observe the slow process of construction. A team of carpenters, masons, architects and ordinary workers will rise building step by step.
Build iconic structures like the Great Pyramid, or the Abu Simbel Temple. Prepare for formidable challenges, as constructing these monuments will place a significant strain on the royal treasury, which could negatively impact public morale. Each of these historic structures will rise step-by-step, brought to life by teams of skilled professionals.
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Historical Context and Setting
Egypt's history is full of clashes of emerging and failing empires. In Builders of Egypt, you can explore Egyptian history and uncover lesser-known facts along the way. The story starts in a little-known protodynastic period.
Builders of Egypt is a vibrant world you can explore, set to an original soundtrack. Observe growing settlements, lush meadows and fields along the Nile, the warm sands of the desert, and the rich flora and fauna of the Egyptian landscape. Uncover abundant deposits of diverse resources and precious stones.
Challenges and Balancing Act
With nearly 40 diverse missions, you'll understand the importance of a strong economic and financial foundation. Manage your revenue to prevent crises. Remember, trade is essential for sustainable growth. Produce goods, extract resources, and open new trade routes. Focus on developing roads, buildings, and their surroundings to enhance your city's infrastructure.
Don’t forget to maintain a strong army, build city walls, and protect your citizens from enemy attacks. Organize military expeditions, devise strategies, and plan assaults.
Release Information and Availability
Builders of Egypt was released on January 8, 2024, for the PC via Steam. The full version of Builders of Egypt is available on GOG.com. The game will also be released for the PC via GOG, but a final release date for that platform is yet to be announced. The prologue for Builders of Egypt was released for PC via Steam in March 2020. Builders of Egypt was originally released in 2018 under the title Hard Ancient Life.
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However, the developers have announced that the final release date is January 2025. The specific day will be announced in the near future once it’s fully confirmed. They are currently working on optimization tweaks, fixing some bugs, and adding the finishing touches.
Builders of Egypt uses Unreal® Engine in the United States of America and elsewhere.
Critical Reception
Builders of Egypt delivers well-designed and enjoyable gameplay, but it struggles to establish its own identity. Nearly every aspect of its logistics-focused and adjacency-centered city-building system feels borrowed from other titles, most notably Pharaoh: A New Era. Despite its lack of innovation, Builders of Egypt is undeniably well-crafted, offering an engaging experience for city-builder fans who thrive on grid-based problem-solving.
Builders of Egypt impresses with its detailed 3D assets and sprawling maps of the Nile Valley, delivering plenty of eye candy. However, the game’s visual ambition comes at a cost-it’s a performance hog, causing mid-to-low-end PCs to struggle from the start and even testing high-end systems as cities grow. Beyond that, its visuals fail to convey critical gameplay information, like resource availability, and its dull UI does little to enhance the experience.
Pricing
The game’s price hasn’t been announced yet, but based on its quality and the price of comparable city-builders, a reasonable range would be $15-$20. The only way it could earn a higher score is if it’s much cheaper than most alternatives or opens itself up to more content in the future.
The music in Builders of Egypt is undeniably impressive, even if it leans heavily on modern interpretations of Ancient Egyptian melodies. Sweeping scores and grand fanfare manage to capture the grandeur of the setting.
Builders of Egypt: A Deep Dive into City-Building Mechanics
Diving straight into the core of Builders of Egypt’s gameplay, it’s a city-builder that revolves around three key pillars: production-driven city management, precise building placement, and goal-oriented missions. Unlike sandbox-style city-builders where you can freely construct your dream metropolis within a budget, this game’s campaign mode takes a more structured approach.
To illustrate the gameplay, here’s an example of an early-game production chain you’ll find yourself setting up in nearly every scenario, along with the interconnected systems you’ll need to manage to keep it running smoothly.
Bricks and pottery are foundational products in Builders of Egypt. They’re essential for construction and can also be exported for revenue (referred to as “bread” in-game). Once you’ve gathered clay, a Stockpile is needed to store it, ensuring the production line doesn’t clog up and allowing for smoother import/export operations. From there, Brickworks and Potters convert the clay into bricks and pots, respectively. However, Brickworks also require Straw to operate, meaning you’ll need Wheat Fields to supply both Straw and Wheat.
Keeping this system operational requires a workforce that lives close enough to commute efficiently. Homes must meet specific needs to increase their capacity, boost tax contributions, and elevate citizen class levels for specialized jobs. Each need-whether it’s water, food, or entertainment-has its own set of parameters and radius requirements. And this intricate dance of interconnected systems? While such complexity is standard for city-builders, what stands out here is how tightly interconnected and synergistic every element is. It forms a self-contained system where mistakes are costly, but success is immensely satisfying, as your efforts are rewarded with a thriving city.
Builders of Egypt doesn’t exactly create something phenomenal when it comes to Ancient Egyptian themes-plenty of games have tread this ground with varying success and originality. Yet, what sets this title apart is its refreshingly reserved and historical approach to the setting. This dedication shines in the details. For instance, Bread replaces gold as currency, reflecting Ancient Egypt's reliance on bartering. The Nile's annual flooding isn’t just a background event but a pivotal mechanic you must plan around to keep production flowing.
One of the better aspects of Builders of Egypt is how it strikes a solid balance between challenge and leniency. The game’s tightly woven production systems demand careful planning and efficiency, but they aren’t punishing to the point of frustration. A collapse in your production line-while undoubtedly a headache-doesn’t necessitate an immediate restart. This flexibility is further enhanced by the game’s three campaign difficulty levels, which adjust mission requirements significantly. Whether you’re a novice looking to get your footing or a veteran craving a tough challenge, there’s a difficulty mode to suit your style.
Shortcomings and Areas for Improvement
Now let’s delve into some of Builders of Egypt’s more glaring shortcomings, starting with its map design. While undeniably beautiful and impressive in scale, the maps falter when it comes to functionality as a city-builder. Certain production buildings, like mines and quarries, require specific resources within their range to function. Unfortunately, identifying these resources is unnecessarily difficult. Unless it’s something as distinct as turquoise, the terrain mostly just looks like a collection of rocks, leaving players squinting and second-guessing.
Unless it’s something as distinct as turquoise, the terrain mostly just looks like a collection of rocks, leaving players squinting and second-guessing. To make matters worse, the games gridlines only appear when you’re actively placing a building, which complicates long-term planning. On top of that, building ranges are inconsistently displayed during placement. Sometimes you can see if a building is within the range of another it relies on; other times, you can’t, leaving you to figure it out after committing to the placement. On lower difficulties, where you can refund your mistakes in full, this is an annoyance.
Rounding out these issues is the UI, which feels like a relic from an earlier era of gaming. It’s functional but drab-a series of semi-translucent black boxes with basic borders that lack scalability. If your eyesight isn’t great or you’re playing on a smaller screen, good luck navigating it. Worse still, the UI often blends into the warm tones of the game’s visuals, making it hard to distinguish in busy scenes.
And now we arrive at one of the more baffling aspects of Builders of Egypt: the side missions that feel completely unnecessary. Occasionally, during your playthrough, a citizen will approach you with a request that offers resources as a reward upon completion. These missions often require you to find something for the requester. At first glance, you might assume they’re asking for a certain quantity of a resource to be produced or delivered, but no-what they actually want is for you to locate objects on the map, mouse over them, and click. If it’s a specific resource, like a clay deposit, it’s mildly annoying but manageable. However, when the task involves finding a missing spouse, it becomes downright frustrating.
Overall, there’s much to say about Builder’s of Egypt, which is a feat in itself in a genre full of forgettable entries. It’s a shame that the game lacks a distinct identity even in its title and execution, but the game itself is fun to play, poses a definite challenge without being frustrating, and delivers on the Ancient Egyptian flavor to compensate.
There’s a few cracks on the facade, as it were, represented by the game’s underwhelming UI and ineffective visual design, but there’s a solid foundation of a game under all that-even if the bricks weren’t theirs to begin with.
The official price of the game hasn’t been announced yet, but based on similar recent titles of comparable quality, a price point of $15-$20 seems most fitting. If priced lower, it could be a great deal, but anything higher risks diminishing its appeal. As it stands, the game comfortably fits within the narrow $5 sweet spot where many games of this type typically land.
As much fun as I had playing Builders of Egypt, a nagging feeling kept creeping in throughout my time with it. The gameplay, while enjoyable, felt... familiar. Of course, city-builders tend to follow well-trodden paths, and innovation is often rare unless it’s something unconventional, like Dice Legacy or Against the Storm. But this familiarity wasn’t just genre convention-it was something more specific.
Now, to be fair, I’m not accusing anyone of copy-pasting ideas. In a genre as crowded as this, parallels are bound to happen. That said, the saturation of city-builders also means that standing out is crucial, and Builders of Egypt struggles to carve a distinct identity.
Here’s a summary of the key aspects discussed:
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Release Date | January 2025 |
| Genre | Economic City-Building |
| Setting | Ancient Egypt |
| Key Features | Urban planning, economic management, trade, religion, monument construction |
| Challenges | Political environment, military threats, resource management |
| Price Range | $15-$20 (estimated) |
BUILDERS OF EGYPT But I Don't Waste Your Time (Features & Things To Know Before Buying)
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