# Online City-Building Games That Aren't Just Reskins of Farmville?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-city-building-games-that-arent-just-reskins-of-farmville/644535>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [December 19, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-city-building-games-that-arent-just-reskins-of-farmville/644535 "2012-12-19T16:18:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-city-building-games-that-arent-just-reskins-of-farmville/644535/1 "2012-12-19T16:18:58Z")

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I have often enjoyed city building games like Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom and Children of the Nile. Many online games appear superficially to resemble this style of game–but I have been burned several times when trying them out, discovering that they are actually shallow money-sinks rather than interesting or challenging management games.

I’m wondering whether any good ones actually exist–ftp would be even better of course…

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**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-city-building-games-that-arent-just-reskins-of-farmville/644535/2 "2012-12-19T16:41:51Z")

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[Immortal Cities: Nile Online](http://playnileonline.com/) is shallow imitation of Children of the Nile. It doesn’t have nearly the depth of the original game, but it is actually free to play. While it does become a nasty time sink, the good news is that there is an end point; it doesn’t just go on forever like an MMO.

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**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/online-city-building-games-that-arent-just-reskins-of-farmville/644535/3 "2012-12-23T22:27:18Z")

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I keep holding out hope that there will be a modernized version of the Sierra/Impression Games city builders released. However, it seems that will not be happening.