The building game Celestial Empire lets you build a city in medieval China. Not only does it look good, but it’s also a lot of fun.
As soon as I saw the first pictures of Celestial Empire, I knew I had to try the game: Building strategy à la Anno paired with chic Chinese architecture? I’m on board with that. That’s why I tried out the demo (on Steam) – and would like to tell you here how the building game by indie developer President Studio works.
If you prefer to travel to the stars instead of the other side of the world, then you should take a look at Ixion:
This is what we played: The demo of Celestial Empire, which is still available now, is an alpha version of the game that offers access to the first content. We can unlock about 20 buildings here, but it looks like there will be significantly more in the finished game.
The developers also point out that the demo is an early development version of Celestial Empire. The implementation of religion, seasons and technologies is not final yet.
It is not yet known when Celestial Empire will be released. But in 2022 you can look forward to many other construction games, our video gives you an overview of the most promising titles:
Choosen by the Emperor
At the beginning we are told that the northern provinces feel abandoned and are rebelling, so we are sent there by the emperor to bring peace. A little later we find ourselves on an empty but pretty map: a green landscape with small forests and pink cherry trees, crossed by a clear river.
In the finished game there will be more maps to choose from: You will be able to settle in a mountainous region, in bamboo forests or on the seashore. The maps are not randomly generated, but were created by the developers.
So far, so Anno
Here we are now to build our settlement from nothing. We first build the governor’s house, which functions as the centre of our settlement and to which all other buildings must be connected by road.
After that, Anno players in particular quickly find their way around: we build houses for our settlers, who pay taxes but demand goods and certain buildings in return. So we have to keep our citizens happy, expand our city, and make sure that our tax revenues can finance the production buildings.
First, our settlers need access to a marketplace, and they also want to be supplied with rice and firewood. So that our settlers are full and warm, we build a rice farm and a woodcutter. We connect both production buildings with a warehouse. After all, rice sacks and firewood bundles have to be stacked somewhere.
As our town grows, we unlock new needs and buildings. If our inhabitants are completely satisfied, they can then advance to the next population level.
The fact that many new building games are inspired by the ideas of the Anno series is not surprising in view of its success. Highrise City or Farthest Frontier also follow this path:
Farthest Frontier solves a problem that has plagued even Anno since time immemorial
Winter is coming
Suddenly and without any particular warning, our countryside is covered in cold and snow. This means that the rice harvest is cancelled for the time being and our settlers’ stoves burn more often: we therefore consume more firewood and produce no more rice. Celestial Empire requires us to plan well ahead. Fortunately for our settlers, however, the winter is not particularly long.
As pretty as the build-up game looks, the change of seasons was implemented in a strange way. Because from one second to the next there is snow everywhere, where before there were still flowering meadows. The previous display of the seasons on a kind of clock is also not exactly clear, which is why winter took us quite by surprise the first time around.
In addition, the wood consumption of our settlers is extremely high. The village I have raised within a short time needs at least five woodcutters to be reasonably supplied, despite its modest size. In addition, wood consumption seems to fluctuate greatly from time to time for no apparent reason.
Built close to water
On the other hand, I particularly liked the fact that we can’t just randomly place rice farms and fields. Because rice needs a lot of water, we can only place the fields near the river and then have to create small canals so that they don’t dry out.
The gods are displeased
Also included in Celestial Empire is a religion system. We can build temples and worship one of four gods there, which brings us powerful advantages over time. However, if we worship a god insufficiently or not at all, he punishes us with disadvantages for our settlement.
In the full version, according to the Polish developer President Studio, we even have to reckon with catastrophes that can be brought upon us by dissatisfied gods, but also by nature. We protect ourselves from these with special buildings.
An ambitious project
The developers promise a lot more content for the finished game: There is to be a multiplayer mode, elaborate production chains, trade routes, and random events with decision-making options. Our choices will then influence the development of our settlement and can have negative as well as positive consequences.
The developers have probably been inspired by some construction games and have picked out a lot of interesting features. However, it remains to be seen how well these will work together.
Editorial conclusion
The demo of Celestial Empire already looks good. Visually, the game is a dream for me: the first map looks beautiful, although it is still an early version. The buildings are also very nicely designed and make an appealing whole as a settlement.
In terms of gameplay, the demo also offers solid building strategy in the spirit of an Anno, but expands the game principle with a few interesting features such as the religion system. This already works pretty well, but it still lacks an overview of the seasons and the consumption of goods by our settlers.
If the developers manage to eliminate existing problems and integrate the planned features well into the core mechanics of the building game, Celestial Empire could be a lot of fun.
Of course, one must not forget that the project is being implemented by a small team that does not yet have too much experience to show. Expecting the same scope and quality of an Anno would therefore be nonsense. But nevertheless, a small building highlight could be waiting here.
