My problem with city builders is that I don't always see the point of them. For many, the open-ended possibilities are part of the draw, but for me, the lack of a concrete goal means my interests dwindle out once I've gotten up to speed. Cities are not temporary things - they're meant to last forever, and so games that ask you to maintain them mimic that. Adding a gimmick rarely helps me, as keeping a hospital running, a theme park operational, or dinosaurs in the enclosures are also forever goals. At Gamescom, footy city builder 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Copa City might finally have city-built 🦋a bridge to my heart.
While other city builder and town management games have timed goals, I've never found them too motivational. My time with Copa City was all hands off, so I can't guarantee my mind won't wander when I'm the hand at the wheel of the blueprint myself, but there seemed to be a more concrete hook here. There was a clear purpose to the timer here - the match kicked off in 14 days. Once that was over, it was over.
You start by deciding which two teams you'll be hosting a friendly between. Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Flamengo have been announced so far, but three more are coming before launch. You then choose where to advertise the game, with realistic splits between fan bases based on data pulled from clubs. For example, if you advertise in London, you're going to only get Arsenal fans. Advertise in Munich, and it's only Bayern fans. But advertise in Africa, and it's a 60/40 split between Arsenal and Bayern, so you want to aim for a global spread (to maximise attendance) while keeping the numbers about equal. Go too far into one team, and fans become restless. Go further still and the team could pull out, leaving you in financial jeopardy.
Since these take place in real life cities (Warsaw, Berlin, and a yet to be announced location), you're not building from scratch. Instead, you need to rent out hotels and restaurants so that fans have places to sleep and eat. You'll also need to work with police to organise security, ensure fans are kept apart by sending them to specific fan zones, and - Copa City's crown jewel - you can even host fan marches and bus parades for the fans. While there's no violence in the game even if rival fans do congregate, fans are less satisfied and safe if these routes end up tangled.
That links into theဣ four categories your success is judged by in Copa City: Shelter, Food, Fun, and Safety. Your goal is to fill the stadium to capacity with an even sp🔯lit between both supporters, while keeping the resources that provide Shelter, Food, Fun, and Safety high enough in each region that they can accommodate every single fan there. That means using the revenue generated by fans to rent more venues to accommodate more fans to generate more revenue to rent more venues to accommodate more fans, and so on.
It's not all about renting though. Though the layout of the city has the basic tools you'll need to host, setting up fan zones with entertainment, food trucks, and merch stands required you to build on open land, adding a personal touch and also generating income. The areas around the stadium can be customised in a similar fashion, and while the basic architecture of the stadium is fixed (real venues, like the Olympiastadion, are featured), you can also change the tunnel, dugout, and other temporary fittings to build it exactly as you want it.
I'm not sure what this means for seasoned players of the genre after a longer fix. With three cities and six teams, there is the ability to mix and match, but how replayable locations are remains to be seen. If I get Warsaw in perfect shape for Arsenal to play Bayern, is the experience any different when Flamengo choose the Polish capital to host, say, Newcastle United?
While the shorter format of gameplay will appeal to some, and there are three cities to master, it does come up against a longevity issue. However, other modes allow for competitive speedruns online, as well as a challenge mode that gives you 30 real minutes to get as high a score as possible, plus the aim to beat your high score in the main game. All in all, putting such specific parameters on the building and having a firm endpoint feel more like an interesting hook than an albatross, but it could limit Copa City's appeal to die-hards.
Currently scheduled for a 2025 release, more news on the final city and the other three teams will be appearing over the coming months. By adding football into the city builder/town management mix, it's a fresh gimmick in a genre built on unique gimmicks, and with a focus on fan interaction and lots of specific football touchstones, it doesn't feel like an interloper to the beautiful game. It's one up from the first leg, now it just needs to hold it in the away tie.
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