I played during the English Beta-testing and this game scratched the itch I was looking for in an Asian-inspired city builder.

You manage a population as it grows over time. They have different needs and you occasionally get raided by enemy soldiers. There's a lot of subtle nuances within the mechanics that make for interesting gameplay.

The game has a story mode which also acts like a tutorial. The game also has free-play which allows you to create cities without a mission in mind. I definitely think this game has a lot of replayability.

If you like city-builders, I definitely do suggest giving this one a try!

Now I have put nine hours in the game (early access) and around 11 in the demo... so I finally feel confident enough to post a review of it. The bottom line: it is an excellent historical city builder.

Let me start with the reasons why I said that. The graphic is immersive, almost taking you directly into a Medieval Chinese scroll. While the game is not 3D I am not upset by this, actually the hand-drawn approach to graphic gives much more character to it. It is fully zoomable and the characters who populate your cities are very detailed even at the closest zoom, and cute. The soundtrack is appropriate, neither annoying or overblown.

The mechanics are sound and well designed. The production chains can be easily understood, and they are logical and realistic. Maybe the only complaint here is the lack of dedicated berry fields for the silkworms, but you can assume these are grown in the Textile Mill. I like the constant flux of population up and down according to decisions and ages (but any indication of the births would be welcome).

Historically speaking, beside the graphic the game provides you other means to immerse yourself into the period. First there are constant communications from the court that help setting the stage and follow the evolution of the Song Dynasty history. You start with the all powerful push to reunify China, and then you have the increasingly negative interaction with the Liaos. It is not just a matter of messages (including the comments of your denizens). You feel the weight of the war when you need to provide for your own fortification and garrisons, or to send material to pay for the awful tribute follow the treaty.

Also in the game there are decisions, from the every day case submitted to the governor (that remind me of Bao Zheng TV series and movies) and even periodic Imperial visits! All in all it is a game that successfully strives to bring you back to the period.

Of course being an early access there are some little issues around the corner. The English text in the judicial case in not always readable due to wrong size of text boxes, and some elements have still to be translated. There is also room for improvement and additions, for example I would love to have also Song cavalry to be recruited, and I am not a fan of the Archer towers being not part of a wall (and being wooden rather than stone). I would also love to be able to build my own prefectural seat, adding more buildings with different function. Yet considering the current state, I am more than satisfied. My hat off to the team at Indieark who had pulled a masterpiece!

This game is a literal copy of the 2002 game 'Emperor - Rise of Middle Kingdom' which holds up better than this even at over 20 years old.
The best thing I can say about this game is that the animation is cute but if you want a fleshed out fully translated city builder set in ancient China, I highly recommend you check out Emperor Rise of Middle Kingdom. Not available on Steam.

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Thriving City Song" is a historical city-building game set in Chinese history during the year 960 A.D. It showcases unique and beautiful artwork. Your objective is to govern and develop the city, ensuring its prosperity while also managing and overcoming various disasters.


In story mode, you follow narratives representing the historical events of that time. They describe things as you progress through missions in the story mode and gain insight into what is happening by reading the conversations of the townsfolk.

Its visuals are unique and beautiful, and everything is clear and easy to distinguish, from the buildings to the townsfolk.

Amazing music that fits perfectly with the theme, offering a bunch of variations.
The sound effects are great, and there is a great deal of effort put into them

• Excellent tutorial and it is included within the story mode.
  
  
• Resource management
  
  
• Happines management
  
  
• Tourism management
  
  
• Health management
  
  
• Gain finances from tourism and taxes
  
  
• Wrath meter (the higher it is, means more crimes or even revolt)
  
  
• Control armies to defend the city.
  
  
• Imperial exam (send students from your city to take the exam)
  
  
• Research tech tree
  
  
• Gossip management
  
  
• Blessing buff from tempels
  
  
• Adventure mode where you pick your own difficulty and map to build your own city
  
  
• Bonus from specific buildings that are next to each other (you discover them by experimenting)
  
  
• Its own excellent wiki/help if there's something you don't understand in the game

Some of the text may be outside the boxes or bubbles, making it slightly challenging to read all of it, but it doesn't contain anything crucial for the player.

This is an excellent city builder game that truly immerses you in Chinese history with its amazing art and great music. Everything fits together seamlessly, and the pace of building the city is great. There are only a few things I wish could be changed in the game: the ability to use more than 12 letters for naming your city and the option to rotate buildings four times instead of two. Overall, this is an amazing game, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys city building games, history, or both.

Rating: 9/10

To be honest, the first 30 hour was fun but after that, there isn't much to do.
The game is great but I recommend buying it on sale. I don't think this game worth the current price....

Enjoyable, time consuming city management game set in Ancient China during the Song Dynasty.

Very cute, pleasing art style that's easy on the eyes and a fantastic combination of Song era art with a modern cutesy anime/manga style.

Almost completely translated as far as writing goes. There are some newer features (the Jingnan shipping update) that still needs to be full translated as of this post. As well as some sub-menu text.

I have not yet experienced the bugs others have posted about, the game works splendidly for me. So it seems it's random on who they might affect? I don't know.

Narration is still in Chinese and I hope it stays that way because it's much more immersive. Of course I'm an avid C-Drama enjoyer so subs > dubs in this regard, hehe. Alternative narration languages might be preferable to some players.

The story mode is challenging and doubles as a tutorial. Some maps are easier than others. The harder maps will probably have you loading saves to re-attempt challenges (pretty much scum saving, lol). As of this review, I've beaten all current challenge maps save for the 7th one. It has me stumped. Overall it's not hard, just frustrating because I keep failing. But I have an addiction and keep going back to try and beat it, it's not the hardest though. Makes you suffer like a county magistrate under numerous layers of officialdom, but with cute art!

Free mode is fun, I tried it for a little bit before switching to story mode and will go back to it soon. Probably even now as I sit and stew on how to beat map 7. May update this review when I put more hours into free mode.

Animations are very cute and fun to watch. There are even random actions/interactions on the map. Lovers off flirting in the woods, people being unalived in the city, officers arresting people by locking them in a cangue type device, auspicious events, etc. There's pretty much always something to see aside from the people working and going from place to place. Each building also has it's own animations and the saloon has lean horses (hehehe).

It's not a super micro-managey management game like some others, but to get through tough times or some challenges, it CAN be. But in free mode, it seems much more laid back once you get over the starting issues (lack of people/food/building supplies, things like that). If you are new to city management, it might be a little bit more challenging to get the hang of. But if you are experienced with them, it follows the usual formula.

Some other neat features include being able to upload your city to the servers so other people can tour it, as well as downloading other peoples' cities to tour them. You can also make and share land maps to build on too! There are also building combinations that can increase various economic aspects, mostly consumerism. When you are in free mode (Adventure), you can choose a city seal which can affect your city in different ways, both positive and negative. This can up the challenge level on even the hardest base map if you want.

It's not really a copycat of Emperor: RotMK, which is a much older, more in depth management game with more layers of story (you can even choose your own birth sign and name your leader in that one) and terrible, outdated controls (not it's fault, but it should be updated). Thriving City Song's controls are better, it's leaner but still has story depth and is accessible on Steam. If it's to be considered a copy cat, so are a majority of city builder management games that released after as management games all follow the same formula. I'd say it's more like Emperor: RotMK's fun little brother.

Anyway, I can see me sinking a LOT of time into this game over the long term. I would highly recommend, especially if you like Ancient Chinese Dynasty themed games. I would love to see Tang, Ming, Qing, and so many other versions of this.

TL;DR I love it! There is a demo, so if you are curious, give it a go!

Edit: Free/Adventure Mode is a ton of fun!

The UI is unintuitive, it was difficult to find if I can reassign workers to other jobs somehow, however, I couldn't keep on playing due to the fact that save did not work at all.

After beating the campaign, i think its a pretty good city builder (for EA version anyways). The economic building adjacency bonuses is a neat concept and solving the food issue in context with the limited labour pool keeps you thinking throughout. If possible I would like to see more adjacency bonuses applied to industrial and religious buildings in much the same way as the economic buildings. additionally the combat system could use more work. Looking forwards to more content updates or maybe even additional historical powers included as playable or trade factions like the Mongols/Jurchens/Xia/Japanese/Koreans. Overall i give it 8/10

I really enjoy this game. It is really promising. Not enough "west" people are playing it. It's a real chinese gem letting you discover the medieval chinese way of life. It's all about logistic and managing like Nebuchadnezzar or pharaoh. Really a great game with a nice painting touch. The city feels really alive with all the npc scene on the streets and in the buildings. Scenes who are not related to useable npcs.

It is still in early access and there will be more added to the game. The story is a little bit short and i hope seeing more episode on this side. You should give it a try.

Note : I made a guide who explain how to play the game. I believe it's best to read it since the tutorial don't explain much.

I like the style of this game. The art and music are nice.

But I need more information to manage the city. I cannot know how many resources required and how many producing. Really hard to know which to build. (If you played Stronghold: Warlord, you will see the details of resource management.)