Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2017
Urban Empire
Developer Reborn Games
Urban Empire is a ‘City Ruler’, pioneering a new breed of strategy game that combines city builder features with political scheming and adds profound social and historical events into the mix, creating a whole new gameplay experience. From the Steam store page
174 reactions from 1 source (Steam reviews) · newest Jul 10, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
35
Rotten
61 positive · 113 negative
95% range 28–42%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 61 | 113 | 0 |
Steam's own rating
Mostly Negative
840 of 2,462 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 174 · most liked firstDon't buy this game. Avoid. It’s not worth the asking price, whatsoever. If you must get it, I recommend you pay as little as possible. Keep in mind, this is a political simulator masked as a city building game, with an incomplete feel. If this interests you, then keep reading. I wanted to like this game and played it over 100 hours, but I strongly dislike it. Here is why I strongly dislike it: 1) Entirely imbalanced game mechanics at all stages; early-, mid-, and late-game. At best,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game sounds interesting when you read the game description and even appears to be interesting when you start playing it. The combination of city builder throughout the ages and a political simulation with a municipal council sounds like a great idea. The result however is unfortunately disappointing. The city builder aspect of the game is quite simplistic and cannot compare with other city building games out there when it comes to depth and options. The political aspect on the other hand…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →READ BEFORE BUYING IT ! Urban Empire is not a city builder I mean it has city builder elements in it but its mostly a political simulator which lets you play between ages. Also its a very very hard game so do not expect a plreasent ride. Still I find it amusing dealing with all these political parties and solving state problems. Game is good actually but its unbalanced and acting weird so keep these in mind before buying it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The best federal simulator of all time. Lose your mind trying to get s**t done and be constantly blocked by councils, politicians and pretty much anyone while drowning in debt. Urban Empire is basically Tropico without power. The main reason why it is so unfuriatingly un-fun is based on the fact that the mechanics are almost as deep and complex and convoluted as real life municipal politics, which makes this an awesome simulation, in a way. Never before did I lose my mind so much while still…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not as bad as the reviews would suggest. It's fun for maybe a couple playthroughs. No sandbox, four campaigns (which are scripted), four scenarios, and that's it. No mods, not even any DLC. There is zero optimization, so even though the game looks like a 2012 remaster of a 2004 game, it runs at sub-20 FPS on my mid-high range PC. You'll get a solid 50 in the early game, but once you have four districts built it's all downhill from there. Gameplay-wise, the game looks really hard until you learn…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All the cities eventually feel the same. Limited amount of events. I find that it does a poor job at mimicking the city building aspects like Simcity or City Skylines, but it also fails to have interesting political gameplay unlike Tropico or other paradox games.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Developers abandoned it after a year or so, don't get it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A unique entry in the strategy genre, Urban Empire incorporates many great ideas into a solid political simulator. Your goal is to hold your esteemed position and grow your influence over severaly generations of your family dynasty. You will be deciding on the direction of the city by dealing with the varying and evolving political parties, forging alliances and making rivals as you progress. The one caveat that must be understood upfront is that in order to enjoy this game you must not go into…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game abandoned don't waste your money
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Im so sad that this game seems to been have left shortly after it came out. I was one of the few that really liked the idea of a democratic city builder game, instead of the the many dictatorship games out there. I do like this game, but it should deepen the gameplay with updates, and that dosent seem to happend. Its a ok game, but i think you should be somehow into politics to enjoy it. I can only recommend this game if its on sale, for that kind of money i had hope it would have been updated.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The most boring city builder i have ever played. You sit there with speed on X4 watching your city grow with occassional issues popping up that you vote on. The issues are all common sense and it is far too easy to advance. For instance, should we ban child labor OF COURSE should we work towards clean water? OF COURSE should we build a railway OF COURSE. I fail to see any real challenge thus far
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game awhile back and played it for some time, wasnt impressed then, but dissappointed now. This game was rather quickly dumped, last development was mid last year "free DLC update" thats it. The game is unpolished, buggy, mid-end- game is slow (I have an GTX 1080Ti and I would constantly get 8fps) and worst of all, not worth the money. I kinda feel like I got ripped off. I did kinda like the idea of politics and etc.. but its too raw, but I could see potential in that. But, if you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I got this game for around 7 bucks, and i'd have probably paid double that for this game. Now, this game is absolutely mired in bad reviews, but in a vacuum, it's a really decent game. You're tasked with leading a city through the 19th and 20th century, but you're actual involvement in the cities development is slim to none. you zone out new districts, and place special buildings that boost the brainpower or productivity of the nearby area, but who and what settles in those areas is up to what…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Was not as horrible as I expected according to the bad reviews. This game kept me so well entertained for a few days that I did not touch anything else on my computer. Good enough for a recommendation I guess, with a big "BUT...". I like the omnipresent problem of weighing up cost and benefit of every single action in this game. However, what I do not like at all is that the game content forces biased leftist ideas down your throat practically during the whole game. I would have wished for a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just don't buy... The game is a mess... The early alpha kind of mess..
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Only good if your idea of a fun city simulator involves spending hours and hours badgering your town council to get approval for anything to be done, all while managing a constant cycle of debt and negative earnings. ...So in other words, something a little too close to actual municipal politics.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Kinda just dull and in many ways broken, the game is unpredictable and tedious. Such a shame because it looked like it could be brilliant in the hands of a different studio
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really like the idea of Urban Empire, but it doesn't lean into the political stuff enough. If it wants to be a political game, then there needs to be a better lobbying and barter systems where you build up allegiances and favours over time, etc. Good idea, but poorly implemented and explained, so it ends up being slow and frustrating.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is way to difficult. Not in the Providing-a-fun-challenge-way kind of difficult. In the why-the-hell-losing-now kind of way
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is dead, do not buy. no updates and the game is still broken.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This Game is the best thing I have ever played, here is why you should ignore the comment section... This game isn't being given the credit it deserves. The council is NOT AT ALL annoying unless you want to propose a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ train station while 2 million dollars in debt, I'm glad the game doesn't give you a debt limit before automaticly ending the game, it put political penalties that would behave just like THE REAL WORLD. I love how amazing the political and economic systems are and how in…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Boring game. Looks great at first but it's just an illusion. I regret paying for this one!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love these type of games so I thought I'd give it a try. Well I'm not going to bother reviewing it because it's been almost a year since it's last update and after much searching online the game seems to have been abandoned so there's no point in a review of a dead game. RIP
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So sad. I really want to like it. Just so neglected.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very good but not for beginners!!! Urban Empire is an economic history strategy build m up. If you expect something like simcity you probably are frustrated cos you cant build buildings like you want. Paradox makes mavels strategy games. and so it is ... you learn a lot about the last 200 years in Europe from the view of a founding city its a challange and for more advanced economic strategy players ... From my perspective an awesome game in a line of very good srategy games by Paradox!!!…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This was such a let down in every possible way. The devs abandonded it after only 4 months after release. I truly belive this could have become a decent game if it had gotten a little bit more attention and love from the devs.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game for a leader, not for a God. All in all this is quite a good game if you understand what it is. So be warned: this game is not a typical citybuilding game and it's not that intuitive either. You're not God in this game, you're supposed to be the mayor of your city! This means that you can not just randomly arrange your city without consequences. You'll have to make logical political decisions about your city instead ... meaning you'll have to please your citizens and political collegues…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →abandoned game, do not buy
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have a gtx1060 6gb, 8 gb RAM and an I5-6600K. Drivers are uptodate, fans are clean CPU-Usage jumps and stays at 100%, Temperature 85c+. All settings turned on low: no changes. Tryed the "solutions" from the forum: no changes. 8 minutes of running this game is enough: Don't buy
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm shocked to see so many negative reviews of this game. It doesn't say it was trying to be Cities Skylines or SimCity. This game is exactly what it says it is, and it has an interesting a fresh take on a city strategy game. I started playing this game a few years ago, and it is a really good game overall.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This was the game that broke the metaphorical camels back with Kalypso games for me. I cut out EA games, and with Kalypso Media being the only other company i just refuse to get burnt by again with marginal (if any) initial upgrades, and alleged cut content packaged into paid DLC's. My game library is still overflowing faster than i can keep up without the trash from those publishers so dont feel like you have to buy this garbage.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great idea. I really wanted to like it. Terrible execution. The game is horribly unbalanced once you adopt the political views of a teenager. Making the "right" choice has nothing but benefits. Making the "wrong" choice has nothing but consequences. Need more money because you've never balanced a budget in your life? That's okay, you can just increase taxes indefinitely. The citizens are happy to fork over their salary, car, house, dog, children, arm and leg so that you can build that new…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I keep trying to like this game and get into it, but at no point are ANY of the mechanics explained. The guides on steam by the community likewise are a bunch of people fumbling about. The game is just a mess, which is a shame, because it could be fun. I go back to it every once in a while to try to figure out the rules but really, why bother? Play something that's good, instead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The TL;DR version is below. I did try to like the game. But is rather un-innovative. You create a district, which is a combination of 3 zones like in SimCity (industrial, economical and housing). You can divide it by %, but by default it's 60% housing, 10% econ and the rest industrial. You can, like in other games, add buildings to service the needs, eventually upgrade the districts and it's density etc. The main thing about the game - political choices. Basically to do most of the things,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game need more balancing and ways to manage the city. It's good but not a great city builder game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's an unfinished and abandoned game. It crashes half the time. Steam should remove this game. It is a ripoff. Probably won't waste my money on anything else from steam because of this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I got this game because I liked the concept and thought it would be cool - while that's true the implementation is god awful. I don't enjoy talking poorly about games, to the contrary I always comment only when I have something positive to say, but after the second age there is literally no way to balance anything or keep your little empire running. If the devs had actually played the game through once or twice then this may have been averted but I honestly can't see them having done this,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A lackluster game that tries to be both a citybuilder and a politcal sim. It fails to be good at either of those.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Urban "Empire"...Well, either the game has a terrible tutorial or I dunno, every party in the game just wants to ♥♥♥♥ me over, because building a train station or a police station is apparently the intention of the devil and opposed to the death, meaning the game can't even progress to anything. I get that it's supposed to be tougher to get things approved, but this goes against all common sense. The way to "sway" votes is also absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You can either plead, demand or threaten. This…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'd rather drink wasps than play this game again...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I will keep it simple: The game is dissapointing. Graphcics are neat, but it is in no way entertaining. Do not buy it, its not worth a dollar.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Urban Empire is a very interesting amalgamation of different game genres which doesn't quite find its place. I think most people bought this game hoping for a 'deeper city builder' and were disappointed they got a city-based Democracy series inspired product. Make no mistake, this game is a resource management simulator. The resources just happen to be forms of 'happiness' such as 'security' and 'health', cash, and political capital derived from interactions with various competing political…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was poorly finished, graphics aren't great either. Not a great city builder game. Unplayable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game to play just once! Pros: - Epic music! - Beautiful architecture and city growth! - Challenging! - Fun policies and infrastructure evolution! Cons: - Lots of bugs - Game play gets boring and repetitive - Bad replay values
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DOA. No support. No updates
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent political simulation on an urban level! Like Power & Revolution for cities. Despite simple techniques, there is a lot to learn, and achievements, like providing electricity before 1900, or finally shutting down the gas infrastructure a few years later, feel like a great accomplishment. Oh, and screw the Steam reviews, I bought the game 4 years after release because the reviews were so bad.... What a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was very memory intensive. Once it loaded up the tutorial was well designed. The idea was alot more promising then the game play. I was hoping to experiment with different play styles. Unfortunately this game skews to requiring high taxes and doesn't seem to model the effects of policies that well. Experimented with trying a small state approach - but basically the parties in power rarely think that way so essentially becomes tedious to try different approaches. Got boring then very…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A very boring game that results in the player specifically choosing the same result in the events over and over. One of the worse city simulators I've played in the last 5 years because there is so little in the differences of how you play. Don't even buy if its 90% off.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dead game. DO NOT BUY. No updates, waste of money, dead in development.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They never finished the game in my opinion and it has been abandoned for years now. It would have been nice if they gave us DLC's and polished the game. I guess Kalypso is on only good at the Tropico franchise and even that game is the same installment after installment.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unlike many others here, I love the mechanics of the game based on the Let's Play videos I watched on YouTube. Unfortunately, the game crashed on the loading screen for me.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I hated this game when it first came out and jumped on the "this game is sh*t" bandwagon. I watched quill18 play it and reinstalled it. It's actually not a bad game. I kinda like it now.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →not too much to do
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Im gonna be honest. this really isnt as bad of a game as people are making it out to be. I do advice buying it from G2A as you can get it for cheaper.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not really a city builder not really a deep political game either. If it was not for the Optimization I would never have written a review. While some of the crashing issues were resolve the game has an issue after the third issue as frame rates drop and the game becomes unresponsive at times. Long loading into the game, more so than games with anti cheat. Long save game loading... Since this game is prone to techinical issue I would avoid it, if those issues do somehow get fixed then…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is not worth it. Got to era 3. and then everything broke. The vote button in the council did not work anymore. Could not progress. and there is no way the Devs are going to fix it now as they abandoned it quickly after release in 2017. The game is promising. But the ammount of bugs in this game is appaling and it became not even playable. Dont even buy for 2 euros. Let alone for the full price. Just not worth it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of the worst games I've ever played. Really repetitive, not at all stimulating and above all, still the same mechanics after 10 years in the game. Additionally, you build add-ons to your city after it has been approved. However, personalities change and party positions don't always stay so rigid and it is focused on policy half the time. I demand a freakin refund from the creators!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's like they took Sim City, stripped it down to it's core, and tried to build a janky political game around it. I like the idea they were going for, but the game play is awful. Feels like it was half-assed and never finished. 2/5
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is unfortunately quite unbalanced. You have no chance to improve your buildings because you always have not enough money. The idea of the game is great. But state of now is you can click through the time but you'll never have enough money to improve your city. So it is just a matter of time until you lose.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Finally a city management game without having to worry about the building. This is not a city builder so if that is what you are looking for then do not buy this game, however if you want a game that is more on managing a city and dealing with politics on top of that then this is the game for you! Plenty of replayability due to different starting choices you make along with quite a few scenarios to test your skill.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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