The massive city builder RPG Airborne Empire is out on Steam and it tests my balancing skills in more ways than one.
My flying city in Airborne Empire is tilted at an angle of 1 degree. There’s nothing wrong with this: it’s barely noticeable visually, and my citizens don’t seem to mind. This is of course worrying to meAlthough. I can’t stop imagining one of my residents, after a hard day of mining, fighting pirates, or working in an iron foundry, coming home, sitting down to relax, putting a pencil on the coffee table in his living room, and watching. the pencil slowly rolls away.
I already have several active quests in this ambitious city builder from developer Wandering Band: I need to destroy a pirate island, deliver food to several friendly outposts, and help a scientist identify sea creatures. But I’ll be honest: my real search, my private The quest in Airborne Empire is to balance my city so that it reaches 100% level.
You can join me in thinking about the level of your city: Airborne Empire is out in Early Access on Steam today. It’s a sequel to 2022’s Airborne Kingdom, but there’s a much larger world to explore, and now there’s combat to consider: the world is full of enemy planes, ground-based bandit colonies, and other hostile flying structures. Somehow the game still creates a mostly cool and cozy atmosphere, except when something goes wrong and my floating city starts falling to the ground.
Placement of new buildings is important in most city builders, but in Airborne Empire it’s especially critical because you need to distribute the weight evenly. If your city tilts too much to one side, the citizens will become unhappy (obviously, this makes me unhappy too), and if the tilt becomes too pronounced, they will abandon you by walking to the outskirts of your city, jumping off it, and parachuting to the ground ( sad to watch, but also charming).
You should also consider the elevator. Carefully consider. You know how in a city development you’re building some new structure and suddenly the power goes out because now you’re using more electricity than you’re producing? Imagine your city is flying and suddenly it weighs more than the lift you are creating. You haven’t felt panic until you’ve ordered your townspeople to quickly build a new fan or hot air balloon to keep your town aloft while it’s in free fall.
So how do your citizens collect resources like wood, coal and food while you travel hundreds of feet above the places where these things spawn? Of course, with small airplanes. Build airplane hangars and you can send pilots to the ground for meetings.
Later, when sky pirates become a problem, you can equip your planes with combat weapons, as well as other combat options such as automatic defensive turrets, cannons that can be used to manually bombard ground targets, and other weapons such as flamethrowers and Tesla coils.
It’s only been a few hours, but Airborne Empire has put my balancing skills to the test—and it’s not just literally balancing my city so it doesn’t fly lopsided. There are also many elements to consider when it comes to progress. What will benefit me the most? More efficient engines so I can burn less coal and stay in the air? More powerful propellers so I can fly around the world faster? The best defense to keep pirates at bay?
Every time I have to choose a new research goal, I have to think long and hard, which is a great sign for a new city planner. You’ll find Airborne Empire on Steam with a 10% discount for the next two weeks.