The City of Warfare / City of Might saga has been ongoing since E3 2011, so imagine our surprise when a final version of Playdom's City of Warfare launched on the iTunes App Store as a free download on both iPhone and iPad. While there's no confirmation as to whether or not City of Warfare is actually a retooled version of City of Might, the game that looked to be heavily inspired by Zynga's Empires & Allies, we're still left to assume as much.
What we do know for a fact is that City of Warfare focuses on building a dominant military base, using the appropriate military-themed buildings (barracks, mess halls, brigs and the like), while also providing enough common base housing to raise your "city's" population. When you first start the game, you'll be given immunity for the first 48 hours; after that, it's all out war, so you'll need to build up as many defenses and upgrades as possible within the time frame.
If you're familiar with City of Wonder on Facebook, you'll immediately recognize the gameplay setup of City of Warfare. You'll construct buildings, with some offering population units, while others create profits for you to build more items in a never-ending cycle. The sound effects have been ripped straight out of the former game, as has much of the user interface and artwork. With a focus on military might, the games do differ in this regard, as City of Warfare allows you to focus on upgrading your troops and munitions, making them both stronger in terms of offense and defense.
The Battle Map unlocks at Level 3, and gives you access to invading other players' cities. You'll choose how many of your troops you'd like to bring into battle, with each troop having its own attack and defense stats. Instead of actually allowing you to witness battles, you'll simply hit the "attack" button and will then be presented with a results screen, displaying the individual match ups of troops that did battle, while also being allowed to choose to battle them again before eventually invading their city. If you can successfully invade a city, you'll be able to collect taxes from that city as a way to show off your military prowess to other players and earn more coins for yourself in the process.
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For everything good that can be said about City of Warfare, the game is incredibly slow moving due to the fact that you can only construct one building at a time. What could have been an incredibly fun experience turns into an equally limited one, as you'll be forced to complete missions ridiculously slowly, since you can only work on one building and therefore one quest at a time, rather than setting a whole slew of items to construct at once while you go off and do other things (rather than being constantly tied to your iPhone or iPad). Of course, you can purchase Gold with real cash to solve this problem and instantly complete the construction of all buildings, but that shouldn't have to be the only way to quickly get ahead.
For all of the good that can be said about City of Warfare, it's definitely not a game packed with originality. While somewhat original in its "military might" theme, Playdom's repeated use of the same "Legends" system, the same sound effects, interface, menus and more make this feel like a bland experience right out of the gate. Hopefully in time we'll actually see something fresh out of this developer, that used to be at the top of its game.
Click here to download City of Warfare on iOS --->
Have you tried City of Warfare on Facebook? What do you think of the game's focus on military power, rather than standard city-building? Sound off in the comments.