I've played D&D Stronghold heavily since it was originally released back in the early 90s and consider it one of the best city builders I've ever played. Built around the original Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, Stronghold focuses heavily on one of my favorite aspects of the original ruleset: Stronghold building. You create a party of 1-5 characters while choosing between the original seven classes of D&D (fighter, thief, cleric, mage, dwarf, elf, halfling). These characters serve as the lords of your city and attract followers based upon their class (so fighter characters recruit fighters, dwarves recruit dwarves, etc.) Each class can also build their own set of buildings (as well as a few generic staple structures like farms). The objective of the game depends on your alignment (lawful characters must run successful cities, chaotic characters must defeat all their enemies, etc.) and a sliding range of difficulties make it easy to build a game that will be a real challenging nail-biter or a casual and relaxing city builder. D&D monsters pose as rival cities (and on harder difficulties they get their own lord) that you must battle against. Training and gearing your followers is a crucial management aspect and ultimately you must choose between expanding your city and combating the enemy. I highly recommend this game for anyone who enjoys strategy and sim games.
