1
Squirrel's Pick Squirrel's PickThe best game on this page. If you only try one, try this.
City BuilderImmersive SimBase-Building
$19.99 ~33.7 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 82.2% of 10k
The Squirrel's verdictA fixed 2003 design, SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition uses region-based multi-city play rather than Skylines II's single-city evolving simulation. Traffic network depth and transit granularity are absent, but decades of mods and a still-active community add terrain tools and building variety Skylines II handles natively. Reviews consistently call it the strongest pure city-builder available, with 33.7 median hours logged.
Not for you if you are unwilling to apply third-party patches to make a 2003 engine run on modern hardware.
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Budget Pick Budget PickThe best game here for the least money.
SimCity™ 3000 Unlimited
PC
City BuilderClassicRetro
$4.99 ~8.4 hr median no co-op 84.8% of 752
The Squirrel's verdictPlayers who find Skylines II's system complexity or performance demands too steep have a straightforward alternative here. SimCity 3000 Unlimited delivers the zoning, budgets, service coverage, and disasters loop at $4.99 with an 8.4-hour median playtime. Reviewers flag resolution limits and camera controls as genuine friction points on modern hardware.
Not for you if modern resolutions, scalable UI, or granular transit and utility engineering are part of what you want from a city-builder.
3
City BuilderSurvivalColony Sim
Jank Tolerant Jank TolerantRough edges and bugs — rewarding if you don't mind them.
$29.99 ~7.5 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 79.5% of 3k
The Squirrel's verdictNew Cycle trades sprawling city-building for tight cycle-based colony management: food and power production chains, seasonal die-offs, and rebuilding after each cycle reset. It's smaller in scope than Skylines II, single-player only, and median playtime sits at 7.5 hours. Reviews describe fluctuating production balance and unfinished tutorial elements as core mechanics rather than late-game issues.
Not for you if you want a long, expansive sim rather than a compact repeating-cycle survival loop with a median playtime under eight hours.
4
Closest Match Closest MatchThe most similar game to the anchor, by what players say.
City BuilderColony SimImmersive Sim
$29.99 ~22.1 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 77.5% of 1k
The Squirrel's verdictHighrise City shares zoning, road-building, and city growth with Cities: Skylines II, but shifts the core loop from traffic optimization to supply chains: mining, manufacturing, and production feed resident needs directly. Reviewers compare it to Anno and SimCity 2013 rather than Skylines. Fits players who want resource-management depth over traffic-network puzzles.
Not for you if you want traffic engineering as the main puzzle rather than managing production chains, or you need a crash-free session at 22 hours median playtime.
5
City BuilderEconomyPolitical Sim
$24.99 ~18.2 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 73.6% of 1k
The Squirrel's verdictCitystate II keeps the zoning, RCI demand, and service-management loop of Cities: Skylines II but shifts the weight toward macroeconomics and politics: immigration rates, inflation, public debt, and policy sliders replace detailed traffic and pipe engineering as the main puzzle. It suits players who want city-building framed as governance rather than infrastructure design.
Not for you if you came to Skylines II for detailed traffic and utility engineering, or want a game without frequent crashes and lost progress from missing autosave.
6
RomeCity BuilderHistorical
$24.99 ~17.5 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 70.1% of 643
The Squirrel's verdictPax Augusta narrows city-building to a single Roman settlement, with historical detail running deeper than Skylines II's modern-metropolis scope. Built by one developer, it is smaller in scale but covers zoning, resource chains, and settlement growth within a period-specific framework. Players who want city-building satisfaction with less system breadth and a Roman setting are its clearest audience.
Not for you if you need stable saves — multiple reviewers report a bug that wipes all city structures, with no recovery possible.
How the Squirrel matches games
Not tag overlap. We compare what players actually say across hundreds of
thousands of reviews about how each game feels to play, then break
the comparison into the mechanics you can see in each card. The mark on
every bar is Cities: Skylines II's own score, so you can read where a match runs
hotter or cooler than the anchor.
Verdicts are written against a fixed editorial standard, machine-audited,
and human spot-checked. Which games make the cut is a human call. Prices
and review data refresh automatically. Full method & AI disclosure →