In city-building games, trade is a magical way to solve problems. Whether it’s obtaining valuable resources needed to support unit production in Civilization 7 or selling surplus supplies in SimCity in exchange for essentials, trade plays an important role. Indie studio Spaceflower’s new work “Trade Road” (Let
Them Trade fully incorporates this element, allowing you to work on building an expanding network of cities and enabling resource interoperability. The game, which effortlessly blends settlement management with production line optimization, is now available.
While healthy competition is satisfying, many good city-building games lean more casually, and Trade Road shines in just that. The king has given you a mission: build a thriving empire that continues to expand across the vast lands, while also beware of troublesome bandits. The game features a hexagonal grid map that players familiar with the Civilization series will immediately feel familiar with, and the settlements are built in a similar way.
However, in this game, you don’t need to be under the pressure of intense competition and an arms race – it’s a relaxed sandbox world that encourages you to experiment with different building layouts depending on the resources available on the map. Each settlement has its own budget and resources, and can meet the needs of its residents autonomously, allowing you to focus on the big picture.
As more bases are established, you’ll connect them by roads to build trade routes. Each city can independently buy and sell resources and self-produced goods, and a portion of these transactions will flow into your treasury in the form of taxes. Keep the residents happy and they will be willing to pay higher taxes, giving you more money to upgrade the king’s castle.
The adventure of Trade Road is not all smooth sailing: as wealth grows, bandits will covet your gains, so you need to deploy knights to protect the populace and your investment. But overall, even as your empire grows, the game isn’t a high-tension experience, but rather a soothing and satisfying sandbox world with a clean and striking art style that makes me vagueassociationto classics such as “Dorfromantik” or “The Worker’s Story”.
The main storyline of the game sets you more specific goals and challenges, and you can also use the built-in editing tools to create custom scenes and pass themSteamWorkshop to share with others. If you just want to plan your towns and trade routes as you like, the free sandbox mode has you covered.
Trade Road is now available on Steam with a 20% discount in the first week of release, until Thursday, July 31, after which it will return to its original price.
