City Wars Fights a War on Two Fronts With City-Building and Military Combat Gameplay

City Wars is a military-themed city-building game from Funstar Studios. The game launched in late February and since that time has seen steady growth in its monthly active user figures. According to our traffic tracking service AppData, City Wars currently has 810,940 monthly active users and 53,690 daily active users. City Wars has two main components to its gameplay: city-building and attacking other players. The game is introduced via a brief tutorial which walks players through how to build structures for their city and attack other players, then the player is left to decide how to proceed -- whether this is following the regular goals which appear at the side of the screen or taking their own route to conquering the regions of the world through defeating other players. Buildings fall into three types: production, commercial and decorative. Production buildings allow players to produce units and protect themselves against enemy attack, commercial buildings provide income and decorative buildings are purely there for aesthetic value. Most buildings can be purchased using the in-game soft currency, but some buildings in all three categories can only be purchased through hard currency. Other players can be attacked by calling up a strategic world map from which various destinations can be attacked -- the precise number of which available to a player being determined by their level. Players work their way across a hex-based regional map populated by other City Wars players in an attempt to conquer as many territories as possible. Scattered across the map are a number of strong opponents who require certain numbers of troops to be trained in order to attack them. Combat is resolved automatically, with results determined by each player's level, number of allies (friends playing the game) and the best troops and equipment they have. This part of the game is similar to the player vs player gameplay in text-based RPGs such as Mafia Wars. The social element of the game comes from the familiar ability to visit other players' bases. Experience and other rewards are offered for "repairing" friends' buildings, with greater numbers of friends helped leading to larger temporary attack bonuses. Gifts can also be exchanged between players. The game is, at the time of writing, monetized via its own proprietary hard currency of Gold. This is to be replaced with Facebook Credits on June 30, however, and all players have been informed that they must spend their Gold before then as it will not be converted to Credits. Premium items include decorative buildings, high-efficiency production and commercial buildings, strong "Hero" units, energy-restoring items and temporary "boost" items which provide a bonus to attack power for a set number of battles. Soft currency can also be purchased directly. Since the game starts by providing the player with a relatively low income, many players are likely to take this option early in their careers. We didn't hear back from Funstar Studios prior to the time of writing, but judging by the game's Facebook page, Funstar intends to continue support for the game through daily bonus items, regular overhauls of existing content and the addition of new maps and challenges for high-level players. The company makes an active effort to engage the community with daily wall posts and special offers, and the growing MAU and DAU figures suggest they are having some success with this strategy. You can follow City Wars' progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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City Wars Fights a War on Two Fronts With City-Building and Military Combat Gameplay

Pete Davison

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