Mittelborg: City of Mages – Review
Follow Genre: Singleplayer Turn-based, City-builder
Developer: Armatur Games
Publisher: Asterion Games
Platform: PC, Mac
Tested on: PC

Mittelborg: City of Mages – Review

Site Score
7.5
Good: Nice soundtrack, Strategic decisions, Side missions
Bad: Visually not impressive, Repetitive
User Score
7.4
(5 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.4/10 (5 votes cast)

Although city-building games aren’t hugely present on the market, most of the games deliver a very interesting experience to spend your time. Armatur Games delivers with Mittelborg: City of Mages an interesting city-builder game that will take the player to the center of the world in control of the city Mittelborg. With many dangers lurking close by, the city needs a chancellor to protect and rebuild the city to its former glory.

Story

The game starts when the city of Mittelborg is in search of a new chancellor. After the unknown disappearance of the last one, the player is requested to become the new guide of the city. The city of Mittelborg isn’t an ordinary city. This city is the protector of the balance between all worlds. With bad storms incoming, you will need to build up your city again and protect it with your life and especially your mages to overcome the evil. When the story unfolds the player will encounter new obstacles that try to destroy the World Tree. The World Tree is the important connection between the worlds in the universe and gives it the energy to maintain live in every world. As this is be the main target of your enemy, you will have to make sure the World Tree stays alive otherwise your city and the world will be destroyed.

Graphics

The overall presentation is fine but the developers added some nice features. Most of the time you are looking at your city that needs to be rebuilt. However the city is already built to its limits. When improving your city you won’t see any visual difference except the stats of the upgraded part. For a game that is designed as a city builder, this is a bit of a letdown. The city is decently detailed but you can’t see any movements inside besides the windmill and the waterfall. The moving elements are the clouds and some particles that fly around the city.

To unfold the story, Armatur Games chose for a comic-art style with 2D scenery. Despite the lack of spoken dialogues, the chosen art style works very well. As this game provides the player a lot of reading, every menu is nicely designed which makes it fun to play.

Sound

Armatur Games implemented for a Medieval soundtrack that fits perfectly to the whole fantasy setting. They added some nice sound effects when clicking on buildings, upgrading or developing new features. For example, when you move to the garrison, you will hear the sounds of a blacksmith working on a sword and so on. Overall it stays very basic but the soundtrack and sound effects give an immersive feeling to the game and overall experience.

Gameplay

Mittelborg: City of Mages is a turn-based, city builder game where the player commands and chooses how to develop the city. When you start the game, a tutorial will give the player the basic information to start rebuilding. The city is divided in different districts that need to be managed. The Aegis district contains the tower of light, which is your magical protection barrier. The garrison on the other hand provides guards who represent your physical shield for enemy raids. The Legio district contains the portal where you can send mages on expeditions to collect new resources and relics for your city. In the Adventum district lays your Wind Catcher for gathering resources.

Despite the lack of constructing new buildings, you can upgrade every district with Aether. But upgrading costs a lot so you can add a mage to the district to get a temporary boost while you are saving your Aether.

To upgrade and develop your districts you need the resource called Aether. This resource can be gained from the Wind Catcher. To get the Wind Catcher working, you need mages who can serve. Mages can also be used as battle units to protect your barriers against evil tempests.

When the player uses all of his Aether or he decides to end his turn, the city will face the evil tempest. While the tempest is active, different types of dangers like raids, barrages and so on will target the city. These attacks will diverge every night so the player needs to make strategic decisions. This means before your end of the turn you decide to power up your magic defense or choose for more troops to protect your physical defense. The battles between the tempest and your shields are automatic without real battle animations. Your barriers will suffer damage from those tempests. It is up to the player to maintain the World Tree and the barriers to repel the tempests. At the end of the day your Wind Catcher gathers Aether to spend into the different districts. Sometimes the Eye of the Storm feature will pass which spreads peace throughout the worlds for one day. After a while the player can learn a variety of spells to protect the city or even deflect the incoming damage. While the days pass by, side missions will occur that offer interesting rewards. The player decides the outcome of these missions that may affect your main mission later on. These missions can go from discovering a dragon egg to degrading guards from duty and so on.

When the World Tree is destroyed, it’s not necessary game over. The owned experience will be saved for a new playthrough to survive the tempests even longer.

Conclusion

Mittelborg: City of Mages is a very interesting turn-based city builder. You will have to manage the city and choose when to defend and when to upgrade districts, in order to come out on top of the opposition. Your own decisions and tactics have direct impact on how the game will unfold. Despite the lack of real animations, visual upgrades and real-time battles the game offers enough to enjoy your time. Especially the art design with a very decent soundtrack improves the game experience.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.4/10 (5 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
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Mittelborg: City of Mages - Review, 7.4 out of 10 based on 5 ratings
Ruben


Huge Gundam Fan - Horror and Sports are my thing.

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