Best Value City Builder Games Under $5

The City Builder games on Steam games under $5 that deliver the most playtime per dollar: median reviewer hours divided by current price.

By price

Median reviewer playtime divided by price. Reviewers tend to sink more hours in than the average owner, so treat this as an optimistic estimate. Free games are excluded because there's no price to divide by.
  1. 1Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete12 h/$
  2. 2Settlement Survival8.9 h/$
  3. 3Tavern Master5.6 h/$
  4. 4Age of Empires: Definitive Edition4.7 h/$
  5. 5ISLANDERS4.2 h/$
  6. 6Gladiator Guild Manager2.1 h/$
  7. 7Cardboard Town1.8 h/$
  8. 8Gourdlets1.5 h/$
  9. 9Minami Lane0.8 h/$
  10. 10Dystopika0.7 h/$
  11. 11SUMMERHOUSE0.5 h/$

How the math works: we sample each game’s Steam reviewers, take the median of their total recorded playtime (lifetime hours, not hours at the time of review), and divide it by the game’s current price in your selected currency. Reviewers usually sink more hours in than the average owner, so the numbers run generous. Free games aren’t listed because there’s no price to divide by, and a game needs playtime data from at least 20 reviewers before it qualifies. All prices are Steam’s own regional prices, never exchange-rate conversions.