Buildings in a strategy game - which ones do you consider important?

Hi everyone,

my current game is going to be somewhat similar to a civilization game, but you'll only own one city and will have a limited number of tiles available to build things on. Your goal is pretty much survival and staying in power, as when your people will get too unhappy they'll pretty much kill you.

I have a list of buildings planned, but I'm sure that there are some that I'm missing, so I'd be really thankful if you could tell me which buildings you find the most important in this kind of a game. While you won't be attacking anyone with an army nor will you be invaded, you will have a 'party' which will do most of the fighting.

Thanks!

Well, there's the village center for the administration needs.

The granary/farm/barn for the food supply.

The smith for providing tools and weapons.

The mason for building other buildings.

The woodsman for cutting down wood.

The carpenter for building wood related things, could be combined with the mason for buildings.

The church if there's religion in the game.

A shipyard if you're close to the sea.

It depends on the era of the game.  And in how much detail you manage your city.  Is it Sim City level of detail?  Or more Civilization level of detail?  The former is much more micro-managing, the latter really intended for groups of cities since it quantifies a city as a few basic things.

Especially if the game is set, say, in the future on a different planet, the building list will be completely different, but for a Civilization style game.

Some of these are for very modern eras.  Some I "borrowed" from the original Sim City:

Palace/Castle/Chief's Hut - Where the player lives.  Protect this building at all costs.

Mine - Used to produce raw metals.  Must be created on a certain type of tile

Sawmill - Used to produce wood.  Must be created on a certain type of tile

Barracks - Supports and trains troops.  These set a limit to the number of troops your city can support

Railroad - Moves troops much more quickly into the field

Airport - Same as Railroad, requires more resources to build BUT no tracks to maintain

Spaceport - Possible win condition (as in Civilization) when spaceship completed

Power Station - Required to support various types of modern buildings

University - Education, improves output in higher tech societies

Stadium - Entertains the masses

Farm - Produces food.  Sets a limit on how many people in the city

Depends on the time period, what setting will your game be in?

Thanks for the answers so far, you definitely helped me refine my list.

As for the time period it's really hard to say... given that it's post apocalyptic you'll start with some basic stuff, more or less medieval but will eventually rediscover futuristic technology. 

If it's a peaceful setting then:


A town hall, a storage for food, some place for having fun, housing


if wars/conflicts are present, then you I'll need a barracks and training grounds too, plus of course an armory and smithshop

A bank can be interesting, if you can lose gold if it gets destroyed.

If your game is a post-apocalyptic one, personally, I wouldn't add a place where you can entertain the masses... there probably aren't alot of people around and they will be focused on survival. Just my two cents though.