City-building Game Catch All

DevilDancer wrote:

If you haven't fired up Cities Skylines in a while give it another shot.

IMAGE(https://media1.tenor.com/images/95bd2fd2f35227957f64a28cfb6921b7/tenor.gif?itemid=5715031)

Veloxi wrote:

So Cliff Empire looks neat. Anyone play this one?

I picked it up yesterday and sunk about four hours into it so far.

It's a pretty chill city builder overall. You basically have to balance your population size with basic resources (food, water, energy) and make sure they have enough places to work. People are happier if they have entertainment, parks, different food sources (which is really just crops and fish now), and have some luxury goods like appliances, furniture, and gadgets (all of which are 3D printed). The more of these things they have, the more folks want to come down from space and live in your city. If things get really bad then some of them will want to fly back into space.

The different plot sizes adds an interesting twist because they somewhat limit special structures and you at least have to give some thought into separating manufacturing and resource gathering structures from residential structures.

Difficulty-wise it's pretty easy. I only got into two spots of bother in the early game when I had one city: my economy ground to a halt because I needed to build an airport (which allows you to make more of the transport drones that transport raw materials and finished goods) and I needed to build a nuke plant for more energy. Both were expensive buildings. All I had to do was stop expanding for a little while and save some money. There's no Banished death spiral here. After that I was printing space dollars.

Trade is pretty basic. You can build bridges between cities that allow you to buy or sell 20 units of whatever: food, batteries, gadgets, etc. The orbital trading platform seems to be both a gaping maul and a cornucopia: you can shove as much stuff as you want through it to make money and you can order as much as you want as well. There doesn't seem to be a set orbital economy or one that grows or declines as you trade with it.

The craziest trade chain I set up was importing garbage from space to one city and training it over to another city so it could be recycled into matter. Pretty basic stuff.

Once you get a city hall you can loan other cities money. You can also ship drones from one city to another, which can be nice because airports need the largest development slots and there's only a handful in each city.

You can also research tech and improvements once you build a university, but there's not much depth there. The research will typically help you extract resources more quickly, produce more, boost energy output, and the like. I was able to complete the entire research tree pretty quickly.

Once you get established, the game tosses in some "events" that you have to deal with. Typically it's a weather event that messes with your ability to generate a certain kind of power and grow food. You'll also be asked to trade certain items with the folks in orbit in a set period of time. It's certainly no Rimworld where you get double whammied with toxic fallout and an outbreak of the plague.

It's not a bad game, it's just not a complicated game. The good thing, though, is that it's just nine bucks.

Thanks for the insight, and for taking one for the team!

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Veloxi wrote:
DevilDancer wrote:

If you haven't fired up Cities Skylines in a while give it another shot.

IMAGE(https://media1.tenor.com/images/95bd2fd2f35227957f64a28cfb6921b7/tenor.gif?itemid=5715031)

Your loss.

Not really. While.most city builders are about satisfying the needs of the people living within them, C:S seemed to be about making pretty, soulless model cities. No thanks.

Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

Budo wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

I couldn't help but think it looks a lot like Rimworld. Like a lot lot.

tboon wrote:
Budo wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

I couldn't help but think it looks a lot like Rimworld. Like a lot lot.

That's because Rimworld heavily borrowed the appearance and visual style of Prison Architect. The cycle continues with this new game, it seems.

I remember reading somewhere that the maker of Rimworld was very open about lifting the look from Prison Architect and if I recall had their blessing, sincerest form of flattery and all that.

Have spotted a few others recently...

Academia : School Simulator
(To be fair this is the same artist that worked on Prison Architect)

Another Brick in the Mall

Sim Airport

With Cities: Skylines, I can actually lay out my neighborhoods and using polices and design, I can create a distinct feel for each one. For me, anyway, it's got a delightful feel to it.

Yeah, but you can't control your ships in combat.

Hold up... sorry, wrong game.

MeatMan wrote:
tboon wrote:
Budo wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

I couldn't help but think it looks a lot like Rimworld. Like a lot lot.

That's because Rimworld heavily borrowed the appearance and visual style of Prison Architect. The cycle continues with this new game, it seems.

Sure, I remember hearing that but I've never played nor followed the development of Prison Architect. I have played quite a bit of Rimworld. I only know what I know (and that's getting more sketchy).

tboon wrote:
MeatMan wrote:
tboon wrote:
Budo wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

I couldn't help but think it looks a lot like Rimworld. Like a lot lot.

That's because Rimworld heavily borrowed the appearance and visual style of Prison Architect. The cycle continues with this new game, it seems.

Sure, I remember hearing that but I've never played nor followed the development of Prison Architect. I have played quite a bit of Rimworld. I only know what I know (and that's getting more sketchy).

And I've never played Rimworld. Just pointing out the origin of this particular visual style of simulation/builder game, and how it makes total sense that this game's screenshots and videos would remind someone of PA and/or Rimworld.

Veloxi wrote:

Not really. While.most city builders are about satisfying the needs of the people living within them, C:S seemed to be about making pretty, soulless model cities. No thanks.

For me, I think CS exposed a grown-up problem I have with city builders, in that I now know too much about urban planning to find them compelling. I could not get past my initial question of, "Why are people coming to this city, exactly? What's the major industry?" The SimCity model of urban planning just doesn't work for me anymore. I need to be able to sign a deal to bring in a major silicon manufacturing plant, not just lay out a big swath of "heavy industrial zone" that magically gets filled up with semi-temporary buildings.

So while I think C:S does exactly what it wants to do and seems to be good at it, I do, like Veloxi, find it a touch hollow.

How do you feel about the Impressions games, kazooka?

kazooka wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Not really. While.most city builders are about satisfying the needs of the people living within them, C:S seemed to be about making pretty, soulless model cities. No thanks.

For me, I think CS exposed a grown-up problem I have with city builders, in that I now know too much about urban planning to find them compelling. I could not get past my initial question of, "Why are people coming to this city, exactly? What's the major industry?" The SimCity model of urban planning just doesn't work for me anymore. I need to be able to sign a deal to bring in a major silicon manufacturing plant, not just lay out a big swath of "heavy industrial zone" that magically gets filled up with semi-temporary buildings.

Thank god. I thought it was just me. I really love C:S's traffic and transport model but the zoning system that came all the way from the original SimCity is so lifeless. It really hit me when I was playing it while searching to buy my first house, where was the nearest empty residential zone to me IRL I could move to? It dropped me of the game and I haven't went back.

There was an article ages ago about how SimCity bakes Will Wright's assumptions about city planning into them. Things like all you need for industry is for local government to zone an area. That unemployment just leads to people leaving. It's a fantasy, like all games, but I would like a game where I had some of the same challenges I see cities face in reality. Let me try and deal with Gentrification and shifting demographics.

Isn't that kind of modeling out of the reach of gaming systems, though? You're asking for agent-based people, vehicles, and corporations, at least, with a large number of variables driving them (race, politics, loan policies, cash flow in the economy, education levels and quality, food availability, crime levels and locations, accessibility, housing stock condition, economic drivers (local and regional)... And taking that step for a few systems won't create the effect you're looking for, either, I don't think.

Robear wrote:

Isn't that kind of modeling out of the reach of gaming systems, though? You're asking for agent-based people, vehicles, and corporations, at least, with a large number of variables driving them (race, politics, loan policies, cash flow in the economy, education levels and quality, food availability, crime levels and locations, accessibility, housing stock condition, economic drivers (local and regional)... And taking that step for a few systems won't create the effect you're looking for, either, I don't think.

I know what I'm asking for (the moon on a stick ^_^). Just simple things like having the private buildings not be quite so much under my control would help. I don't think it needs to be a full agent system, accumulating lots of people in similar population groups is possibly viable. Maybe some mechanism there is a resource like "political capital" that needs to be spent when I demolish loads of property to add a new motorway through town. It would be nice if there was some Nimby forces present.

It's not impossible, and I think it can be done without going full agent-for-every-citizen. But it does require a major rethink of all of the city-builder assumptions we've had in place since SimCity.

I'd like to see someone try it.

MeatMan wrote:
tboon wrote:
MeatMan wrote:
tboon wrote:
Budo wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Another city-builder is about to drop, this one in medieval times.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6...

Looks like it has potential. I was sent a copy (not sure why, I run a space game blog) but heckfire, I'll take it, so I'll give it a whirl and report back.

Man that looks a lot like Prison Architect.

I couldn't help but think it looks a lot like Rimworld. Like a lot lot.

That's because Rimworld heavily borrowed the appearance and visual style of Prison Architect. The cycle continues with this new game, it seems.

Sure, I remember hearing that but I've never played nor followed the development of Prison Architect. I have played quite a bit of Rimworld. I only know what I know (and that's getting more sketchy).

And I've never played Rimworld. Just pointing out the origin of this particular visual style of simulation/builder game, and how it makes total sense that this game's screenshots and videos would remind someone of PA and/or Rimworld.

Thanks for the knowledge. (That can be taken as sarcasm or something but I sincerely mean it, thank you for sharing what you know - I hate that we are at the point where compliments need to be explained ).

I think that perhaps, with Cities, we've forgotten how deep and muddy the real rut for these games was, and how well Cities did in answering the call. Now we're looking for better, of course, but I don't think Cities is a howling wasteland of failed ideas. It is the best we've had in about 20 years. Could it be better? Sure. Will the devs sit on their hands and just iterate the same old ideas? I kind of doubt that; at least, I hope not.

But turning up noses because a very good game isn't in all ways innovative and fresh seems kind of self-defeating. If you like to play these games, why deny yourself the pleasure that's there, while the better ones are developed? Or at least hit the Paradox forums and *influence* the next generation...

Veloxi wrote:

Not really. While.most city builders are about satisfying the needs of the people living within them, C:S seemed to be about making pretty, soulless model cities. No thanks.

And I'm glad it exists! When I'm in a "let's make a neat looking mountain village" mood then I know where to turn.

That's cool guys, I'll just go back to playing Zeus.

Pharaoh is better.

Robear wrote:

Pharaoh is better. :-)

It just has better wonders.

Nah, it's more than that. The difference between the two is monumental, really.

Robear wrote:

Nah, it's more than that. The difference between the two is monumental, really.

Exactly, Pharaoh has better monuments.

Veloxi wrote:

How do you feel about the Impressions games, kazooka?

Don't think I've played any.

Veloxi wrote:
Robear wrote:

Nah, it's more than that. The difference between the two is monumental, really.

Exactly, Pharaoh has better monuments. ;)

Of the four - Rome, Pharaoh, Zeus, Rise of the Middle Kingdom - I think RotMK has the best features but I still keep coming back to Pharaoh because of the great monument building.