Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Can Anyone Recommend a Good "Builder"?

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
I have played a fair share of stragety games in my time (AoE 1-3, Medieval 2, EU3, Vicky 2, Civ, etc.), and I must say that my favorite part of playing strategy games is the building/turtling aspect. I love the micro-managing and watching all the numbers go higher and higher as I develop my cities/units/whatever more than I like bum-rushing my opponent in the first part of the game.

BANISHED

Duh. How comes nobody even mentioned that game yet? Just drop the rest and go play it, if you're into building.

One where map-painting isn't the best or primary goal?

Even better - you don't have to paint map at all. There are no enemies or combat in Banished.

If you want smth similiar, but with a bit of combat involved - can't go wrong with Rimworld. The other suggestions like Settlers/Stronghold/Inspirations/whatever are gud and all, but they are all more or less classical strategies that just happen to have a deep building aspect in them. While Banished and Rimworld are builders.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't need to be mentioned, I suppose.

And also Dominions 4 sorry, reflex

Came here to mention Banished and lament it's lack of combat.

It really needs a mod with it, put the community are militant pacifists and it's the ultimate taboo thing to bring up with them.

Thing is, the combat doesn't have to large scale or central, just have it there as an added element and model it after the early wars between the English and Indians, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Powhatan_Wars.

The thing about the game is, it's so good with resources that it would be perfect to make the player avoid large scale combat and instead have both player and AI work on low intensity skirmishing to fuck up each other up and ruin their ability to feed one another until one collapses.

I do recommend Rimworld, but it's heavily reliant on modding to make it better and even then the games not very hard. I'd advise anyone playing it to play it enough to get acquainted with the mechanics, the download the Hardcore SK mod that adds tons more complexity to a very simple game. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=12996.0

The only thing I can say that is still not there with Rimworld is that it's still focused on base defence, which gets old in time and the game really needs the ability for you to send out your own raiding parties that would really add to the RPing aspect of the game - like having a colony of cannibals who don't grow their own food and instead rely on raiding to bring home the bacon.

There's also good material for an expanded sequel where you work to build different settlements and take over a planet in competition with other powers, you could have something like TWs turn based over world that zooms into real time combat. The world maps that already exist give the feel that that could even be done in the game already.
 

Wilian

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
2,819
Divinity: Original Sin
I have played a fair share of stragety games in my time (AoE 1-3, Medieval 2, EU3, Vicky 2, Civ, etc.), and I must say that my favorite part of playing strategy games is the building/turtling aspect. I love the micro-managing and watching all the numbers go higher and higher as I develop my cities/units/whatever more than I like bum-rushing my opponent in the first part of the game.

BANISHED

Duh. How comes nobody even mentioned that game yet? Just drop the rest and go play it, if you're into building.

One where map-painting isn't the best or primary goal?

Even better - you don't have to paint map at all. There are no enemies or combat in Banished.

If you want smth similiar, but with a bit of combat involved - can't go wrong with Rimworld. The other suggestions like Settlers/Stronghold/Inspirations/whatever are gud and all, but they are all more or less classical strategies that just happen to have a deep building aspect in them. While Banished and Rimworld are builders.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't need to be mentioned, I suppose.

And also Dominions 4 sorry, reflex

The problem with Banished is that after you learn the optimal route of building (and it takes roughly 30 minutes to do so), you have practically beaten the game. It's got good foundations with great mechanics but suffers from lack of variables.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,487
Location
casting coach
Banished would be a lot better already if you'd have food in stockpiles go bad over time. Prevent the endless stockpiles that trivialize every hardship from forming.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Good builders need something to provide a challenge to make them interesting, all the purely sandboxy ones tend to get boring after a while. Mission goals are also a cool thing, compared to just pure sandbox lol do what u want gameplay
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
The only thing I can say that is still not there with Rimworld is that it's still focused on base defence, which gets old in time and the game really needs the ability for you to send out your own raiding parties that would really add to the RPing aspect of the game - like having a colony of cannibals who don't grow their own food and instead rely on raiding to bring home the bacon.
If you hunger for the longpork, there's no need to go raiding when you can order delivery.
 

Leechmonger

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 30, 2016
Messages
756
Location
Valley of Defilement
Alright bros, I was about to play through Zeus for the 4th time when I realized I could try something new instead. Here are some games I'm considering:

- Another game by Impressions Games/Tilted Mill. Zeus/Poseidon is the only one I've played. Is Immortal Cities any good? Are any of these games different enough from Zeus to bother with?
- Cities Skylines
- Settlers 2 (10th year Anniversary or original?)
- Anno series (1404 or 1701?)
- Factorio Still in Early Access, I'll wait
 

catfood

AGAIN
Joined
Aug 28, 2008
Messages
9,314
Location
Nirvana for mice
Alright bros, I was about to play through Zeus for the 4th time when I realized I could try something new instead. Here are some games I'm considering:

- Another game by Impressions Games/Tilted Mill. Zeus/Poseidon is the only one I've played. Is Immortal Cities any good? Are any of these games different enough from Zeus to bother with?

Play Pharaoh and then Caesar 3 in that order. In theory both them and Zeus play pretty much the same, but you need to understand that Zeus was a simplified version of the older games.

The biggest difference is that while in Zeus buildings dont need access to workers, in Pharaoh and Caesar 3 you do, so you can't just place buildings willy nilly around the map and magically have them fill up with workers. You need to plan your blocks very carefully.

The second biggest difference is how palaces work. In Zeus you can just place them and thats it. In the others, every house needs to be evolved from the lowest level possible. So in order to get that palace block for that prosperity rating that you're trying to achieve you need to carefully consider the layout of your housing blocks and insure that they get access to everything they need and are as far away from any sort of industries which can lower the desirability of the area.

I would say that Pharaoh is the most balanced of the three games in terms of difficulty. Caesar 3 is very, very tough once you reach the later missions (especially the peaceful ones). The reason for that is that the game does not give you enough control over your goods distribution. So for instance you can only tell your warehouses to get or to not get a certain type of resource, none of those fancy options like get 1/4 pottery and 3/4 oil and such. Not to mention that you cant build road blocks (although you can build gatehouses which function the same, but occupy 4 tiles and affect desirability in a negative way). I would say play Pharaoh since it's the best out of the three, and then if you want a challenge play Caesar 3.

- Settlers 2 (10th year Anniversary or original?)

The Settlers games are kind of crap. People have a strange fascination with the second one but personally I wouldn't bother with any of them. Play Knights and Merchants instead if you want a settlers-like game. Make sure to download the Knights and Merchants Remake patch too for extra resolutions and VASTLY improved pathfinding.
 

Leechmonger

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 30, 2016
Messages
756
Location
Valley of Defilement
Yeah I was looking at Pharaoh and Emperor yesterday, and ended up buying Pharaoh + Cleopatra on GOG. Everything about it seems better than Zeus (food variety matters, labor walkers, etc.). Also the Emperor Feng Shui mechanics seemed more annoying than interesting.

The only thing that disappointed me about Pharaoh was learning that as long as your have more workers than jobs then you don't actually need to place that much housing near industry. I.E. if you need 200 workers for a branch of industry you don't need those 200 workers near that industry, as long as your overall economy has more workers than jobs.
 

Kaucukovnik

Cipher
Joined
Mar 26, 2009
Messages
488
Are ANNO 1404 and ANNO 1701 still the best?
Anno 1404 is amazing for solo or multiplayer city building. AIs and NPCs have each their own personality and you have western and eastern civilization to develop, so players can divide roles 2v2. Or up to 4 players can control a single shared faction, which gives a tight budget, but great efficiency.
I remember 1701 having entertaining town events, so it's worth playing as well.

Transport Tycoon (OpenTTD) fulfills the co-op builder role for modern-day theme. We usually kind of compete in size and appearance of every one's chosen home town, all entangling one massive capitol city. Home towns are usually off-limits to other players, but silly stuff like suburban historical steam train is ok.
You can't directly build the cities, but you can plan their roads beyond the starting ones and you can reserve land for future use. Any terrain modification is possible, provided you have the cash. If you are filthy rich you can found new towns and industries.
 

catfood

AGAIN
Joined
Aug 28, 2008
Messages
9,314
Location
Nirvana for mice
Yeah I was looking at Pharaoh and Emperor yesterday, and ended up buying Pharaoh + Cleopatra on GOG. Everything about it seems better than Zeus (food variety matters, labor walkers, etc.). Also the Emperor Feng Shui mechanics seemed more annoying than interesting.

The only thing that disappointed me about Pharaoh was learning that as long as your have more workers than jobs then you don't actually need to place that much housing near industry. I.E. if you need 200 workers for a branch of industry you don't need those 200 workers near that industry, as long as your overall economy has more workers than jobs.
Yes, there's a certain level of abstraction there. But iirc it's usually worth placing more than a few huts next to industries because if you ever run out of population then the buildings that have poor access to labor will be the first to run out of workers.
 
Joined
Aug 19, 2015
Messages
29
Location
Europe
If you wish to play with a relative or good friend after a busy day I found Anno 1404 to be very relaxing. Real time so that your eyes do not start closing on their own, but slow enough to have the time to appreciate your build up and make choices with confidence. A good builder must also be a good destroyer. If what you build is never challenged I find it to become quickly dull and a pure succession of numbers. A game like banished lacks a military component and the most frequent complaint I have seen is how boring the game can become. It must also be pretty, there is a somewhat primal gratification in shaping up something to become pretty, regardless of function.
I would recommend the Sierra games as some other people have in this thread. It is a shame they never included cooperative elements, imagine the neighboring cities being other players and doing things like sending your son on a mission to build your new colony. I believe they are working on a new title.

-Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom