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Help me find a city builder that isn't Rimworld

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Started playing Anno 2205 but it seemed kinda like a fancy facebook game. Switched to Anno 1800 and got more interested.
if you really want anno, stick to 1404 and 2070.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
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45672-caesar-iii-windows-front-cover.jpg
 

Johannes

Arcane
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casting coach
Try Rise to Ruins: https://store.steampowered.com/app/328080/Rise_to_Ruins/. It's a city builder where you are under assault by an enemy wave each night which gets stronger over time, as the opponent builds his base. You absolutely do need to tacticize in terms of town layout and efficiency after a certain point in the game, and there's a fair number of things that can end up fucking you. As the name suggest, the game will usually end in you getting crushed either due to your mismanagement (it's very easy to run out of food during winter, for example), falling prey to increasingly dangerous enemy types (those flame dudes that attack your towers from afar as such pieces of shit), or your own inattentiveness/lack of foresight.
I played through one year now, without much difficulty. Does it get harder or is it just more of the same? Ive got everything p. well set up now, I could have a much more efficient design for sure but now it just seems theres not much to do. There's the stuff about migrating to other areas, but I don't see much point if is just more of the same then too.

Even if the attacks were a lot bigger then i'd just use some of my god powers, instead of letting my defenses take care of it... Every game can get old eventually but seems very fast with this one
 

Grampy_Bone

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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
I played through one year now, without much difficulty. Does it get harder or is it just more of the same?

That's how I felt about Banished. Like, oh, this is it? This is the game?

Had a lot of fun with Anno 1800 but I finally reached the point where it felt like I had done everything there was to do. There were some DLCs but they didn't seem interesting.

On to Tropico.
 

Geisler

Educated
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I played through one year now, without much difficulty. Does it get harder or is it just more of the same?

That's how I felt about Banished. Like, oh, this is it? This is the game?

Had a lot of fun with Anno 1800 but I finally reached the point where it felt like I had done everything there was to do. There were some DLCs but they didn't seem interesting.

On to Tropico.
Should not give up on Banished, there are mods that make the game infinitely more interesting. Unfortunately it's been like half a decade since i played it so i can't dump the list of mods i played with here, but you should check it out.
 

Johannes

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casting coach
I played through one year now, without much difficulty. Does it get harder or is it just more of the same?

That's how I felt about Banished. Like, oh, this is it? This is the game?

Had a lot of fun with Anno 1800 but I finally reached the point where it felt like I had done everything there was to do. There were some DLCs but they didn't seem interesting.

On to Tropico.
Checked online and apparently, Rise to Ruins does get a lot harder later on as the enemy waves grow bigger and bigger. Which could be helped by setting the difficulty to the max, too. But this doesn't seem quite enough for me - huge waves of enemies at the point where you've had all the time in the world to set up a perfect defence line isn't that interesting, with the main limiting factor when you've set up your economy is the cap on the number of buildings the game lets you build.
 

adddeed

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
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The Anno games of course (1404 is very nice).
Anno games arent city builders. They're supply chain management games.
I find them too one dimensional and only fun if you're really into running supply chains.
 

Johannes

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perfect defence line
They'll start wrecking your defense line sooner or later
Maybe, but I could play a more focused tower defence game to get that instead of this crap where I'd have to wait for hours for the challenging part to arrive. The village economy isn't that interesting, at least not after the first half a year when you've built all the buildings and set up the production chains.
 

Grampy_Bone

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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Well I've been playing Tropico 6 and it's okay, but it lacks the whole 'murdering things' factor, other than rebellions which are fairly easy to avoid.

Are you supposed to play the missions or sandbox? Which is the main gameplay mode? I've been doing missions and it's getting tiresome setting up the same farms and factories over and over again.

It seems more complicated than Anno because there's more individual happiness and faction management but it's too easy. Never had a problem keeping superpowers pegged at 100, never had an issue with factions (just bribe the leaders), never had an issue with elections, never had an issue with money (just build all the things). hardest parts of the game are having enough teamsters since there's no way to see the job queue, and getting people to actually live in the houses you build.

Well maybe I'll try sandbox on hard, or look at another game.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Well you have my fucking mind it seems. Imho there just isn't really good citybuilding game that also wants to have gameplay.

Either:
Something small like rimworld and there is gameplay
Something big but game goes completely easy after hour or two which leaves you with sandbox

Here are some things i found interesting:
- Dragon Quest Builders 2 - building town is interesting and there is some gameplay attached to it. The building is just fun.
- Amazing Cultivation Simulator - Rim World but in chinese fantasy. Imho it has "heart" and there is actually a lot of gameplay there and it is fairly hard to achieve end game goals. Just exploring systems and fantasy world imho is intersting.
- Odd Realm - Dwarf Fortress clone in EA but from what i tried it looks promising
- Transport Fever 2 - focus on transports, really well done and you can definitely sink hours into that.
- Factorio - No city building but works the same way imho.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Perkel

-I've played Factorio to death already so I don't need more of that.
-I have DQ Builders 2 but its not quite the same thing. Craft/build/explore minecraft-type game. Very on-rails, the game not only tells you what to build but where to build it, and then just says fuck it and has the AI build everything for you. Monsters start showing up at your base and level the entire thing before you're allowed to build actual defenses, pretty much have to play through the entire story to build anything freely but by then I was sick of it.

IMO no game in the minecraft vein has integrated exploration, building, combat, and character progression better than Terraria, but that's a different subject.

-Craftopia seems very cool but it's EA and needs a lot of work
-Space Haven is another Rimworld clone on a spaceship, also EA and needs more work. Not much depth.
-Dyson Sphere Program looks dope AF but it's another EA
 
Last edited:
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
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8,820
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Italy
i'm desperate for some builder/tycoon. last attempt has been banished + megamod, only to find out it's just an exercise in frustration and autism. oh so damn much autism. a sea of doppelganger icons and buttons, many of those with the exact same function (like 6 different wells, which are all the same). who thinks this would have been fun?
 
Joined
Jul 21, 2014
Messages
14
There is an early access game called Songs of Syx that came out last year that is pretty promising. Compared to Rimworld, it has a larger scale (i.e. more people).
 
Joined
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tried the demo. an interesting prototype, a pretty bad game. you're building your community, everything works fine, you're expanding, suddenly "20 more people joined your city, everyone starves to death, sorry pal, now fuck off".
 

Fishy

Savant
Joined
Jan 24, 2019
Messages
398
Location
Ireland
2 pages and no mention of Prison Architect? Sure, it's been taken over by Paradox and now comes with 790423 DLCs and a fucking Paradox Launcher, but the base game is plain awesome. Shower management, shiving in non-CCTV areas, recreational area for lazy guards, lockdowns, drug busts...

But then, I have wasted too many hours of my life watching prison movies and series, so I'm thematically biased.
 

Acrux

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2019
Messages
1,489
Possibly an unconventional choice, but for me Stronghold/Stronghold Crusader hits a good city-builder balance of building an economy and warfare. Definitely not as large a scope as some others, but what it does, it does very well.
 

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