Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic - planned economy city builder

[imajia]

A Great game which brings a lot to the table. Fortunately, as I don't need another Impression Games/Anno/Tropico clone.
The only minor negative point I have is that ingame tutorials are helpful but don't explain the big picture and leave out some details. For instance, you only have to bring workers from their home to work, but not back to their home. There are Youtube tutorials for that, but I'd prefer a proper manual.
Due to the complexity, there are a ton of buildings and vehicles which can be a bit overwhelming. It took me a few tries until I had the first city which somewhat worked.
There is still a lot to learn .

 

[Jenkem]

is this out yet?

 

[Infinitron]

Coming June 20th:

 

[Hellraiser]

Did they release a 1.0 changelog yet? All I saw were some youtubers with 1.0 early/preview builds hyping changes/new things (won't watch them, don't have time for that) but not a single mention of actual new additions in text form anywhere, besides I think 2 new buildings in the official blog - an amphiteatre and football stadium IIRC. Although I don't expect much more than that besides more scenarios and maybe some new vehicles (especially western ones to fill in some gaps in those).

I've been playing this autistically for a month, on my second realistic mode (honestly the only way to play the game, although I am playing with no demolition, no maintenance and no winters ) start now , made it from 1960 to 1994. I only had a bunch of food shortages, blackouts, water shortages, housing shortages, a foreign debt/interest related crisis, even a fuel crisis (despite having a refinery geared for export, of course), only thing missing for the authentic full gommunist centrally planned experience were toilet paper shortages. Maybe Czechoslovakia never had those and that's why TP isn't in the game, seriously wood+chemicals>paper and the tyranny of choice between using paper for either toilet paper or propaganda brochures/party newspapers (which partially fullfill the citizen need for TP but boost loyalty, maybe) should be in the game.

Still this game takes the fun parts from transport tycoon, various logistics/economy games (what I like to call supply chain management games, like Settlers 2 etc.) and sim city mashing them together into something both unique and in many areas accidentally(?) authentic to the theme/source material, in addition to catering to slavs with the vehicle selection which seems to be a "the best of/iconic" pick from every eastern block country. That and by accident or not I ended up making some city/industrial layouts that remind me of IRL ones from my city and elsewhere rather than gamey ones.

Also realistic mode for such a "simple" to describe difference changes so much. You start doing stuff like building/planning detour routes, planning things to be built in phases or futureproofing infrastructure (always have a spare water/power/sewer switch) and suddenly there's just so much stuff you need to consider because it takes time to ship stuff around and build it, and you realize just how much depth all the various systems have when working together. Only problem is that it's kind of slow (at least in a no pre-existing city start) so very time consuming.

Also some of the music is fire comrade (wish it had more tracks, not just in this style, maybe some jazz also):



RPS mentions the day 1 Biomes DLC only has 3 fixed maps, one for each biome and no random map options which is

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/workers-resources-soviet-republic-review

tl;dr I like gommunist trains and trams.

 

[None]

RPS mentions the day 1 Biomes DLC only has 3 fixed maps, one for each biome and no random map options which is

Too bad. Playing this with a tropical map would be peak Tropico vibes.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Too bad. Playing this with a tropical map would be peak Tropico vibes.

Well, you can still play on a tropical map. There’s even a rather well-made set of building mods for Latin America, though sadly it doesn’t extend to services. With vehicles it’ll do the job.

 

[Hellraiser]

RPS mentions the day 1 Biomes DLC only has 3 fixed maps, one for each biome and no random map options which is

Too bad. Playing this with a tropical map would be peak Tropico vibes.

I'm wondering if at least modders could make some new maps with the DLC biomes, hopefully the core problem (which they should solve eventually I hope, at least after enough negative/mixed reviews) is just that they would need to overhaul the map RNG to properly generate the new features of the desert biome like water/tree scarcity and whatever special placement logic the other biomes need, rather than the biome-specific features being extremely custom hackjobs and workarounds that can't easily be placed by hand.

Tropical island/banana republic map with no land border crossings and possibly some resources restrictions would be interesting for realistic mode. But I imagine you would need to give players a pre-existing city for it to be playable since you can't hire foreign workers through airports or sea harbors from what I can tell.

Honestly this game has enough depth that you could build some pretty interesting scenarios/challenges around the various systems.

 

[None]

Too bad. Playing this with a tropical map would be peak Tropico vibes.

Well, you can still play on a tropical map. There’s even a rather well-made set of building mods for Latin America, though sadly it doesn’t extend to services. With vehicles it’ll do the job.

Sure, but I'm reliant on the fixed map being a good one.

 

[Infinitron]

https://af.gog.com/game/workers_resources_soviet_republic?as=1649904300

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Is there a way to alert everyone with the Vatnik tag?

 

[Hellraiser]

Is there a way to alert everyone with the Vatnik tag?

Go to the Ukraine war thread and post there?

 

[Froila]

Tovarischi!! Do this game have party meetings every Thursday, mandatory scrap metal gathering, leninjugend komsomol, huge and useless military-industrial complex, food rationing and other refined commie practices?

 

[Hellraiser]

Tovarischi!! Do this game have party meetings every Thursday,

If you count party officials "working" in a local party headquarters on "research" and/or "educating university students" in the party headquarters then I guess yes.

mandatory scrap metal gathering

Yes, you can research waste segregation allowing you to enforce it on citizens and then process both steel and aluminum scrap into useful material. Also can do it with plastic waste and construction waste for precious plastics and gravel respectively. Although TBH by the time I could research and bother with this I usually had a robust industrial base and enough export income to cover any gaps with imported steel etc.

, leninjugend komsomol,

Not directly but I guess allowing only say 70% or better state loyalty staff to teach at schools has that implied effect as then you get very loyal school graduates.

huge and useless military-industrial complex,

No military and tank production (devs said somewhere maybe some day in an expansion, but considering how they didn't even add a 3rd campaign/scenario in 1.0 despite mentioning it...), soviet rule truly is peace and electrification in this game. As for industry...

Useless? No, huge and wasteful? Yes, with labyrinthine conveyor belts and kilometers of tangled railways needed to serve them for 20% grade deposits, or even ones where you decide to commute the workforce by helicopters because they don't get stuck in traffic (I learned this is a good idea for power plants).

food rationing and other refined commie practices?

If you set your distribution office to supply the stores and shopping centers with food only when they are empty, yes. You can also make them prioritize and always fully stock-up first that one particular store that just happens to serve the neighborhood where your local party headquarters, secret police headquarters and other party vanguard lives over all the other stores*.

Meat is of course considered a separate luxury good from food and lack of it triggers less outrage IIRC ("starvation" happiness penalty for food vs "lack of meat" if no meat).

Also you can set restrictions on age and state loyalty on prospective car buyers at car dealerships, to make sure only the right people get the scarce automobiles available.

*this is a valid strategy, one of the reasons why I wrote this game is accidentally quite authentic to the source material, since proles are easy to replace/reimport but high loyalty staff for schools, universities or the secret police not so much (it takes more than just "buying" immigrants, also need to sieve them for higher starting loyalty ones, coddle them to build up loyalty, everything takes time etc. so brain drain population losses are a huge problem), so the game mechanics consciously or not reward having some animals be more equal than others.

 

[lightbane]

So, can you "win" in this game, or are you bound to, at some point, have your avatar shot in the back and replaced by someone more ruthless and more incompetent, commie style?

 

[None]

RPS mentions the day 1 Biomes DLC only has 3 fixed maps, one for each biome and no random map options which is

Too bad. Playing this with a tropical map would be peak Tropico vibes.

I'm wondering if at least modders could make some new maps with the DLC biomes, hopefully the core problem (which they should solve eventually I hope, at least after enough negative/mixed reviews) is just that they would need to overhaul the map RNG to properly generate the new features of the desert biome like water/tree scarcity and whatever special placement logic the other biomes need, rather than the biome-specific features being extremely custom hackjobs and workarounds that can't easily be placed by hand.

Tropical island/banana republic map with no land border crossings and possibly some resources restrictions would be interesting for realistic mode. But I imagine you would need to give players a pre-existing city for it to be playable since you can't hire foreign workers through airports or sea harbors from what I can tell.

Honestly this game has enough depth that you could build some pretty interesting scenarios/challenges around the various systems.

So I bit the bullet and bought the DLC, these guys deserve the money anyways. Turns out you can make new tropical/siberian/desert maps in the editor.

 

[Storyfag]

Is there a way to alert everyone with the Vatnik tag?

I'm going to ping Nutmeg anyway. Gaem seems right up his alley.

 

[Froila]

So, can you "win" in this game, or are you bound to, at some point, have your avatar shot in the back and replaced by someone more ruthless and more incompetent, commie style?

Also if player always need to buy food and ready to use engineering solutions from less retarded capitalist countries (as in RL), I'd call this game instant incline.

 

[Froila]

accidentally quite authentic to the source material

Thanks. I'll play this game some time.

Actually it will be nice if someone tried to make a game simulating the way soviet economics work. It wasn't command economy, but something, soviet economist Vitali Naishul called 'administrative market'.

 

[Hellraiser]

So, can you "win" in this game, or are you bound to, at some point, have your avatar shot in the back and replaced by someone more ruthless and more incompetent, commie style?

Also if player always need to buy food and ready to use engineering solutions from less retarded capitalist countries (as in RL), I'd call this game instant incline.

You do need to import food until you get farms and a food factory, which takes a while to setup. And it is very easy to produce too little, especially with seasons on. Farms in this game need to be really big and it takes a while to sow, grow and harvest crops let alone make food out of them which. Plus if you forget to import fertilizer (or get into slight financial problems and can't afford to import enough fast enough because importing steel for the latest industrial megalomaniacal project just sucked away your cash reserves) those crop yields will drop and drop...

As for engineering solutions, you need to license any vehicle you wish to produce in a factory first and you spend the bulk of the game importing all vehicles anyway, because even getting domestic steel production let alone enough to also supply factory takes a while and licenses aren't cheap. Although western ones aren't always superior to the eastern block choices you can import, quite a few of them are though (or have for instance better capacity like the open hull american trucks available a way earlier date IIRC).

 

[Nutmeg]

Is there a way to alert everyone with the Vatnik tag?

I'm going to ping Nutmeg anyway. Gaem seems right up his alley.

I heard it just perpetuates negative stereotypes about socialism. I would appreciate a game like this that actually captured the glory and possibilities of that era tho -- planetary scale terraforming and massive geo engineering projects as well as the first steps towards space colonization infrastructure. Stuff like that.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Since I've put an embarrassing amount of hours in this game, I too wish to recommend this game to any fan of city/logistic/economy builder here. Sure, it could be improved in some areas - like, I wish there were more commodities to deal with, at least gas, paper and copper; I also wish there was a reason for needing passenger transfer between your cities, like internal tourism or something; and probably a hundredth other things I could think of. But what we got is great already, and with any luck more will be added later. The trailer does not lie, it's truly a unique game.

 

[Hellraiser]

like internal tourism or something

Speaking of internal things, another staple/icon of gommunism in Poland was "internal export" as a means of obtaining dollars by the state, that is selling "luxury" goods for dollars to citizens (that is things like jeans, electronics etc.). Connected to this you could have a black market economy since citizens need to get those dollars somehow and foreign tourists could help in increasing the amount of dollars available in circulation, as could some other things. For instance local tales speak of an apartment tower in the city where you could only get apartments with dollars, so mostly hookers and sailors owned them as the former got paid by the latter.

But yeah, quite a few IRL things from that era the game could take and make interesting systems out of, also stuff like different crops and autistic soil composition simulation (a Belarus Expansion pack DLC anyone?).

 

[Space Satan]

I like the game. Tropico becomes too streamlines, with guaranteed sucsessfull strategies in every game. Good to see a fresh air in a genre.

 

[Space Satan]

like internal tourism or something

Internal tourism is a thing even today. here are thousands upon thousands of dergaged people over there who have a sort of raging addiction to to to some backward places with Vienam war conditions. Mountains and Baikal, in terms of USSR - I myself saw people who experienced some sort of drug-like euphoria from going to a mosquito-infested hell in Baikal or Siberia. In case of Karelia entire region gained reputation to be a magnet for madman who wears military camo 24\7 and after a week of coding goes camping EVERY WEEK. Entire region is infested with campers, fishers and finns who came for cheap alcolhol. It took me more than once to drag with my university friends several dead drunk finns to the border and negotitate to get them home. It is a place abandoned by gods above and below.
Funny thing, a colleagues from Brazil and Germany said they had similar regions, famous for internal tourism and similar deranged people, swarming in there.

 

[Hydro]

like internal tourism or something

Internal tourism is a thing even today. here are thousands upon thousands of dergaged people over there who have a sort of raging addiction to to to some backward places with Vienam war conditions. Mountains and Baikal, in terms of USSR - I myself saw people who experienced some sort of drug-like euphoria from going to a mosquito-infested hell in Baikal or Siberia. In case of Karelia entire region gained reputation to be a magnet for madman who wears military camo 24\7 and after a week of coding goes camping EVERY WEEK. Entire region is infested with campers, fishers and finns who came for cheap alcolhol. It took me more than once to drag with my university friends several dead drunk finns to the border and negotitate to get them home. It is a place abandoned by gods above and below.
Funny thing, a colleagues from Brazil and Germany said they had similar regions, famous for internal tourism and similar deranged people, swarming in there.

My fav one is Kol’skyi peninsula. Magical place especially sacred Sami lakes. Otherworldly stuff.