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Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
This thread is to discuss the multitudes of base building games, city building games, railroad games, and other management style games out there, especially after the release of big ones like Factorio, City Skylines and Transport Fever 1 &2. I'm hoping it will be a place where players can come to get suggestions about other management style games that they'd like to play from people who are already playing them. The existing threads should be used for detailed advice on how to play or improve your game, this thread is really for discovery.

Here is a list of games that may be of interest to you. Asterisked games are notable in their category.
(note: some of these games may be available on multiple platforms, I'll only be listing the Steam link unless there's an exclusive somewhere else)

Discord https://discord.gg/4NQXZzuKkW

City Builders
*City Skylines Steam link thread
City Skylines II thread
*Anno 1800 Ubisoft Store Steam
thread
*Against the Storm Steam thread
Tropico 6 Steam link
Frostpunk Steam link
Surviving Mars Steam link thread
Banished Steam link
Songs of Syx thread Steam
Timberborn Steam

Factory Games
*Factorio Steam link thread
*Satisfactory Steam link thread
Factory Town Steam link
Autonauts Steam link
Dyson Sphere Program Steam thread
Captain of Industry Steam

Base Building games
*Rimworld Steam link thread
Astroneer Steam link thread
*Dwarf Fortress download page thread Steam page
*Oxygen Not Included Steam link thread
Amazing Cultivation Simulator Steam link thread
Stationeers Steam link
Space Engineers Steam link

Railroad Games
*Transport Fever 2 Steam link
*Railroad Empire 2 Steam link
Open TTD download page Steam
Mashinky (Early Access) Steam link

Business Management Games
*Two Point Hospital Steam link thread
*Parkitect Steam link
Prison Architect Steam link
Rise of Industry Steam link
Little Big Workshop Steam link
Planet Zoo Steam link
Planet Coaster Steam link
Capitalism (Labs is the latest iteration) Download link

Other games of note
*Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic (some jank; Early Access) Steam Link Let's play thread
Out of the Park Baseball Steam link
Motorsport Manager Steam link
Football Manager Steam link
*Evil Genius 2 Steam link thread

Related threads Survival games, Life Sims

Some YouTubers in this space
Katherine of Sky
Nookrium
Orbital Potato
Raptor
Nilaeus
Sky Storme
Colonel Failure
Francis John
Exact Chaos

I hope this is helpful to folks and I'm happy to answer questions and consider changes.

Mayveena fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jan 15, 2024

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Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
reserved

Zurai
Feb 13, 2012


Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

There's an Amazing Cultivation Simulator thread here.

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

100 pages seems early to kill but here we are.

Factorio thread is here too. I am a fool

SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jan 4, 2021

KirbyKhan
Mar 20, 2009



Soiled Meat
Hello, I am here to jack up my priorities and to set some labor bills, but I'm all outta workbenches. Now get those pips in line and those pawns busy. This asteroid MUST be cored out by page 30.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

SkyeAuroline posted:

100 pages seems early to kill but here we are.

Factorio thread is here too.

I didn't really want to kill the old one, but I guess when you do a re-do of an existing OP you are supposed to start a new one? Wasn't sure.

Factorio thread is in the OP.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

You should PM a mod and get a thread tag.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

Zurai posted:

There's an Amazing Cultivation Simulator thread here.

Fixed.

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Mayveena posted:

I didn't really want to kill the old one, but I guess when you do a re-do of an existing OP you are supposed to start a new one? Wasn't sure.

Factorio thread is in the OP.

Oops, missed that it was two separate links, Awful app's formatting shows links weirdly sometimes.

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

StrixNebulosa posted:

You should PM a mod and get a thread tag.

What would the tag be? Or does the mod decide that?

Count Uvula
Dec 20, 2011

---
The obvious choice:

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Mayveena, can you add Francis John to the list of recommended Youtubers? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk6C1z_ErW4XssWUdDSfV7Q

He covers multiple management games including Rimworld, Factorio, ONI, Shipbreaker, ... and I find his videos very helpful.

GetDunked
Dec 16, 2011

respectfully

Count Uvula posted:

The obvious choice:


:yeah:

Anime Store Adventure
May 6, 2009


We also started using the old W&R thread again since it was generating a lot of posts. Maybe worth adding to the OP!

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3885840

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



I'm enjoying Big Pharma so far, even if it's kind of maddening how purposefully awkward placements are sometimes.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007
hi I’m back to efficiently manage factories and stuff

Sweeper
Nov 29, 2007
The Joe Buck of Posting
Dinosaur Gum

Captain Monkey posted:

hi I’m back to efficiently manage factories and stuff

Efficiency is optional, just do more

SkyeAuroline
Nov 12, 2020

Sweeper posted:

Efficiency is optional, just do more

Number go up, no matter how.

Diogines
Dec 22, 2007

Beaky the Tortoise says, click here to join our choose Your Own Adventure Game!

Paradise Lost: Clash of the Heavens!

I want this on the first page so as to be preserved for posterity as Future Goons look at this thread for games to play.

Surviving Mars is the most overlooked and underappreciated Management/City Builder game of the past decade and I am totally not being hyperbolic! If you like Colonize Another Planet niche of games, which is admittedly a small niche, this is one you should not skip.

Unlike Per Aspera, which is also about colonizing mars which you should skip because the UI is a mess and the game is poorly balanced and the story is bland and it does not value your time and also is bad.

Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo
Let's not pretend Surviving Mars values your time in particular either, I download mods that let me play it at x18 speed and it still is mostly downtime

Kvlt!
May 19, 2012



The only game you need from the list is OpenTTD. Embrace the TRAIN

Diogines
Dec 22, 2007

Beaky the Tortoise says, click here to join our choose Your Own Adventure Game!

Paradise Lost: Clash of the Heavens!

Azhais posted:

Let's not pretend Surviving Mars values your time in particular either, I download mods that let me play it at x18 speed and it still is mostly downtime
That is a good point, but sort of a different issue. Though I agree that speed mods are vital, I could not play without them.

Unlike Per Aspera, which wants you to spend 20 hours on a play through and will have you hit multiple different "lol you lose now" situations which it does not warn you about. It does not value your time because it can throw you into impossible to win situations quickly, with no warning and nothing you could have done to prepare for them unless you knew they were coming. It can also set up scenarios which doom you to fail, but does not doom you to fail until ten hours of play time has passed and you had no idea something was going wrong until it is way, way, way too late to fix it. Unlike Surviving Mars, where the things which will totally gently caress you are generally things you can see in advance and prepare for, or if you build redundancies into your colony to prepare for the unexpected, you can usually survive.

Diogines fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jan 5, 2021

NoEyedSquareGuy
Mar 16, 2009

Just because Liquor's dead, doesn't mean you can just roll this bitch all over town with "The Freedoms."
Subnautica could be added to base building games. Probably wouldn't have gotten into Satisfactory if I didn't have the base building itch I got from Subnautica, now after 500 hours of factory construction I've had to start over on a new save because there's so much stuff in my game world that the framerate has become unplayable.

Is Astroneer worth a look after playing so much Satisfactory? The looming update 4 for Satisfactory has kind of disincentivized playing it, knowing any late-game production lines are going to break when it drops. Had my eye on Astroneer for a while but it looks a lot more casual and potentially shallow by comparison.

explosivo
May 23, 2004

Fueled by Satan

NoEyedSquareGuy posted:

Is Astroneer worth a look after playing so much Satisfactory? The looming update 4 for Satisfactory has kind of disincentivized playing it, knowing any late-game production lines are going to break when it drops. Had my eye on Astroneer for a while but it looks a lot more casual and potentially shallow by comparison.

Astroneer rules but is not at all like Satisfactory. I haven't played since their automation update which does let you automate a lot of manual processes you used to have to do but it's more exploration and building the new tech and a base instead of pumping out resources. It's a fantastic exploration/survival/base building game though and the modular nature of all the buildings and equipment is so cool once you realize how it all snaps together. Highly recommended but don't go into it expecting something like Satisfactory.

Brain Curry
Feb 15, 2007

People think that I'm lazy
People think that I'm this fool because
I give a fuck about the government
I didn't graduate from high school



NoEyedSquareGuy posted:

Is Astroneer worth a look after playing so much Satisfactory? The looming update 4 for Satisfactory has kind of disincentivized playing it, knowing any late-game production lines are going to break when it drops. Had my eye on Astroneer for a while but it looks a lot more casual and potentially shallow by comparison.

Astroneer is way more shallow than Satisfactory. I had more fun exploring caves and mining by hand than I did with the automation.

Grevlek
Jan 11, 2004
I also like managing games

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Grevlek posted:

I also like managing games

Welcome! Come and fail to build trains with us!

KirbyKhan
Mar 20, 2009



Soiled Meat

Diogines posted:

That is a good point, but sort of a different issue. Though I agree that speed mods are vital, I could not play without them.

Unlike Per Aspera, which wants you to spend 20 hours on a play through and will have you hit multiple different "lol you lose now" situations which it does not warn you about. It does not value your time because it can throw you into impossible to win situations quickly, with no warning and nothing you could have done to prepare for them unless you knew they were coming. Unlike Surviving Mars, where the things which will totally gently caress you are generally things you can see in advance and prepare for, or if you build redundancies into your colony to prepare for the unexpected, you can usually survive.

Man I had like 20 false starts on Surviving Mars and each end would be hella impossible to just run back 3 sols to fix. Structural poo poo like water storage, dust storm mechanics, the fine tune amount of stuff to buy on limited rocket rides, 5 false starts because I couldn't figure out drone storage, 15 of those false starts I still had universal storage built. Electronic Stores will kill you dead and not a single alert will tell you it is your colonist turning all your electronics into iPhones.

Yes, once you get to cycle 75 the third time you will have built something sturdy, but a cycle is still like 20 God damned minutes on regular speed.

We need to start this thread with the truth and Surviving Mars operates on a scale proportional to actually terraforming mars.

Great game tho, fuckin love it. I am now qualified enough to actually terraform mars, send me up there I know what will kill us.

Per Aspara is an apm test where the gameplay becomes an instinctual "number go up" fugue state. You get interrupted by human feelings and boring people. I think it is fine. Comparatively arcady next to Surviving Mars.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


KirbyKhan posted:

We need to start this thread with the truth and Surviving Mars operates on a scale proportional to actually terraforming mars.
:emptyquote:

Count Uvula
Dec 20, 2011

---

NoEyedSquareGuy posted:

Subnautica could be added to base building games. Probably wouldn't have gotten into Satisfactory if I didn't have the base building itch I got from Subnautica, now after 500 hours of factory construction I've had to start over on a new save because there's so much stuff in my game world that the framerate has become unplayable.

I'd say it's a game with tangential base building and not a management game in any sense of the word. You don't really manage the base you build and there's almost no meat to the basic base based gameplay.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Sweeper posted:

Efficiency is optional, just do more

:yeah:

Grevlek posted:

I also like managing games

hello friend!!!

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR
Subnautica was originally in the list and then removed because of reasons mentioned. If there is ever a Homesteading thread then it could probably find a home there.

Grevlek
Jan 11, 2004
I was hoping to get some recommendations but it looks like we got caught up in OP talk at the end of the last thread.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/grevlek/games/?tab=all

Anyone have any recommendations for games that are on sale that I don't have? I like strategy, management, and rpg games. I've just picked up Workers and Resources and Oxygen Not Included. I like them both, but WandR is kind of a chore to play, and ONI feels like a uptuned Craft the World.

Fifty Farts
Dec 23, 2013

- Meticulously Researched
- Peer-reviewed
People talking about Astroneer: you might also be interested in the similarly-named Stationeers. It's still early-access, but I really like it. It's kind of like a first-person Oxygen Not Included, with you as the only dupe (unless you play with other people). You're an astronaut on a planet/moon with an unbreathable atmosphere. The lander has supplies to get you started, and the map is full of ore deposits that you can turn into ingots to fuel your 3D printers that make everything you need to survive. Your space suit (and some of your tools) is battery-powered, but there's a battery charger and a solar panel on the lander to get you started. The big thing for this game is managing pressure, temperature, and gas mixtures, and a good early goal that involves all 3 of them is to set up a greenhouse for growing food. The hunger meter is optional (the default is really low so it takes a long time to starve, plus the lander has a bunch of extra cereal bars and plants to get started), and there's a big oxygen tank, but eventually you'll need to make that yourself to stay alive.

There's also a logic circuit system, so you can program and automate things, like having all of your solar panels tracking the sun during the day, and resetting to the dawn position at night. Or having all your exterior lights turn on when the sun goes down. It's nice and satisfying to look out over my moon-base platform: from my 3D printers arranged for easy access and set up so that all the finished products get sent by a chute system into a small room, to my furnaces smelting ore into ingots and sending the waste gasses through pipes that cool the gas mixture before it goes through a series of filters so each gas gets stored in its own tank. The greenhouse on top of a nearby hill is temperature- and pressure-controlled, with an airlock entrance, and there's a vent inside that can pump CO2 into the room (and another setup outside to filter out extra oxygen and send it back to the main oxygen tank, which is also hooked up to a small tank filler unit so I can replace the one in my astronaut suit when that gets low). All of this is powered by solar-tracking solar panels that store excess energy in a series of battery banks, where it's then sent through transformers to limit the power being sent through the various sub-grids (like Prison Architect or ONI). Luckily, there's a wiki and a bunch of other useful information available online for stuff like the logic circuits and furnace recipes (advanced alloys need specific ore mixtures as well as limited temperature/pressure ranges at which they can be made - outside of those conditions, you just get garbage ores that can be recycled back into their base ingredients).

It's got multiplayer, and I've played a bit with some friends, but I've got a lot more solo time. It's a good podcast game - there isn't any combat, and any problems with your suit have an audio cue as well as a visual one. The big goal is to eventually build a rocket (I think), but I look at that the same way I look at building a ship in RimWorld - a vague suggestion at best, but outright ignored most of the time. It also seems like the developers' eventual goal is to include a Space Station 13-style mission mode, where multiple players have to maintain (or possibly sabotage) a base to stay alive, and each player gets different tools instead of the full toolkit that everyone gets normally. I don't know very much about that because I'm pretty sure it's not even implemented yet, and I'm also way less interested in it than in sandbox. It's a fun game that has sucked away a lot of my free time, both playing it and thinking about how to set up some little system or another.


I don't have very many screenshots of it, and this one isn't the best (it was for the Halloween update), but it shows the UI (which has since changed a little bit, but not by much). The 6 slots on the left all have their own pop-up menus (I usually keep the backpack and belt open), and the suit menu is where you deal with oxygen, CO2, and your suit's battery). The UI size is also adjustable, and I almost always make things smaller than the default (I think that's at about 70 or 80%), so if it's hard to read at all, it doesn't have to be! :) (also, that's from a Mars game, not the moon as might be implied from the rest of my post)

Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jan 5, 2021

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



My only issue with stationeers (from about 2 years ago) was just how laggy it got with any sort of scale building. Even a medium sized base just chugged.

explosivo
May 23, 2004

Fueled by Satan

I've had stationeers on my wishlist for like 2 years now but never pulled the trigger on it. I've probably been waiting for it to come out of EA but who knows when that's happening.

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Mayveena posted:

Subnautica was originally in the list and then removed because of reasons mentioned. If there is ever a Homesteading thread then it could probably find a home there.

Since Subnautica and other similar homesteading games keep coming up, maybe the OP should include an "honorable mention" section for things that keep getting tossed around?

quote:

Stationeers

I've seen that but the reviews have scared me off. It seems like a less fully-baked Space Engineers.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Grevlek posted:

I was hoping to get some recommendations but it looks like we got caught up in OP talk at the end of the last thread.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/grevlek/games/?tab=all

Anyone have any recommendations for games that are on sale that I don't have? I like strategy, management, and rpg games. I've just picked up Workers and Resources and Oxygen Not Included. I like them both, but WandR is kind of a chore to play, and ONI feels like a uptuned Craft the World.

As Far As The Eye is on sale for... another three hours. The thing I want to call it is "Dwarf Fortress roguelite" - you've got a selection of maps and paths between you and "The Eye", the one place of shelter in a world that's slowly flooding, and you have to put down buildings and assign your handful of workers to keep themselves fed and get all the resources or training you need to go down the next path, in addition to more generally building buildings and training your workers in professions that will be useful down the line. Disasters happen periodically and there's always a major ongoing one just ahead of the flood, so sticking around is risky, and you're limited by the size of your caravan in how many goods and portable buildings you can take from one map to the next, though one of the things you develop is how big your caravan gets and how well you can pack various resources.

Also it looks way too fanciful for a game about not starving, but I think that's a good thing:

Mayveena
Dec 27, 2006

People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

Grevlek posted:

I was hoping to get some recommendations but it looks like we got caught up in OP talk at the end of the last thread.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/grevlek/games/?tab=all

Anyone have any recommendations for games that are on sale that I don't have? I like strategy, management, and rpg games. I've just picked up Workers and Resources and Oxygen Not Included. I like them both, but WandR is kind of a chore to play, and ONI feels like a uptuned Craft the World.

Nearly every game in the OP that has a Steam link is on sale.

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Dark_Swordmaster
Oct 31, 2011
Wow not even giving Megaquarium the time of day!

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