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zedprime posted:Precariously balanced out by the idea that these places or processes are refined and improved by a lone central planner behind the screen. There's weirdly few games about or including market economies, even counting some of the stock simplest supply and demand curves. I worked really hard to make a house that is mostly beer-piss-concrete by volume.
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Oct 4, 2022 22:26
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The SA Forums > Video Games > Management Megathread: I worked really hard to make a house that is mostly beer-piss-concrete by volume.
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Oct 4, 2022 22:42
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I want more management/city builder games where you aren't a dictator-god. Stuff like Majesty maybe.
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Oct 4, 2022 23:09
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Jack Trades posted:I want more management/city builder games where you aren't a dictator-god. Weirdly this is one of the meta-reasons I enjoy W&R so much. Your single dictator-god perspective is fairly believable as a central planning committee, so decisions that seem "gamey" make some kind of sense because hey, there's one entity doing all the planning. This always bugs me in Cities: Skylines but I've heard that discussion play out a lot regarding "How would you include politics/etc" in something like Skylines and even at a theorycraft level it always sounds dire.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:13
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There's that... weird libertarian city builder that was released a while ago? I can't remember what it's called but I think it was poo poo.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:19
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OwlFancier posted:There's that... weird libertarian city builder that was released a while ago? I can't remember what it's called but I think it was poo poo. Oh yeah lol. I was speaking more just independent of the game taking an opinion, which I mean, how is that even possible. But yeah almost inevitably it comes with some assumptions about behaviors that sort of inevitably make it weird. I was more thinking “politics” in the case of like, it’s interesting to me to want want to demolish this street and rezone it, but there’s resistance to that, or it’s more expensive, etc. That sort of plays off of the idea of like “Look, you’re the planner and that’s great but you aren’t a god.” Again, though, I don’t think there’s a fun way to really delve into that and still have relative creative freedom in a city builder.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:23
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There's maybe a reason the only game approaching civics simulator is the Democracy series where your polity is a disembodied neural network of feedback mechanisms. Citystate/Citystate 2 is the game referred to which on surface level looks like just a vaguely sufficient SimCity clone with extra policies. But no one in the thread has been brave enough to bite because deeper analysis reveals some South Park libertarian leaning in the policy text among gameplay consequences like full communism is placing every building in a game the scale of SimCity 3000.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:32
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OwlFancier posted:I have a hundred million roubles in workers and resources and I would like to buy everyone in the republic a gold toilet or something. Build more schools and libraries. Or warehouses and pretend that they’re all VR game halls.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:35
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zedprime posted:There's maybe a reason the only game approaching civics simulator is the Democracy series where your polity is a disembodied neural network of feedback mechanisms. But the actual problem I found is that it’s not a city builder at all. The city is basically only there for eye candy. The game is just a puzzle of balancing policy sliders to avoid disaster.
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Oct 5, 2022 00:44
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zedprime posted:There's maybe a reason the only game approaching civics simulator is the Democracy series where your polity is a disembodied neural network of feedback mechanisms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvxBx4D9Jo Though honestly at this point even this has become less unbelievable
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Oct 5, 2022 01:43
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zedprime posted:Precariously balanced out by the idea that these places or processes are refined and improved by a lone central planner behind the screen. There's weirdly few games about or including market economies, even counting some of the stock simplest supply and demand curves. its very nice to see people in comment sections arguing about zoning and car parking and so on but the disappointing part is that so, so very much of low grade online urbanism that people dicker over clearly blames the state of things on some disembodied bad actor who planned everything badly, for corporate profits sim city really is the root of how a lot of people conceptualize urban planning. nobody's in charge, turns out Anime Store Adventure posted:This always bugs me in Cities: Skylines but I've heard that discussion play out a lot regarding "How would you include politics/etc" in something like Skylines and even at a theorycraft level it always sounds dire. yeah you can't really make a 'realistic' city builder because in reality, in the united states, urban planning is boring as gently caress and getting anything done in a city involves persuading tremendous numbers of stakeholders to agree with you and then losing power because you made another tremendous number of stakeholders mad by changing too many things W&R owns because you can think things like "i AM the central planning committee. gently caress property rights, we're building it here" and thats completely congruent within the game world Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Oct 5, 2022 |
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Oct 5, 2022 01:55
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I find the Democracy games so disappointing. Even with the extra election DLC in 4 there's zero actual opposition to any policies you put forward. The other party or parties don't have actual positions or supporters, they just soak up a percentage of the vote every election. There's no division of government, you just decide whatever you want within the constraints of your energy meter, and the only thing keeping you from picking all the good policies and cruising to utopian overabundance and infinite election wins is a mechanic that turns voters against you after a certain amount of time unless you keep juggling priorities and interest groups. It honestly should barely qualify as a simulation. Victoria 3 will almost certainly be a much more robust government and election sim on top of being a grand strategy game.
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Oct 5, 2022 02:00
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CuddleCryptid posted:This is basically "Capitalism, ho!" the thread anyways. 90% of the games here that involve managing people is just keeping them barely happy enough that they don't riot and burn your house down. This is a fun(ny!) way of describing the game genre, but since I have discovered Timberborn is incredibly addictive to my personal brain worms, I want to argue against the universality of this claim. If we loosely define capitalism as "number goes up", the game doesn't even bother tracking that many numbers, other than tangible ones such as how many carrots and planks my beavers (as a collective!) have available, how much power is available in my power grid, etc. The abstract Number, which might be what they envision to be the "goal" of the game?, is just general "well-being", so if I'm trying to make my beaver survival commune do good, I'll print books for them to eat (I don't understand why else books are consumables) along with pastries and stuff in addition to potato slop, carousels to ride in, and big-rear end beaver statues that they think look awesome. I guess politically the player is running a collectivist state/colony, but there's no real mechanics for punishing the beavers*, just making their lives less of a toil. *You can send them to 
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Oct 5, 2022 05:23
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I’ve been reading Cadillac Desert and it makes me want even more hydrological management games. I’m going to jump back into Timberborn. If you’ve read the book and are like “isn’t the point of that book that a ton of the hydrological engineering that you’re seemingly excited about is bad?” You’re right but it gives me the engineering equivalent of “I can fix him/her.”
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Oct 5, 2022 05:47
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I have a similar thing where I read something about industrial disasters or destruction of nature and I find myself wanting to play another round of Captain of Industry or Factorio.
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Oct 5, 2022 12:43
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How's Dyson Sphere coming along? I know about and am excited about the combat update but has there been enough new stuff added that it might be worth checking out again now if I haven't since blueprints were added?
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Oct 5, 2022 13:03
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Rappaport posted:This is a fun(ny!) way of describing the game genre, but since I have discovered Timberborn is incredibly addictive to my personal brain worms, I want to argue against the universality of this claim. This is a big part of what appeals to me about colony sims in the Dwarf Fortress mould. Without using money as an abstraction layer, you not only have genuine productive reasons to have a diverse range of industries going, but you're also not mechanically pushed toward just rinsing your units for all the money you can make as optimally as possible.
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Oct 5, 2022 13:21
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explosivo posted:How's Dyson Sphere coming along? I know about and am excited about the combat update but has there been enough new stuff added that it might be worth checking out again now if I haven't since blueprints were added? they added a logistics delivery system for your own inventory like last week. it's been mostly smaller quality of life stuff instead of huge new features lately
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Oct 5, 2022 16:24
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Books are literally consumables in timberborn, it mentiones it in the tooltip I think. They read them then eat the paper.
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Oct 5, 2022 17:25
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Little Big Workshop is on steam sale today for $7. I had been eyeing it, so I picked it up at that price.
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Oct 5, 2022 17:44
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Bhodi posted:Little Big Workshop is on steam sale today for $7. I had been eyeing it, so I picked it up at that price. its good! its simple but good one thing i discovered to increase throughput is to have rooms of loosely grouped tasks (metal forming machines, metal cutting machines, plastic machines) that utilize the same rough inputs. i'll put a bunch of shelves in that room tied to the machines, then one generic shelf in its own little storage zone. the idea is that when a worker is done processing some piece, they can simply place it on the nearest empty, unmarked shelf then go get more raw material from the next shelf down to start the next piece. then your haulers can do the work of taking the finished piece off the generic shelf to carry to the next step and whatever room it is in
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Oct 5, 2022 18:10
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I've played a couple rounds of Against the Storm and I think it's more frustrating than fun. There are a lot of production paths that require multiple pieces to make. Like beer requires wheat and then pottery or barrels and also a tavern. So you need a farm (or equivalent); a clay source or copper source and a forge; a pottery/cooper; a brewery; and a tavern. In every single game, I'll get 2-3 of the pieces early on, and then not get the final piece until the last 10 minutes of the round or even never. Repeat for multiple production chains. The orders you get early on can be impossible to fulfil until late game because the RNG never gave an option for any of the alternate production paths that produces it. It's not so much keeping plates spinning like a traditional city builder. Instead it feels like gambling. Like I'm constantly playing a gacha game where they take away everything I was lucky enough to get at the end of the round.
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Oct 5, 2022 18:44
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OwlFancier posted:Books are literally consumables in timberborn, it mentiones it in the tooltip I think. They read them then eat the paper.
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Oct 5, 2022 20:45
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OwlFancier posted:Books are literally consumables in timberborn, it mentiones it in the tooltip I think. They read them then eat the paper. Yeah, I said I print them for the lil fellas to eat. The wiki says they receive no nutrition from them, though. 
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Oct 5, 2022 21:10
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Rappaport posted:Yeah, I said I print them for the lil fellas to eat. The wiki says they receive no nutrition from them, though. They're consumed for knowledge, not calories. Have you not had the experience of just devouring a good book in one read?
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Oct 6, 2022 01:40
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Timberborn is a game I know I'll love when I play it, but when it first came out a few people were saying it felt really early access and would probably be a really great game later, so I held off, not wanting to burn out on it. Do people still feel that way? Is the game in a good place overall? Does it seem like even greater things are on the horizon for the game? The more I hear about it the more I want to just dive in right now, burnout be damned.
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Oct 6, 2022 05:45
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Eiba posted:Timberborn is a game I know I'll love when I play it, but when it first came out a few people were saying it felt really early access and would probably be a really great game later, so I held off, not wanting to burn out on it. I played it in early access and I really didn't feel like it had much farther to go at all, it felt very complete. That was when it was the new thing so I imagine that it's quite a lot better now. I'd jump in.
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Oct 6, 2022 05:48
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I don’t think it’s complete at all. I couldn’t put it down for like four hours but the system feels slightly half-baked. There’s no real satisfaction, only frustration, in building out multiple districts. It lacks the sense of progression that, say, Tropico has.
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Oct 6, 2022 06:48
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Timberborn has some good core gameplay and mechanics, it's just missing some more concrete goals to work towards.
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Oct 6, 2022 06:56
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nielsm posted:Timberborn has some good core gameplay and mechanics, it's just missing some more concrete goals to work towards. This is mainly the only problem at this point. Your "goal" becomes to have your beavers gently caress more, until they're all very happy. The game is otherwise pretty developed and I would not feel bad if I paid full price for it now.
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Oct 6, 2022 07:03
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Your goal is what you make it. Mine is to have wooden robots doing all the work so the beavers can spend all day having fun and being happy. I don't care for districts so I play small maps. These have the added advantage of looking very cute when fully-developed and cultivated, for example: https://twitter.com/l_XaNaDu_l/status/1444024450563850241
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Oct 6, 2022 07:33
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Lol @ somebody who wants concrete goals in Timberborn.
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Oct 6, 2022 08:21
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You'll get wooden goals.
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Oct 6, 2022 08:21
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Does the aggressive beaver tribe sneak into their neighbour's houses and just eat the last page of the books?
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Oct 6, 2022 08:56
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I wanted to get that feeling that I got in factorio, the whole "the factory has been expanded to meet the needs of the expanding factory" with timberborn... But it just didn't grab me the same way. Some of it is that you don't get resources back when you demolish a building? Sometimes I just wanna move something a square over, drat. I should try a smaller map, though, because I really dislike the way district's are done.
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Oct 6, 2022 08:57
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It didn't grab me because it wasn't dam focused
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Oct 6, 2022 09:33
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Volmarias posted:They're consumed for knowledge, not calories. Have you not had the experience of just devouring a good book in one read? I guess this explains why my place is full of books, I should literally devour them  Eiba posted:Timberborn is a game I know I'll love when I play it, but when it first came out a few people were saying it felt really early access and would probably be a really great game later, so I held off, not wanting to burn out on it. As posted earlier, I'm nuts for this game so I am extremely biased, but I agree with what others said. I'm happy just making a map-spanning power grid and terraforming the place to meet my needs, and getting the (capital district) beavers very happy seems to happen quite naturally just by developing out your tech tree. And the beavers have cute animations when they're having fun in their fun having houses  But it's a sandbox, and there's no "win" scenario other than what makes you personally satisfied.The district mechanic is a little annoying, and I feel like I have to play around it rather than with it. You can pre-pad a new district with a warehouse full of food and a big tank of water, and now with the I get that it's because the beaver pathfinding AI has limits and all that, but it's still a bit cumbersome from a player perspective 
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Oct 6, 2022 10:39
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Azhais posted:It didn't grab me because it wasn't dam focused It is if you play on harder difficulties, securing more reservoir space is a big reason for expansion.
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Oct 6, 2022 10:53
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Somehow I think it would be cool if the resource delivery and migration between districts would be done automatically. Similar to what Settlers 2 tried to do with it's ships: You build your district and plan your buildings and some AI tries to balance the imports and exports to make everything do. Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Oct 6, 2022 |
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Oct 6, 2022 12:35
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Wipfmetz posted:Somehow I think it would be cool if the resource delivery and migration between districts would be done automatically. The new version does have some kind of automatic migration button, but I haven't dared trying to fiddle with it yet You can't place harbour tiles in s2edit.exe without some modifications, right? Did the harbours work on anything but the maps specifically made by Bluebyte? (And Settlers 2 is a poor example anyway since the resource distribution "AI" breaks down on big maps with enough time )
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Oct 6, 2022 16:10
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