|
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. Existing (active) base buildings threads: Dwarf Fortress Minecraft Oxygen Not Included Factorio Terraria Subnautica Satisfactory Rimworld Stardew Valley(More of a farming game?) Astroneer My Time At Portia 7 Days to Die Kenshi Cities Skylines Prison Architect Surviving Mars Sim City Retro Thread Transport Fever OTTD Tropico If there's more than these, let me know and I'll add those. This thread will be focused on PvE play or co-op play, not PvP play. My current faves are Factory Town a more accessible (imo of course) version of Factorio (my review https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197991369617/recommended/860890/) Railway Empireand Autonauts. Astroneer, and Terraria are quite popular as well. I also have a lot of time (over 1,000 hours) in Oxygen Not Included. Popular City Building games include Banished, Tropico 6, Rise to Ruins, Foundation, Kingdoms and Castles, Dawn of Man, Surviving the Aftermath Popular games in the railroad genre specifically are Transport Fever, Railway Empire, Mashinky, Railroad Corporation, and OTTD. YouTubers in this space: Katherine of Sky Nookrium Orbital Potato Raptor Nilaeus Conflict Nerd Sky Storme Colonel Failure I hope this is helpful to folks and I'm happy to answer questions and consider changes. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Nov 19, 2020 |
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:43 |
|
|
Mindustry is a good one, it's like Factorio but the graphics are better and it just seems like a general improvement, I haven't actually played Factorio so I can't compare them well but I really enjoyed Mindustry.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:33
|
|
|
I bought Astroneer when it first came out a long time ago in early access and didn't put a lot of time in. is there anything there worth putting time into? Is it better alone or with friends?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:37
|
|
|
Shibawanko posted:Mindustry is a good one, it's like Factorio but the graphics are better and it just seems like a general improvement, I haven't actually played Factorio so I can't compare them well but I really enjoyed Mindustry. I have not been able to get into that game. But that's often true for me with these games, I think I played Terraria for 40 hours plus before it finally clicked for me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:38
|
|
|
Harry Potter on Ice posted:I bought Astroneer when it first came out a long time ago in early access and didn't put a lot of time in. is there anything there worth putting time into? Is it better alone or with friends? It's certainly better with friends, that said out of my 600 hours with it I only had a single day co op with my son, all the rest was single player. What base building games do you like?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:39
|
|
|
At work so I can't put a lot of links, but Rise to Ruins just got out of early access on Steam and it seems pretty promising. I've played about 15 hours so far and think it has a good foundation. I'm finding the Traditional mode way too easy and boring right now, now that I've got all the parts to the base down. I'll have to try Survival and see if it keeps the fun going longer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:43
|
|
|
Empyrion is another one. Maybe Evospace too but that's like one of the technology mods on Minecraft to some exponent.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 16:43
|
|
|
Rise to Ruins on sale right now. Empyrion Galactic Survival
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:04
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:At work so I can't put a lot of links, but Rise to Ruins just got out of early access on Steam and it seems pretty promising. I tried Rise to Ruins for about 5 hours but it seemed very slow and unrewarding, and the UI seemed fairly clunky. I'm imagining that it gets better when you have about 50 villagers and can devote people to each job, but I wasn't enjoying it enough to stay that long. As example on the UI issues, there's a warning tab that warns tell you that 4 villagers are outside of your village. But there's no clear way to see who, or where they are, or why. Or, I'm wondering why I'm short on boards. No way to find the sawyer to see what they are up to. There might be a way to get that info without clicking on every individual villager, but googling didn't reveal anything.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:08
|
|
|
esquilax posted:I tried Rise to Ruins for about 5 hours but it seemed very slow and unrewarding, and the UI seemed fairly clunky. I'm imagining that it gets better when you have about 50 villagers and can devote people to each job, but I wasn't enjoying it enough to stay that long. Yeah that's definitely another big pain point for the game. It never gets easier to determine what is really happening in your base, the UI and visual indicators just aren't there. It just got out of early access though, so I have faith that these are going to be iterated on over time. The dev already has at least one free content update announced. For now, I think it's worth it for the sale price (not sure if that expired), with the regular price working out if the dev keeps improving the game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:21
|
|
|
esquilax posted:
Clicking on a building will highlight the workers with a green box around them, as well as show their current path. I have around 100 hours in RtR. It's pretty great but I mod the poo poo out of it and tweak a lot of stuff to make it more enjoyable for me. I think it needs a few major content releases to really hit the next level.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:29
|
|
|
Also, in case you've been living under a rock, KatherineOfSky is a good place to find new games like this!
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:29
|
|
|
manero posted:Also, in case you've been living under a rock, KatherineOfSky is a good place to find new games like this! Yeah I'll add her and a couple of other youtubers as well who do games in this space. Biffa used to, but he's off fixing traffic in Cities Skylines sadly.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:33
|
|
|
Garfu posted:Clicking on a building will highlight the workers with a green box around them, as well as show their current path. Which mods and why?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:43
|
|
|
I love Stardew Valley but I’m not sure it belongs in a base builders list. As long as you’re counting it, we should probably add My time at Portia and Don’t Starve. Portia thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3879828
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 17:50
|
|
|
would you consider Surviving Mars and Two Point Hospital to be base building games? there's another promising one in early access right now called Foundation. the gimmick here is that it's a free form, no grid medieval village builder with certain superbuildings that you snap together out of components. so like you plop down your various homes and workshops, but then there's buildings like the market, the castle, the church etc. which you can make as big or small as you like, with stats derived from the various components you plug into the building. if it doesn't fall into alpha stasis it could be cool in a year or two, i'd suggest this one for the wishlist also, there's the excellent Dawn of Man which did not get much attention when it was released. it's about hunter-gatherers and the transition from nomadic to settled lifestyle from the stone age to the iron age. it plays a bit like Banished in terms of seasonal resource collection, but not as harsh or unforgiving. the main gameplay loop is allocating the labor of your scarce people to collect food and resources from the environment as you progress through the tech tree. in the early game your main hazard is the wild animals you have to hunt for meat and skins, but as you develop agriculture you have to start fending off attacks from hostile human raiders. the game keeps a somewhat chill tone as you just exist in nature but strikes a balance between not being a mindless resource collector while also not being too brutal of a constant death simulator. the devs are very active and constantly adding new free content, so there's good value for money here. also you can deconstruct/reconstruct buildings at minimal resource cost which is a great mechanic for making pretty villages
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 18:03
|
|
|
I think I'll buy Dawn of Man, I really like chill no fuss games like that. Banished had some flaws but I really like the way that game looks, it kind of goes back to the "grey and brown" of the 2000s era but in a setting where that's actually appropriate, a European forest with understated colors and little brooks and rivers. Just feels good to play.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 18:40
|
|
|
I like to build a base.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 18:42
|
|
|
There was that "The Settlers" clone not too long ago. It had robots. It didn't really look that great. Does anybody remember the name, and if it actually was any good?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 18:47
|
|
|
I'm currently playing Surviving the Aftermath which just released like two days ago in EA. It's clearly taking a lot from Banished and has some bugs and stuff but I'm optimistic about how it develops.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 18:49
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:Which mods and why? Just my own modifications to the base code. I've sped up the villagers 3x, more nomads per day, more god xp and perk chests, edited some towers to be a little better, that kinda stuff.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:02
|
|
|
Shibawanko posted:Banished had some flaws but I really like the way that game looks, it kind of goes back to the "grey and brown" of the 2000s era but in a setting where that's actually appropriate, a European forest with understated colors and little brooks and rivers. Just feels good to play. banished was developed by a single person who has years of games industry experience writing graphics and engines, which is why the game looked real great relative to most vanity studio projects. he's teased some new code for what looks like a gridless village builder (not banished 2, exactly) but as of yet no additional news
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:12
|
|
|
I would put Banished in a city building megathread, a megathread which needs to exist but first I need to get this one going. If this one goes well, I'll create a city building megathread which would include Banished, Anno, Surviving Mars, the new Aftermath game, and a bunch of others. Two Point Hospital and Megaquarium are more like simulation games instead of base building games. A hospital is not really a base  . Simulation games are interesting too but I can only do so much .
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:15
|
|
|
VictualSquid posted:There was that "The Settlers" clone not too long ago. It had robots. "The Colonists" I haven't played it myself but looking at the tests and Steam store page it seems to be "ok" I personally am waiting for Industries of Titan The store page is rather light on info and the trailer is just marketing but it seems to be a city builder with light rts elements. You develop certain industries in your city, which in turn let's you build new equipment for your customizable space ships which you use to attack and defend. It looks great and is made by the team who did Crypt of the Necrodancer so it should at least be a fun game. Release is planned for 2020.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:22
|
|
|
Does prison architect count? You could argue it's a tycoon game, but I feel like it has enough similarities with Dwarf Fortress and Rim World.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:26
|
|
|
There's also Graveyard keeper, which has a neat aesthetic. Could've used some proofreading though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 19:35
|
|
|
KillHour posted:Does prison architect count? You could argue it's a tycoon game, but I feel like it has enough similarities with Dwarf Fortress and Rim World. I think so, is there a Prison Architect thread and is it active? I'll add it if so.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:01
|
|
|
It has a cartoony aesthetic but Autonauts is a pretty chill base builder. You can program your bots to do just about everything in the game. Some things like forestry and mining are obvious but you can also assign them to grab materials and auto build any blueprints you drop in a certain area. You can freely move buildings once you build them so figuring out you need a construction yard where you can just relocate things is important. Sadly I can't fully recommend it because it does have a couple of flaws: It is designed to be grindy as hell to make you use bots as much as possible but you also have to hand program bots which is a pain after awhile. Maybe I'm just missing an import/export button for templates (there does seem to be a copy to clipboard icon but no explanation how to use it) It feels early access as hell though it's not marked as that Whoever thought of the control scheme is a horrible human. Left click to pick up, move to location, and use item on object (god help you if you're walking around with a shovel and forget you'll get to watch yourself start to dig random holes until you cancel and throw that poo poo on the ground or put it away in your backpack).
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:19
|
|
|
Terrible base(ment) goon with 2000+ hours in Dorf Fortress and Rimworld here, good initiative!
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:23
|
|
|
Nookrium is an idiot and reminds me of a nervous small animal. I'm still subbed to the guy though, he goes pretty much only plays niche strategy/rpg/building games, just don't watch him and expect him to be a pro at anything. Also if Empyrion Galactic Survival makes the list so does 7 Days to Die. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:25
|
|
|
Tias posted:Terrible base(ment) goon with 2000+ hours in Dorf Fortress and Rimworld here, good initiative!  Welcome fellow basement dweller!
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:49
|
|
|
OK so post games that you have played a decent amount in and recommend and I'll add them to the OP so in case this gets seriously big people can still find recommended games. Sorry should have thought of this at first.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:54
|
|
|
Frostpunk?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 20:56
|
|
|
The lines between base builders and small town builders or certain Sim games is very blurred, but they tend to scratch the same itch for me and I'd quite like to see them all mentioned as long as they're described. Speaking of descriptions, can we clarify which games are EA and which have actually hit release? I don't like to get into stuff until it's actual gone gold and this genre seems about 70% EA, two thirds of which will probably end up being abandoned before finish.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:02
|
|
|
A guy named Raptor does a lot of videos on games like this, and lately so has Colonel Failure, kind of. What do you guys say the difference between a base builder and a city builder is? In particular, I’d be interested in the categorization of these two as an example: Anno 1800 and Foundation. Wow I kept that window open a while.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:07
|
|
|
Kenshi is a free-roaming squad based sandbox RPG, but it has a good, sizable, and optional, base-building component to it. The base-building side is essentially a full (and fun!) game by itself, but it is stapled on to a completely different genre.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:10
|
|
|
If you look at a definitive base builder such as Dwarf Fortress/Minecraft vs a definitive city builder such as Cities Skylines, I think there's just too much difference between those games where that a fan of one type would automatically be a fan of the other. That's what I want to do here is give people who like similar games a place to find and talk about why they like them. If everything becomes everything the thread won't be very useful.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:32
|
|
|
WithoutTheFezOn posted:A guy named Raptor does a lot of videos on games like this, and lately so has Colonel Failure, kind of. You don't have a base in Anno 1800, you have cities, right? The approach to a city builder is totally different than in a base builder. In a city builder you are focused on keeping a lot of people happy, in a base builder the focus is smaller. While Dwarf Fortress will eventually have a lot of dwarfs (if you are lucky ) it's still focused on building a base for those dwarfs to live in. Those dwarfs have names and skills as well, it's not like in City Skylines where yeah they might have names but at the end of the day they are just pixels needing to go somewhere and have no real skills or unique impact on the city. Anno doesn't even have named citizens. All of this is part of a bigger genre of simulation games, but again I'm not sure that everyone is looking for the same thing. If you folks really think that city and base builders overlap and that people wouldn't be bored/disappointed then I'm happy to combine them. I just want the thread to be focused and useful.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:39
|
|
|
I mean the main difference between those aside from, like, interface because one is like 20 years older than the other, is the setting and level of interaction. But stuff like surviving mars, or municipal-scale colony building games, particularly those set on other worlds? It's hard to tell? There are a lot of games where you're bulding a city. But the rest of the setting makes it feel more like a "base". Similarly I'd suggest that the reason I like minecraft is actually the same reason I like cities skylines and that's that both of them let you make little dioramas, though both do it from a different perspective. If minecraft and dwarf fortress are both base builders despite having wildly different perspectives, levels of interaction etc, it's very hard to say city builders are not also base builders other than in the sense that many city builders subscribe to a very particular set of ideas based around real world concepts and inherited practices from sim city, but I'd still probably describe them as a niche subset of the former. Mayveena posted:You don't have a base in Anno 1800, you have cities, right? The approach to a city builder is totally different than in a base builder. In a city builder you are focused on keeping a lot of people happy, in a base builder the focus is smaller. While Dwarf Fortress will eventually have a lot of dwarfs (if you are lucky Anno games are another good example of the blur, because yes you're building a city, but you build it on a defined island, and you build it to produce resources in very much the same way as dwarf fortress or, particularly, surviving mars. So, what's the difference between a city and a base? Other than one usually happening in a hostile environment and focusing on self sufficiency? But then what's frostpunk? What's surviving mars? The line is really hard to draw in this day and age. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Oct 21, 2019 |
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 08:43 |
|
|
Yeah I'd second 7D2D. It's hypothetically got multiplayer (or PvP if you really hate yourself) elements but so many people play it as solo survival base builder I should think it counts, tho it leans more toward minecraft survival than DF, obviously. Kinda like Subnautica I guess, when played that way. Only without a plot.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2019 21:44
|
|
