Management Games Megathread:Are you doing the do?

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Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Are there any decent space ship/base builders, in space preferably? Not anything horribly grindy like Empyrion.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 19:42

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:24

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Kris xK posted:

Startopia, one of the greatest games in the history of games

Played it a lot but it's not really building a space station as much as plopping down buildings inside a complete station. :v:

Pigbottom posted:

Have you heard of breathedge?

It's like subnautica in space. It's early access and there are only 3 of the 5 planned chapters out yet, but it's already really good.

Thanks but I found subnautica to be completely uninteresting.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 20:16

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Sign me up for wanting to play that!

StrixNebulosa posted:

What city builders have organic growth in 'em?

Tropico. The tropicans will put up shacks all over on their own usually centered around workplaces.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2019 15:15

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Mayveena posted:

This one is more recent.

(video not available)

But I was not able to link directly to him which was irritating. I did it for the other folks in the OP, why not him? Oh well, check out those two playlists if you want to know about Foundation.

This one?

# ¿ Feb 2, 2020 14:57

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Looks similar to the complainers who were fuhrious that the Tropico games had such awful leftist ideas such as if you provide people with affordable homes, jobs, free healthcare, good food etc they would be happy.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2020 11:17

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Are there any good games like Europa 1400 The Guild? I couldn't stand The Guild 2 with having to manually run around everywhere to do anything. The third game seems to be more like the second and while the new devs seem vastly more competent than the previous it also looks like it's perpetual early access until the end of time.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 19:51

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Thanks. I've tried those games but sadly couldn't get much into them.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 20:01

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Mayveena posted:

What was your favorite part of The Guild? Maybe we can suggest something that could work.

That's a very difficult question.
-Building up a business and getting upgrades.
-Getting house(s) and upgrading them.
-Improving the character.
-Buying and using items.
-Working the way up the political job ladder.
-Shaping a dynasty.

Maybe the whole atmosphere of the game, if that makes sense? It all just comes together so nicely with different aspects (not without a few bugs and issues of course). The seasons and great variety does wonders for the game. Even something as small as reading the lampoons at the market or the employees talking is fun. My mother did not like my face, she kissed my backside in its place. Rain or shine, the purse is mine. The game just feels fun and kinda cozy (even as you pour toad slime on your spouse's house to inherit their wealth faster or holding a fiery sermon about what a sinful bastard your rival is).

edit Looks like my opinion is shared. :v:

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 20:33

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Rimworld is more of a Dwarf Fortress substitute to me. It's kinda fun but too many annoyances and not at all scratching that Guild itch. I've played The Guild so much I've almost worn it out.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 22:36

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I eurowank over eurojank.

Orv posted:

Mind you this is not a recommendation as I've not played it personally but there is an early access game called Saelig that is shooting for vaguely viking-esque Guild 2 with some more Guild 1 in there that might be worth a try. Updates are semi-slow and a lot of the negative reviews mention performance issues but most of the (useful) positive ones are Guild fans going "Hell yeah, buy this gently caress that Guild 3 nonsense."

I had completely forgotten about Saelig. Bad optimization is a dealbreaker unfortunately as it makes it impossible to build up any kind of small empire which is kinda a big point of the game in the first place. But there is always hope I suppose. :shobon:

luxury handset posted:

the only thing i can think of that is even remotely similar is sims medieval

I had forgotten about that one too, and would have preferred to have kept it that way. It was not a good or fun experience. :v:

# ¿ Feb 11, 2020 15:53

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Eiba posted:

Anyone have any thoughts on Unrailed? I'm always on the lookout for more casual building games that have coop, because I'd love to play these things with my friends, but they tend not to be as enraptured by huge factories as I am. It's currently on sale, but I'm curious if it's decent or not. Or even if it falls into this category of game. It's got some puzzle game vibes and I'm not entirely sure how the gameplay pans out.

Based on the videos I've seen a while back it's not a management game at all. If you like the challenge of hectic puzzles with a time limit you'll probably enjoy it.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2020 20:34

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Sure but let�s face it, without gathering basically spoilers beforehand most people aren�t going to start, say, monitoring their base temperature until they live through a grisly overheat situation.

Based on the little I've seen or heard about it it absolutely seems like the type of the game you are expected to wiki and youtube before even starting up. Not as bad as Dwarf Fortress (since I assume you can figure out the UI). :v:

# ¿ Mar 15, 2020 23:12

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I picked up Tropico 6 on the sale and after dealing with the UI for 45 minutes and it trying to melt my computer even on low settings it's pending a refund.

kaesarsosei posted:

I have never played any Tropico games but have Tropico 5 on PS4 and was tempted to try it. Is it a good version of the game? I haven't played any city builders since the '90s.

Pretty good, I've seen people stream the PS4 version and they said it's perfectly fine. Most people will probably say 4 is better but it's not by much. Worst bit is going to be handling rebels if you don't have any issues playing a city builder without a mouse. Tropico 4 was was too easy with rebels so they cranked them up in 5.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2020 13:06

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

GreenBuckanneer posted:

How is "industries of titan"?

I've seen two youtubers play it and it seems kinda small and shallow, like if Anno stopped around the point where you would upgrade the houses for the first time.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2020 20:12

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

doctorfrog posted:

so if I end up making a Viking village, I'll post some screenies.

Please do, it looks very interesting.

# ¿ May 6, 2020 09:41

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Well there is the other Anno games (1404 is my personal favorite), Emperor of the Middle Kingdom (same style as the Zeus, Caesar, Pharoh etc), Children of the Nile and then there are more rts games such as the Settlers series or even Cultures 2. There is a ton of city/town builders out there but most are perpetual early access so you run out of things to do in an hour.

Ineptitude posted:

I looked at lets-plays of Industries of Titan but that game looked like complete utter garbage. I just could not get into that whole "build a mini base inside your buildings".

Based on what I've seen that's only in the first 20 minutes of the game, then you get buildings which are the same things only better so you don't need to interior fiddle anymore and then you run out of new things to do and just slowly expand as more ships slowly fly in and get shot down on top of your structures forcing you to click the repair button.

Poil fucked around with this message at 12:18 on May 6, 2020

# ¿ May 6, 2020 12:16

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I've put a ridiculous amount of hours into The Guild and absolutely love it but I wouldn't call it a city builder in any way. More of a business and dynasty game. While you can construct buildings you have no direct control over the town itself.

Ineptitude posted:

Thanks everyone, lots of good info here. This thread moves really fast!
I didn't want to waste everyone time by listing all the games i have played but i ended up wasting peoples time by getting suggestions for games i have already played instead.

This feels extremely familiar. :v:

# ¿ May 6, 2020 22:11

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

COOL CORN posted:

Just picked up Anno 1404 from GOG after not playing it since, what, 2009? Nearly got choked up from the nostalgia, this game is so drat good

There are some unofficial patches and mods for it too.

explosivo posted:

This sounds great, and I apparently have The Guild/Guild 2 and it's expansions but don't remember anything about them, do they still hold up? Should I skip to 2 or is the first still the best?

That is mostly up to personal preference but I would say the first Guild is the superior option by far. I think the Guild2 expansions are like standalone and one of them is the one to play. If memory serves it was Renaissance?

# ¿ May 7, 2020 00:07

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Ineptitude posted:

I have no ships at all

There are various start options, some of them includes ships. Why do the no-ship options even exists if they almost make the game impossible to progress?

Difficulty settings. There is a ton of difficulty options to chose from. Also you should receive a flagship for free once you get citizens.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 11:10

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Volmarias posted:

CGI is a thing now, 50-50 on them even having a boat at all during filming.

Yeah, I was thinking wouldn't they just use a fog machine in the studio they film at with green screen walls? You can often very easily tell that when movie characters are in water it's just a studio pool.

# ¿ May 17, 2020 09:02

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Elias_Maluco posted:

A game called Northgard is on sale at GoG (https://www.gog.com/game/northgard?...=northgard_game)

Does anyone knows anything about it? Seems like Settlers or something

I have 128 hours on steam and I would call it a rts with survival elements. Pretty fun if frustrating at times but it's definitely rts at heart. Much faster paced and smaller scale than Settlers and your vikings can starve, freeze or get killed by animals/undead with multiple ways to win.

# ¿ May 22, 2020 16:53

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Splicer posted:

I've got a craving for The Settlers. What's the most The Settlers-ey game out there? Geologists doing backflips a real bonus.

If you haven't already you can check out the Return To The Roots which is a big mod for Settlers 2 gold. It adds modern resolutions, proper multiplayer, tons of new maps, some custom rules you can set up before a game and I'm probably forgetting something.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 08:17

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Has anybody played Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up? (Early Access, included in the Steam sale) I'd also like to hear your opinions on Megaquarium, The Colonists, and Factory Town. The thread loves Surviving Mars, right?

The Colonists is pretty fun. It's like Settlers 2 but with a bit more depth to the economy. You need energy to run resource gathering, manufacturing and doing research and you get energy by supplying houses with food of various types. More advanced energy requires more advanced food. Military are only in military missions and isn't too deep or complicated and from what I remember mostly just boils down to rushing towards the enemy as quickly as possible and quickly upgrading towers which makes the map much easier. Having a better and faster supply of ammunition and repair materials than the mildly incompetent AI is probably the intended way to do it though.

There is a map editor I believe and a random map generator was just added. Overall I'd say it's definitely worth full price.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2020 10:21

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

SlyFrog posted:

Is The Colonists just pre-made maps/campaigns, or is there a random map/procedurally generated mode (that is still a game, and not just a sandbox)?

There a map editor (with workshop support) and a patch about a week ago added random maps.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 23:03

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Empyrion is pretty fun but mining is super tedious and combat is a pain because it kinda feels like it's designed for people who's been playing since early early access. Also I'm not sure if they have changed it since I last played but repairing your ships or structures is massively inconvenient. Your stuff is made up of blocks so if an enemy sprays you with bullets from very away several dozen blocks can be damaged and you have to manually use the repair gun on each one.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2020 09:45

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Also don't research boats or mining speed or anything before combat unless you absolutely need it.

All that calm and relaxing road fiddling is replaced with stressful RUSH RUSH RUSH USE OPTIMAL BUILD ORDER OR FALL BEHIND RUSH RUSH!!!!! :downs:

# ¿ Jul 14, 2020 13:07

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I did those right after they were available and did not need two workshops or were ever anywhere close to in danger of losing but now that I think about they were made harder after people (who had played the game a lot) complained they were too easy.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2020 06:53

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Truga posted:

i'm still sad that there's nothing that does "physics" as well as dwarf fort. i remember building gigantic water cannons so when the invasions arrived i'd just flush them away with water at the speed of light and they'd splatter on the walls/floors. i'm definitely gonna start DF again when the steam release happens tho, that graphics overhaul looks legit

Just reading your post made me visualize designs in my head, and I haven't played it for years. :v:

# ¿ Jul 23, 2020 21:43

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Alamoduh posted:

It was made by that brand of dev whose only form of humor is recycled referential stuff from the media they consume. In the case of dungeons, almost everything in the game references World of Warcraft. It really sucked and I also quit and uninstalled after the second mission rather than stick it out through the cringe to see if it got any better.

I get that WoW was an incredibly influential media experience for a lot of people, but it is possible to have fantasy game humor that doesn�t reference it!

That's not quite true, the game also has a ton of Lord of The Rings references as well as some Harry Potter and other stuff. I've played through the main campaign and all dlc except for the last one where you fight against the narrator because it felt like the quality had dropped so much it became too painful to play (and if you thought the main game was too crap... :v:

# ¿ Jul 31, 2020 09:58

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Just go 4, it's better than 3 in pretty much every way. :v:

2 is... different. Personally I refunded 6 and that was my best decision with that one. 5 is ok to good. It has some steps forward and some steps back, but you can play multiplayer if that's something you wanted to do (it also runs cooler on the computer). I've tried that once with a friend and you each build a city on the same island and can send armies to attack each other while competing for objectives. Surprisingly it's not terrible.

I don't understand why some people like Juanito, all he does is shout. Penultimo and Sunny are the best radio hosts by far. Especially since most of the other characters also come on the radio. For example the opening of a museum of modern art is done by General Rodriguez and Father Esteban will happily come on air to express his joy over a new pub or rum distillery (also makes an anonymous call in to say that god is most displeased if you enact a prohibition).

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 16:08

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

luxury handset posted:

the worst part about the grid-based tropicos is that the background music is not quite as good as the series traditionally has

Yeah definitely. If you play 5 you want to turn that music OFF and put on the soundtrack of an earlier game.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 18:07

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Military in squads was not a good move. Especially since they move at a snail's pace, buildings are fragile, enemies will attack move while your troops will move and only engage if they are near their target area.

Not being able to socialize housing really blows. The AI is also really stupid and tropicans will unhappily move into shacks rather than homes they could easily afford.

The budget system makes everything better if you throw money at it. Everything. For example increasing the budget of the docks from completely negligible to almost completely negligible makes ships arrive significantly more often. It's not exactly balanced.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2020 22:25

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

papasyhotcakes posted:

Hey everyone I just saw that the Steam store has a city builder sale. I�m getting Northgard, Banished and Cities Skylines, is the futuristic Anno worth getting? I was also looking at Surviving the Aftermath but reviews seem mixed at the moment.

Northgard is really more of a rts than a city builder. Still fun.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2020 23:16

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

ExactChaos made a pretty sweet high skill series of Workers & Resources Soviet Republic. It was probably linked in this thread earlier, but I'm not certain.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2020 17:08

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Are you supposed to manually turn tables on/off?

barnold posted:

She must really like walls.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2020 00:08

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

zedprime posted:

I don't know that I'd give the Workers and Resources folks a blank check for future games. It's a really awesome idea but it's really derivative of Tropico. But it's weird, it's so derivative of Tropico it's almost nothing like Tropico anymore.

I'm praising with faint damnation though if you don't already realize how I recommend this awesome game everytime someone says "I played all the train games, are there any good ones left?"

Building a working highway or train line is an accomplishment in itself. Building a steel factory or refinery is a dream. Even better, the requirements to connect industrial buildings together make them look like industry porn when you're done.

It'd be hard to resist if they made a sequel which was totally-not-Tropico.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 02:07

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

If you make hotel rooms in Sim Casino you can charge more if the room has windows and people don't care if they lead outside or into a corridor, toilet or other room. I suspect they'll probably patch that.

Grevlek posted:

I really wanted to like Omerta. I never played 'Gangsters' on PC when it was current, but I did play 'Mob Rule' which I later found out was called 'Constructors' in the UK. That's actually a pretty fun game, probably the best mob game on the market. Well, that or The Godfather 2 for PS3, that was a very satisfying game mixing action and light strategy/empire management.

Mob Rule was a weird sequel I believe.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2020 22:26

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Radiation Cow posted:

It's not very good. I played it a couple of weeks ago, and it still feels massively unfinished.

The biggest problem is that the AI is incredibly bad, so you have to keep micromanaging your colonists, and if you don't they die. The negative maluses (some of which you can't control) are much higher than any positive bonuses, which means that when your colonists are unhappy, you can't do anything about it.

Also, the 'normal' beginning is incredibly hard and relies on pitch-perfect timing to get crops planted before your colonists all starve to death (in a day or less).

There's the bones of a good game somewhere in there, but as it stands it's massively unfinished and I wouldn't recommend it.

That sounds abysmal to be honest. Especially the whole typical thing where you have to do the One Correct Build Order or lose crap. There are more difficulty settings than infinite resource sandbox or grognard squared.

Not sure if the game has it but I hate the terrible feeback loop you can so easily get into in so many games: Your colonists are refusing to work. They are refusing to work because they are starving. They are starving because the food stores are empty. The food stores are empty because the crops haven't been harvested. The crops haven't been harvested because your farmers are refusing to work. That is an awful failure in game design.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2020 13:17

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:24

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

You can set up a distribution center to buy imports at the border with trucks and deliver to the various storages.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2020 01:05

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