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LordAdakos posted:I know it's not a traditional city builder, but for a village builder (in space) I'm having a fun chill time with multiplayer astroneer. I know it's not a traditional gods-eye-view game but there is something really satisfying about building up a home on an alien planet. I spend more time just making all the platforms look pretty and spinning soil to create more platforms than exploring. Just my two cents! There's an Astroneer thread here 
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Dec 21, 2019 16:51
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cool dance moves posted:I'm looking for a game where I can mess around with trains and build up an industrial town. What's good? The railway mechanic in 1800 is pretty vestigial except where it requires you to shift all of your city buildings by one tile when you realize you need a power plant in the middle of your high-level housing, then it is pretty frustrating. It’s the only way to move oil around within your islands, and while having discrete track sections and return loops helps with train dispatch (handled centrally from the island-unique oil harbor), there is no routing, scheduling, or signaling involved. It also moves nothing but oil. I deeply enjoy trains in Factorio but if you’re looking to build or at least connect Industrial Revolution-era towns you probably aren’t excited by the idea of building a continent-scale automated industrial hellscape populated only by yourself and windrows of bullet-ridden alien corpses.
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Dec 21, 2019 16:58
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LonsomeSon posted:I deeply enjoy trains in Factorio but if you’re looking to build or at least connect Industrial Revolution-era towns you probably aren’t excited by the idea of building a continent-scale automated industrial hellscape populated only by yourself and windrows of bullet-ridden alien corpses. Aw, that's a shame about anno 1800. Oh well! And I should clarify what I'm looking for: I'm too dumb to really do the finer details of transit and logistics (like signaling and so on), I mostly just wanna watch stuff pulling boxcars while my town grows. I know Railway Empire has a mechanic where you can ride around the countryside, which is why I'm interested. The industrial setting is more for aesthetic reasons and I can do away with that, so I'll take a look at Factorio in case it has what I'm looking for. Thanks for the tips! I'm open to more suggestions if you or anyone else has more ideas 
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Dec 21, 2019 17:30
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Factorio is definitely not that, in that your town has a population of you (plus however many drones you build in the later game, plus anyone else in co-op), and you're planning every single building (or at least the blueprints once you have drones), and while smashing into things with your murder train is fun it's also not what you're thinking of. I occasionally just re-install Railroad Tycoon 3 since that's kind of what I want (but not broken).
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Dec 21, 2019 17:36
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cool dance moves posted:I played anno 1404 and liked it a lot, but for some reason ubisoft won't process my payment so 1800 is out til it gets put on steam. I'm eyeing up Railway Empire now, no idea if I'm gonna pull the trigger on that yet though. Anno 1800 is not really a train game. It has them, but they can make instant sharp turns and have no real rail mechanics other than "trains go on your railways". Anno 1800 is awesome though.
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Dec 21, 2019 17:38
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cool dance moves posted:Aw, that's a shame about anno 1800. Oh well! You want Sid Meier’s Railroads https://store.steampowered.com/app/7600/Sid_Meiers_Railroads/, which is a simple, cartoony railroad game which is more about connecting things and playing with a train set in your basement to things than about detailed logistics simulations.
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Dec 21, 2019 18:15
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cool dance moves posted:Aw, that's a shame about anno 1800. Oh well! Factory Town. It's a mix of Factorio and town builder. It's still in early access, but the devs are active and very responsive to feedback.
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Dec 21, 2019 18:32
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I've enjoyed city building games ever since playing SimCity 2000 as a kid, and in the past few years really started getting back into them after discovering and falling in love with the Anno series. Of the other ones in the OP I've played Frostpunk and Cities Skylines, which were both a lot of fun, and just picked up Surviving Mars in the Steam sale. Other than Anno, are there any good modern historical (as in, not ancient or medieval) games in the genre? Like a Victorian equivalent of SimCity or something like that? Also, the Soviet one mentioned in the OP looks cool, anyone played that and have thoughts on it?
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Dec 21, 2019 18:37
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Tropico is a good one imo. It's between between anno and simcity in terms of managing supply chains, traffic, and designing an island. The game starts right after WW2. Tropico 4 + DLC is considered a great starting point into the series. 3 is the first of the modern ones (full 3d engine etc), and 4 improves upon it without changing a whole lot. 5 is a 'soft reboot' with a new engine, and is regarded to be a bit weaker compared to 4. 6 got good reviews, I haven't personally played it yet.
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Dec 21, 2019 18:46
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I'd actually recommend starting with 3 if you can get a good price. 4 has a couple of tweaks and improvements, the biggest of which being a mission system to give you short-term goals and the Modern Times DLC that lets you upgrade buildings into the future, but the big thing that makes me like 3 more is the music. 4 dropped all the tracks with vocals. Also I feel like I had more fun with the campaign mode of 3/Absolute Power. 5 does a weird thing with having the same island that you control with a dynasty of dictators since colonial times, which doesn't really feel that fun to me, even though it's sort of a natural extension of the Modern Times DLC, but that might be your jam. All I know about 6 is that it is the first Tropico game to have bridges. In historical setting building games I haven't played, there's the Caesar and Stronghold games or Banished.
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Dec 21, 2019 19:52
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I also prefer 3 to 4. The mission system always felt a little like unnecessary nagging and I found the radio hosts in 3 to be more amusing than the characters in the later games. 6 is pretty much plain superior to 4 and 5. My only complaint is that they've continued to make customization of Presidente even more vestigial.
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Dec 21, 2019 20:15
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Train game transport fever 2 has just come out, but is maybe too logisticy for what you are looking for.
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Dec 21, 2019 22:15
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It’s awfully good at the “board the train and take a pretty ride” part though.
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Dec 21, 2019 22:26
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I have Workers and Resources (the Soviet one) and while it’s very unique and has a lot of subtle but very cool innovations for the genre, it’s a QOL nightmare. If you’re extremely tolerant of jank, give it a shot. If you aren’t, miss it and miss it hard.
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Dec 22, 2019 07:42
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Anime Store Adventure posted:I have Workers and Resources (the Soviet one) and while it’s very unique and has a lot of subtle but very cool innovations for the genre, it’s a QOL nightmare. I have it as well, and it absolutely needs some QoL assistance, since you're controlling absolutely everything, and the building positioning is touchy at best. The road / rail / power / etc construction needs a way to better aggregate so that you don't end up with entire work crews rolling out to do a 5 meter segment then packing it in and heading home instead of immediately moving to the 300m segment after. On the other hand, it is very enjoyable and free form, and still in early access.
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Dec 22, 2019 19:23
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Thanks for the recommendations. For some reason the Tropico games have never quite clicked with me; just a little too much micro for me, I think. Good to know about Workers and Resources.
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Dec 24, 2019 07:21
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Been playing depraved lately. Kind of like banished in the wild west It's not bad, but it's not good. It's in development and the population resource requirements rise exponentially, and you only have a limited area to build. Also the AI seems dumb as rocks after you get about 20 population. Have to recommend a PASS on depraved for now. Also been trying to play foundation. Again, stupid colonist AI kills the game for me. I have four loving fields, why am I producing no corn? I have dedicated haulers but once we get like 4 areas unlocked, everyone loving starves because they don't have access to food or clothes or whatever. How many markets do I need? How many fishers? The gently caress does a church actually do for me? Game is bad at explaining and there are no useful tooltips. Also a PASS on foundation for now.
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Dec 25, 2019 03:47
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Everytime I try to play Foundation I just go back to Anno. Does the same thing but a lot better. Even 1404 is better than Foundation and it's a zillion years old.
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Dec 25, 2019 13:36
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Tropico suffers from the same problem as black and white did. Being good is easy, and being evil is more work and less effective.
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Dec 26, 2019 00:15
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i dunno that i would agree with that. being evil in tropico is great, you just have to balance it with being good to some extent. it's not difficult, for example, to just ban elections and install yourself as president for life, which actually is incredibly helpful and simplifies the game by a lot. you just really need to make sure that you're on the ball in need satisfaction though, because poo poo that would have slid by in a democratic society will now spawn a hundred rebels. keeping hold of need satisfaction will NOT guarantee you elections if you're not sufficiently popular with the faction leaders' ideology though, and the only faction that is more or less guaranteed to be happy outside of the loyalists is the intellectuals. if you try to be a saturday morning cartoon villain though yeah that will get you wrecked pretty quick but what did you expect?
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Dec 26, 2019 00:30
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Coolguye posted:i dunno that i would agree with that. being evil in tropico is great, you just have to balance it with being good to some extent. it's not difficult, for example, to just ban elections and install yourself as president for life, which actually is incredibly helpful and simplifies the game by a lot. you just really need to make sure that you're on the ball in need satisfaction though, because poo poo that would have slid by in a democratic society will now spawn a hundred rebels. Having a functioning economy and no homeless basically guarantees you'll never lose an election. You can maintain approval with different factions by doing stuff people want anyways, Like building a church. You can even keep the communists and capitalists satisfied by free housing as long as you don't go into debt and some jobs pay significantly more than others So why bother banning elections? It just makes rebels more of a problem. Infidelicious fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Dec 26, 2019 |
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Dec 26, 2019 00:49
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Yeah, I never bothered not being Democratic because it was always just so straightforward to keep winning elections, and when Tropico won, I won 
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Dec 26, 2019 01:20
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Seriously, if you were going to do the work to keep need bars high enough to be a benevolent dictator, you can do exactly the same poo poo and just smash elections every cycle, in basically every Tropico except the second game, which was unfortunately never made. Basically the entire Tropico series is an unintentional warning about neoliberalism and neocolonialism; hiding all the shady poo poo behind a layer of electoralism while providing a basic safety net lets you just shovel State funds into enriching yourself.
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Dec 26, 2019 01:21
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Is there anything comparable to the Patrician series that isn't Anno? I recently tried to run Patrician 4 and it needs to phone home to a dead server so it won't start.
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Dec 26, 2019 01:30
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LonsomeSon posted:Basically the entire Tropico series is an unintentional warning about neoliberalism and neocolonialism; hiding all the shady poo poo behind a layer of electoralism while providing a basic safety net lets you just shovel State funds into enriching yourself. Does neoliberalism provide a basic safety net?
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Dec 26, 2019 04:40
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PerniciousKnid posted:Does neoliberalism provide a basic safety net? Neoliberalism is explicitly against social safety nets. Austerity and privatization are central tenants.
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Dec 26, 2019 04:57
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PerniciousKnid posted:Does neoliberalism provide a basic safety net? Right, but also we are seeing in the world right now the results of neoliberalism without the basic safety net. Provide it in Tropico and your poo poo runs on rails into the 2050s. I’m not great at words and probably could have safely said nothing ~
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Dec 26, 2019 05:35
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the problem with tropico is that the economic model is so easily broken that you can just throw basic social benefits at everyone and never worry about losing an election. even if you dial the difficulty all the way up within the game model, you still have to use house rules like "no rum factories" and "no importing" to make the game difficult enough to where you can't just keep expanding the safety net
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Dec 26, 2019 15:47
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I personally think the first Tropico is best, and also the first Anno game (1602), they have such pleasing graphics and are still just as complex as the later games.
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Dec 26, 2019 16:10
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I thought Tropico 5 provided a fun wrinkle on it by forcing you to go between two islands each level, which alternated tech level, so while you could build a certain way in level 1, you may have just hosed yourself in level 3 (and I definitely did this at least once lol).
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Dec 26, 2019 16:32
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Shibawanko posted:I personally think the first Tropico is best, and also the first Anno game (1602), they have such pleasing graphics and are still just as complex as the later games. Sorry but 1602 is in no way as complex as 1800. It just isn't. Now it may be a better game for you, or maybe even a better game overall (although I'd strongly dispute that) but it is way way less complex than 1800.
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Dec 26, 2019 17:28
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Infidelicious posted:Having a functioning economy and no homeless basically guarantees you'll never lose an election. because particularly in the later games (not so much 3 but definitely in 4) you can still have tight elections if you happen to have pissed off the capitalists or the communists that year even if you have a functional economy and strong social services. the capitalists get pissy if you're not realizing the dream of infinite growth, and the communists blow a gasket if shacks exist on the island for more than a quarter second or a single person doesn't get to the loving doctor. if you just ban elections you never have to worry about that horseshit and you can just focus on happiness, which is what handles rebel creation. at 70% happiness or so rebel creation stops entirely unless Rebel Yell is on. sure you can go total dove and just have elections and probably you will be fine, especially if you make promises in speeches, because Tropico isn't actually a hard game. but it's objectively easier if you play evil in this way because you can flatly ignore the opinion mechanics and just focus on happiness.
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Dec 26, 2019 17:38
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Train game update: I checked out the games recommended since my last post itt, I think Sid Meier's Railroads! was the closest to what I was looking for. I tried out Railway Empire as well, and I think that's the best fit for me, at least in sandbox mode. Thanks for the help, thread!
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Dec 27, 2019 01:15
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cool dance moves posted:Train game update: I checked out the games recommended since my last post itt, I think Sid Meier's Railroads! was the closest to what I was looking for. I tried out Railway Empire as well, and I think that's the best fit for me, at least in sandbox mode. Thanks for the help, thread! I like Railway Empires the best myself. A nice combination of logistics and economy and less abstract than Rise of Industry.
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Dec 27, 2019 01:57
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cool dance moves posted:Train game update: I checked out the games recommended since my last post itt, I think Sid Meier's Railroads! was the closest to what I was looking for. I tried out Railway Empire as well, and I think that's the best fit for me, at least in sandbox mode. Thanks for the help, thread! Oh woops I meant to mention Mashinky, at the time. Check that one out.
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Dec 27, 2019 02:11
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Garfu posted:Oh woops I meant to mention Mashinky, at the time. Check that one out. I just picked up Mashinky, I'm hoping it works out. I played Railway Empire and it didn't land with me; I think the opponents made it much more annoying than RT3, all those dumb sabotage abilities that I don't care about. I might try a solo mode and maybe I'll like that better.
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Dec 27, 2019 02:17
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Garfu posted:Oh woops I meant to mention Mashinky, at the time. Check that one out. I didnt mention it, but Mashinky was already on my wish list! I held off on picking it up because it's not on sale yet. But I've definitely got my eye on it!
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Dec 27, 2019 04:05
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What's cool about Mashinky is that it comes with railroad track 'stamps' built in. Like blueprints but the game gives them to you already done. That said, I keep booting it up and then shutting it down again, just isn't doing it for me for some reason. Maybe tomorrow I will set a timer and make myself play it for two hours.
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Dec 27, 2019 05:05
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I played a bit of Mashinky and thought, "okay, it's kinda like OpenTTD except with a much simpler economy, lovely not-path signals, and station upgrades. Then, while I was starting to get bored of laying a dozen signals every time I create a simple crossover, I ran out of green tokens due to neglecting my passenger tokens. That made me think, okay, maybe there's something to the token thing in terms of forcing you to balance your economy. Overall though, it kinda seems like an inferior version of OpenTTD with a prettier interface. Maybe it will get materially more interesting as more industries are added. I like the concept of forcing different types of routes in order to advance, but I've yet to see it really pay off.
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Dec 27, 2019 06:14
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Haven't seen anyone mention it but I'll toss out War for the Overworld. It's as close as you are going to get to a modern Dungeon Keeper, complete with the same narrator still dripping with sarcasm. Zeus was my jam back in the day but I was always dragged back to DK1-2 and it's nice to get back to running a perfect murder blender dungeon. Will also toss out Evil Genius as a great game, TONS of flaws, TONS of bugs but the atmosphere is just so smooth and building an evil lair inside a giant volcano counts for quite a bit.
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Dec 27, 2019 07:00
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