City simulation thread

Those are tycoon games, which are in a whole category of their own, IMO. (Usually you're running a business, with the explicit goal of making profits.)

I'd add Startopia to the list. It's sort of a Tropico in space thing, where you manage a space station, instead of an island. Not quite finished, alas, but comfy supreme.

zeus is the comfiest city builder
all those tiny people and all their lines
i especially like when i manage to kill a mythical beast without the help of a hero, even if it costs me the majority of my population

i forgot i played it last week
then i saw your post and remembered the bullshit tornado that killed every one of my colonists

what i get for not taking the easier modes

I like the mission where you need a sanctuary to Apollo to get a hero needed to kill a boar(?),but then Apollo just kills the boar and you win the mission (I think the sanctuary was just one of the missions, not sure any heroes need Apollo I can't remember). Actually, I thought all the missions were fun, especially the colonizing ones.

Also, the competitor has the absolute best lines/voice acting. (all the voice acting makes that games really.) The music is also really nice.

Banished, Lethis - Path of Progres), Cities Skylines, Life is Feudal - Forest Village (still in early acces).

Transport Fever, Industry Giant 2

MOTHER FUCKING LEGO ROCK RAIDERS

What do you guys think of Caesar's walker mechanics?

THIS CITY IS LIKE AJAX
HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE THE REST

A LANDSLIDE HAS OCCURRED
A LANDSLIDE HAS OCCURRED
A LANDSLIDE HAS OCCURRED
A LANDSLIDE HAS OCCURRED

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN MORE SOLID BUILDINGS
ARCHIMEDES WOULD BE PROUD

test

Oh shit I remember this does it work on modern systems?

Sort of. Crashes periodically. Works better on XP vm.

an /agdg/ user was porting it to unity a while ago, no idea what happened to it

I am that user. Still want to. Just having some turbulence in my personal life which means that on top of my already unfortunate boom/depression work cycle I have very little time to work on this for a few more months.

My current choice was to not do code driven animation as it's really bad with Unity, and instead do pre canned ones in Blender. This makes a lot of problems easier. Then I learn that this is inadvisable and you should instead do them in-engine via their keyframing tool which has gotten a lot better in the year I took off. That said, I am unable to import bones from Blender which led me to put it down five weeks ago again until I can get over that hill.

Then there's the larger issue that I ought to port to Unreal because Unity's lighting is still shit and bugging out with multiple sources which displeases me greatly and looks bad, but I've got all this sunk cost already and am not that fond of C++ and have used it professionally before and know Blueprint does not scale. Also, Unity's UI definition feels really sketchy, but I have no familiarity with Unreal's equivalent and get strange mental blocks when trying to learn it's features.

In the meantime I've sorted out all my assets, have used Waifu2x to get blood from stone in respect to original game textures so everything looks great.

So that's where it's at. Would post weebums but I'm on my phone.

It actually really bugs me. There's this hardcoded limit they put in the engine which precludes having more than X overlapping lights for no reason that I cannot change. Rather than giving me an option because I've got simplistic geometry and it will be OK on any modern PC, I just can't, period, end of line, rine ends here.

And as a result Unity devs flip me the bird and tell me that rendering bugs are superior to poor performance.

Startopia was great. Fill out a space station, hire aliens, and even have a bio-deck that you can change the environment to have different plants grow.

I have been playing stronghold crusader, and was wondering what strategies anons like to use. Besides spamming horse archers I mean. I usually start by buying some cheap archers, and stone throwers while creating some small defenses like a small wall. I then build a marketplace, and use that to buy some food while I place 3 wheat farms a mill, and about 8-10 bakeries. This usually is enough food for about 80. I then focus on buying some hops and whiskey, and then building a couple breweries and two inns for that ale bonus so I can raise taxes. From that point on I focus on making soldiers, and whatever else I might need. What do you guys do?

wut
isn't it primarily an rts?

Not really. It's in that grey area where it has some decent city building, but also not very good rts mechanics. The city building while fun, isn't as detailed as those other games. The sad fact is it's rts elements are also pretty lacking because of very poor unit pathing, and a small variety of units. In addition there is basically only one race, as everyone has access to the entire tech tree. As for the number of units it's less than 30 different types.

Is there any city builder that poses a challenge? I've been playing Tropico 4 and it's easy as fuck, even though there are mechanics in place that could create problem for you, they're all very easily mitigated.

Stronghold is also incredibly easy to play through, since apple orchards make any other food production pointless, and once you've beefed up your defenses most missions are just about waiting for the enemy waves.

No way wheat farms are far more productive for less space, but more wood. 3 farms basically supports one mill, and 8-10 bakeries.
That was definitely a huge problem, the AI was very weak. I also didn't like the fact that most of the game was basically multi-player maps against the AI.
I can't think of too many. Most city builders are easy since it's building things that is the biggest draw.

I like the building, but I also want to have to adapt to unexpected situations. Famine, popular uprising, pestilence, natural disaster, invading enemy army.

Most of these games tend to have such mechanics in place but their impact is negligible, they never really force you to do anything different or scramble to deal with the consequences.

Maybe you should ask in the RTS thread as well. Most games will have stuff like that, but it's usually a very small threat. I would enjoy a stronghold game that also had a crime prevention system. You build too many bad things, too many inns, and do other unpopular things causes unrest that sometimes need to be quelled or kept in check.

I'd really like a Stronghold type game where you gradually build up your village/castle over the years, maybe even centuries.

That would be pretty fun. Part building game, part RTT, part dynasty management. Sadly, with strategy games in general being moribund it's not likely that anyone will ever make something like it.

Pretty much. Basically what stronghold was, but greatly expanded upon. I would also prefer to have engineers for building walls, and most complex structures so we don't have any of that "Your building is too close to a signpost." Oh I'm sorry wouldn't want to build too close to a stick in the ground.

Where's Afterlife Empire, anons? That's the #GG official game that taught liberals a lesson by giving them money!

I haven't heard anything about those games.

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It's surprising there hasn't been one. To be honest the only game I have seen with meso-american styled stuff was age of empires, but that is an rts.

huh? I remember there was an Afterlife game made by Lucasarts. i would imagine most of Holla Forums is too young to know about it though.

What's the biggest citybuilder disappointment for you, Holla Forums?
For me it was Clockwork Empires. And I'm not talking about that muh niggurs in steamponk crap, that's meaningless because there's no reason to play that shit anyways:

fuck hercules, who needs that bitch and his wine

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are you trying to summon the Aztec autist?

No that's not it. This game is basically you managing a haunted house I think. Or more specifically a haunted hotel you have to keep in business despite spooks trying to scare people off.

We both know road to el dorado was a lie.

I have this game on my back log, maybe I will bump it up now.

This game was a forgotten gem. Played like SimCity except hard as balls, but had the wit and style of a game to last the ages.

Oh I have no idea then.

Afterlife is bretty gud agreed. Not great and has its flaws, but still a gem.

Banished was comfy at first but then you realize you've seen all there is to it and the only thing left is to upscale it, and it feels like something critical is missing that leaves it hollow.

That's a pretty good way to describe Banished. It's fun every now and then, but it doesn't have that factor that older games like the earlier SimCities or the Impression Games city-builders have (Zeus and etc.) where you can play repeatedly and for lengthy periods of time. And I have no idea what that missing factor is personally.

Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot about evil genius. Why do we never remember that game?

It's not really a city simulation game though, but it was pretty good yeah. More Dungeon Keeper if anything.

Semantics, you build a secret base instead of a city.

Speaking of Dungeon Keeper, are there any city building games centered around building dungeons?
Since forever I wanted to build a motherfucking apocalyptical dungeon and send my minions to raid everything. Problem is everything I found was successors to Dungeon Keeper and therefore RTS, I actually want proper city builder.
Or if not city builder which DK clone is best?

Talking about subterranean structure management, any good games where you manage an underground bunker/facility, trying to make it self-sustainable? I'm talking decent games not some Falllout Shitter mobile rubbish.

It needs some kind of endgame. Not an end GOAL, like a winning condition per se, but just something that changes toward the end. Thing is, once you get into the midgame, all that's left to do is fill up the whole map with the same old stuff and ride out the few disasters that show up. It feel pointless. The entire beginning portion is focused on just surviving, building up a stable population, getting the food stores full, getting though the first few winters. Once you accomplish that, there's really nothing else to DO. You've accomplished your goal of founding a thriving new colony, so that's it.

I don't know what could be done about that. Perhaps a winning condition of building some kind of megaproject? Like a ship, that takes fucktons of wood and metal to build, and has to be stocked with lots of clothing and tools and food and things, and of course takes a lot of population. It gets launched from the colony and you essentially embark it like in Dwarf Fortress to a different location, where you start a new colony.

Not always.

If we actually were to remove evil and defensive aspect from such game ones I found was pretty much nothing.

There is shit tone of DF clones like Gnomoria but all of them relies more or less on you having farms or different connections to surface. I am pretty sure that DF itself would have an option for you to get everything underground or at least after you mod it.

I don't know how RimWorld changed since last I plated it but you technically could do everything underground. Main problem was finding some isolated area that included power source and by underground I mean you could build base inside a mountain.

Only game I know in which you could mine and cut all your connections to the surface is minecraft. It would be so fucking awesome if instead of F4 and Shelter we would have gotten one proper game where you manage a Vault.

I only know of rimworld

You have a budget to set up the vault with before sealing and a purpose for the vault to experiment with. Then you have to keep managing the vault with what you put in and keep the experiment going. Win conditions depend on the experiment and can be either random or level designed.

Tenochitlan was a city more populous than Hong Kong, only with twice the population density. The Aztecs had mastered semiconductors and genetic engineering, and their engineers constructed buildings taller than the Burj Kalifa.

I just wanted to say you're a faggot.

I thought about picking up vault and having to deal with factions like you did in NV.
Imagine what would happen after you cleared that vault 19 from bandits in NV and deciding to stay in it. You would first just fill all rooms but later you would eventually could afford gear to expand your vault further underground. Your vault would eventually become so expensive bigger factions would get involved. House would try to use you for task and trading, NCR would try to buy you off to turn you into military base and legion would try to breach the vault door.

Now I think about it Settlement system done by Obsidian would actually be great.

I'd guess (just by looking at screenshots/videos) it's because it lacks style and character. The GUI is literally grey boxes, you can't talk to your people, you can barely even see them. Sure, the last one is more realistic than, say, Zeus and Poseidon where each occupant is half the size of the building meant to fit 60 of them, but it also means they look prettier, you can visually see who they are and what they do, and their presence (or lack thereof) gives you a little bit of info on how your city is doing.

Like I said, haven't played Banished, so I might be full of shit.

Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom is my all time favourite.

Amazing sound track.

Those saying that Banished lacks depth and content are absolutely right. The Colonial Charter mod adds a lot of variety to the content in the form of resources, housing options, products, animals etc. . There are also longer production chains and more of a tier system for the buildings.

I'll use this thread since it mostly fits. I really like building up facilities/bases/settlements and protecting them. I like figuring out good ways to place buildings together. I like designing places for my units to live. I have trouble with rts games because I have more fun building my base than harassing and attacking the enemy. I figure these games will greatly appeal to me, but is there anything else that isn't exactly a "city simulation"?

Iktf

I spend my time in Dungeon Keeper making elaborate dungeons. Some dungeon keeper levels work well with this play style but most don't

Something like Majesty?

Stronghold outside the campaign missions. You can build your own little medieval village.

Settlers or Knights & Merchants are more about supply chains than city management proper.

Played it. Unfortunately, the later levels become bullshit where only one specific strategy really works.

You'd like the Anno series, user. It's all about supply chains and the most efficient way to place buildings there.

Maybe Tropico as well, but that one doesn't offer so much customisation.

Oh, and a relative unknown, Space Colony (made by the same people who did Stronghold), may also fit your bill. Like Stronghold, just choose the peaceful missions.

Some of the comfiest shit around.

How does it compare to Pharaoh? Is it basically sim city egyptian edition?

I would fucking love a game where you can introduce canals and tier your cities to facilitate better travels and shit, have a system for religious needs by moving your slaves to the chapel at the highest point of the city for them to have their hearts ripped out in an orderly fashion, but if you fuck up it's raise unhappiness by a ton.

There is a lot of potential here but management sims have kind of died out it seems

It plays more like a streamlined Caesar 3 than Sim City but it got it's own thing going. I do mean it, the comfy in this game is off the charts.

Horrible.

Kind of related, but are there any good city simulation/building games on android/ios? And by good, I mean not fucked up the ass with ads and not trash. One would think this genre lends itself to mobile.

Newer city sims do away with the grid, but you pay for it with massively wasted space, an almost complete inability to optimize zone size, and an absolutely complete inability to place buildings anywhere but directly alongside a road.

So one step forward, two steps back?

Skylines had a nice update recently, really makes demolishing dams worth it. Still chews cpu power like a motherfucker though. One day I'll have that 200k population city not slow to a crawl.

Your best bet are probably emulated old ones.

ah shit didn't mean to quote the first one

The problem is that it's not very intelligent with the way it makes plots. In essence, what is going on is that it's still making all the buildings aligned to a grid system, but instead of one unified grid, it's a whole bunch of separate grids that don't mesh with nearby grids, because it can only make rectangular plots. So you end up with squared-off plots alongside sections of a curved road that don't touch like they do in reality. Please excuse the crudity of my MSPaint example drawing.

Gitgud

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plebs

What Cultures game should I get?

All of them are worth playing but imo 2 is the best.

Man, multicore support sure would be nice.

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Why are these screenshots so tiny??

Can't play the game without mods. Something about all the content that was added in Masterwork makes the base game unplayable now.

because my monitor is tiny and I play at a fairly low res.

TBH I play masterwork for the optimization and the compilation of tools like the therapist.
ASCII is for the hardcore autists.

Spore was originally going to be pretty much that before they completely overhauled the game into casualness

I believe the other cities just decide to give wine ever couple of months, and it totals to like 35 or something. I remember having to restart because the first gift is like 16 and is given in the first few months. I think there are better campaigns (Athens, and I think the Jason one as well, I can't remember)

I'm probably the aztec autist you are thinking of though to begin with.

Unless you mean the retard who thinks every precolubian american site was built by a distinct population descended from the solutreans.

This is the guy I was referring to

Whenever I read "solutreans", all I can think of is a bunch of black people crossing the Bering land-bridge and dancing stylishly all the way down into the Americas.

Are they singing "coming to america"?

Tried Cultures, didn't like it. The interface just doesn't work for the level of micromanagement they want. You right click on some dude and a square of indistinct icons pops up with like a dozen commands and you're supposed to memorize that. Nah. Pass.

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I randomly remembered that this existed yesterday, thank you for showing me that I didn't miss anything I suppose.

Just for your information guys. Emperor Rise of the Middle Kingdom was released on gog today.

AYY… I've been waiting for that game for years to be on gog ever since a kid stole my CD copy of it a decade ago.

I came here to post this , Emperor has beautiful graphics and really nice music.

Shit, anyone have a magnet\torrent link for this game? I really want to try it now but I dont feel like going to GoG and tossing cash to abandonware.

mega.co.nz/#!KNVk3TIC!kmcmrl1LzQF5pvARFn0eJokV-r2hb-PaCPQYrmBe8uE

Thanks boss.

Does an user have a mega for it yet?

Looks like The Settlers II with better graphics and nothing more.

why urban empire so shit?
what happened kalypso

my favs are

Bump

Do those last three even count?

I enjoyed Cities Skylines when I played it, but it was a while ago and I don't remember much about it.

I think the thing that bothered me most was the fact you couldn't really have full control over building shit, or what went where. You simply built zones like residential or commercial, and decided what size of streets to build and where, which ended up becoming a clusterfuck if you didn't think ahead. It was basically a "traffic logistics" simulator, which was a bit more fun than that sounds. The only exception to not placing actual buildings were the municipal buildings like firehouses, hospitals and schools.

I don't remember seeing Holla Forums actually talk about it though, albeit there isn't much to talk about i guess.

Because it's not a city builder, but a management game. How to keep the politicians happy.

Kalypso is kind of a shit dev studio. Patrician and Port Royale are ok, but the previous games are better. Their Dungeons game are meh.

My problem with Cities Skylines is that making money is so goddamn easy.

There are mods that allow you to delete, duplicate and place RICO buildings

Well, it was made by the same peope.

(checked)
I feel completely the opposite. Masterwork just adds way, way too much bullshit and clutter. Maybe 1/10 of it is improvement, the rest is just bullshit for the sake of it that doesn't add to gameplay whatsoever.

Doesn't really fit, but kind of. Depending what aspect of citybuilders you're looking for, Factorio might be able to scratch the itch.

Last time I'm bumping this shit

I wish I could help you bring the LRR dream to life user. I loved LRR so much.