I’m itching to play something like Cities Skylines, but also something that isn’t just about growing and growing, rather building within certain (spatial?) limitations and/or solving problems or something. I hope this isn’t a contradiction, but I’d also like if it had a bit more focus on individual buildings and livability rather than optimizing car traffic, if that makes any sense. I guess i’m looking for something that is a bit more than just a city sculpting sandbox, but less than a full blown metropolis-society-simulator.
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- zerofk@lemmy.zipEnglish52 minutes
If you’re not adverse to old games, try The Settlers 2. Both the gold edition and the 10 year anniversary edition are good (and despite being called “edition” are rather different).
The Settlers is a slow game, there’s no Zerg rush. It’s also cute and cosy - but with a surprising depth in economics and supply chains.
The campaigns have levels ranging from tiny to elaborate. Challenges range from simply exploring the map, over defending against an enemy, to managing limited supplies.
- absquatulate@lemmy.worldEnglish6 hours
You may want to give an Anno game a try. Best recent one is Anno 1800, but Anno 2070, 1404 and 2205 are great as well. In these you manage population levels, needs and logistical chains instead of traffic.
Or maybe look into more survivaly city builders like Kingdoms&Castles, Nova Roma, Farthest Frontier or Banished.
If you want more puzzle than city builder then there’s Terrascape or Dorfromantik.
Finally, you may enjoy Railgrade or Train Valley 2 - these are not city builders, but tycoon games with a mission structure, strict confines and puzzle mechanics.
Edit: Oh and forgot Ixion. Absolutely superb story based scifi space station builder. Really really nails the vibe.
8 hoursIts funny how City Skylines 2 completely destroyed my interest in that kind of a game… I used to like them. But even the meny was lagging in that game. Just completely unpolished turd of a game.
Caesar 3 has different “levels” where you have different cities and have to meet different demands from Rome with them. If you play this game I highly, highly, highly recommend using the Augustus mod from the get-go to have modern quality of life features. Also look up some tutorial videos as there are some counter intuitive mechanics.
- popcar2@piefed.caEnglish23 hours
Against the storm sounds like a perfect fit. It’s in a fantasy setting though, so it’s quite different from Cities Skylines.
The idea is that you build a village, collect resources, and try to survive until you complete objectives. Once you’re done, you earn some permanent progression and move on to the next area to build. Each zone has its own challenges and randomly generated resources.
- Alberat@lemmy.worldEnglish22 hours
against the storm isn’t fun for me idky I’m always not understanding why stuff isn’t working and then missing some specific resource and losing. i really want to enjoy it though. i found that timberborn is kinda a level-based city builder as long as you decide when you’ve “won”
- popcar2@piefed.caEnglish22 hours
It takes some getting used to, you can play the easy difficulties until you wrap your head around the mechanics. Once I got past the difficulty curve though I found it very fun.
- knuk@piefed.caEnglish20 hours
When you select a place for a new settlement, you can look at which ressources are expected to be produced there based on the biome. Different biomes will have different ressources, some common and others absent entirely.
As in many roguelikes, you can’t play assuming you’ll get a perfect build with what you have, in this case meaning the best resource transformation buildings. When you’re unlocking a building blueprint in a run, never choose based on things you don’t have yet, try to work with what you already have instead even if it’s not optimal. For example, choosing a bakery that produces max quality bread when you don’t have wheat or the building to harvest wheat might put you in a bad spot, where you’re hoping for a resource that never comes.
After a few games you start unlocking more buildings and permanent bonuses which makes the game a lot easier, sometimes the seasoned players forget how tough it gets in a fresh new game.
- 21 hours
I was super excited to try it out, and after spending about a week binging it, I came to the conclusion I didn’t have fun playing it.
It did have a bit of a learning curve but once it clicks, you’re breezing along. It just didn’t fill my city building void.
- 0li0li@lemmy.worldEnglish23 hours
Not as good as Against the Storm, but I like how Tropico games are more about building through challenges than just building.
- jaycifer@lemmy.worldEnglish19 hours
Others have mentioned Tropico, but I like talking about Tropico so I recommend Tropico 6. Campaign missions have unique goals and conditions that can lead to interesting decisions, like the one where you can’t build houses, everyone lives in shacks, and I ended up going a dictator direction just to keep the populace in line.
Traffic is easy to manage, just don’t make four-way intersections (seriously, that’s it). Building choice and location are important because citizens have to travel from one place to another, so even if your clinic isn’t overwhelmed it may be good to build another far away so citizens don’t have to travel across the entire island to get there.
I could go on for a while, but it’s good, and Tropico 7 is coming out later this year so Tropico 6 will likely be pretty cheap next time it goes on sale.
- Glytch@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Aaaaand now I’m reinstalling Tropico 6 for the umpteenth time. Such a great game and has the best soundtrack of any city builder series.
- caut_R@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
I haven‘t tried 6, but I loved 4, it‘s my fav city builder ever (altho kinda easily exploited lol) and I liked 3, but I bounced off of 5 so hard that I never gave 6 a chance. I definitely recommend 4 though…
- jaycifer@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
I played some 4, but like 6 a lot more personally. A lot of folks still prefer 4. 5 I think feels like the worst of both worlds or a stepping stone from one to the other. The big thing I like about 6 is that citizens actually have to travel to buildings to work or use services.
In Tropico 4/5, a clinic may have a capacity of 200, so if your population is 350 you need two clinics placed anywhere, which I think makes city planning a little boring because you could just have a clinic corner where you build all your clinics as needed. In 6 a clinic has 8 visitor slots, and when a citizen needs healthcare they claim a slot and physically walk or transit across the map, enter the clinic, then spend some time there before leaving and freeing the slot up. This means you could build a couple clinics far away from each other so citizens have less distance to travel to the nearest clinic, or you could have one in your population center, but invest in making that building high quality so when a citizen leaves with a higher healthcare value it takes longer before they need to visit again, reducing the overall demand and making the visitor slots go farther.
It lends itself toward building actual neighborhoods where they are needed which I like!
banished is real good. it’s a medieval village sim. it’s also 6.50€ right now.
i see everyone recommending against the storm, banished is basically “what if that game was colorless, depressing and brutally realistic”.
- Glide@lemmy.caEnglish23 hours
You’re looking for Against the Storm.
It’s a rogue-like city-builder with goals that you meet and complete in order to move on to the next set of unique challenges. You’ll be faced with unique sets of challenges per biome, unique race-based sets of needs, and times events that need to be dealt with or their consequences will have to be mitigated.
Another +1 for Against the Storm. Timberborn also released recently and I lost a good bit of time to it. Timberborn has the sandbox build with multiple layers, and problem solving since you have to control water flow during three seasons (Wet, drought, tainted water) and manage resources.
- alianne@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
I second your Timberborn recommendation. I think I heard one YouTuber describe it as “Banished, but beavers” and I found that to be relatively accurate. I also enjoy the vertical building aspect—it really mixes up what you can do with different spaces.
- fox2263@lemmy.worldEnglish17 hours
I’ve been enjoying The Crust quite a bit. Timberborn. Frostpunk etc
Not sure if they fit your needs though
- faintwhenfree@lemmus.orgEnglish13 hours
It is great, but I don’t know if it fits your level based building idea. Mods make it interesting, but then again mods are also available for cities skyline 2.
Perhaps maybe stronghold HD. Stronghold DE. But that game also has combat and building.
Pure building that is level based… Nothing comes to mind.
- supernight52@lemmy.worldEnglish23 hours
Terra Nil might be up your alley- You start in a barren landscape, you build structures to restore life to the earth. Once the land is healthy, you pack up all of your buildings, and fly them up to your spaceship, to try the same thing with the next area. It’s more of a “puzzle” game than a sim, but it’s fun, relaxed, and moves through different levels as they introduce new tech for different restoration projects.
