So i am in the mood for a game but not sure what it is i am after so looking for help. I am looking for something that i can kind of sink my teeth into and will take me awhile to do. Looking for something like SimCity but more "massive". Something that starts me in the past and then works its way up to modern times. Not sure which genre this would be as i am just getting into the mood for this kind of game. A couple I have played in the past went a little too fast (build three huts and you graduated from Stone age to Bronze age) or the map seemed a bit small for a good campaign. Don’t mind some warfare, but looking for more of the resource management/city(world) building aspect of it.

Thanks

I heard good things about Banished.

https://www.gog.com/game/banished

No "stone to modern age" progression though.

Banished is pretty awesome. I'll second this suggestion. It's definitely a "chill" game in that you can't really win. You just play and expand your settlement. Or not.

Another vote for Banished. There is no 'whole world' map, but you have to build your settlement up slowly, waiting for workers to be born and mature. No fighting/warfare, but definite management of resources, location, distribution, etc. There are also many different 'seeds' (maps) which favor different layouts for replayability.

So... does the game just go on forever, unless you do something really stupid and lose your settlement?

A bit like a virtual aquarium, just remember to feed the fish once in awhile, keep the water clean and remember to switch on and off the lightning. And then just watch how your fish swim around doing stuff.

Genuinely asking as I am somewhat unfamiliar with the "townbuilding genre". I play e.g. RTS games where there is normally a campaign with a set of missions with clearly defined goals, and you either lose or win the mission. And in the end, the game ends as you have finished all the missions successfully.

I mean...basically, don't you just want to play Civilization? It's not as grainy as SimCity but if you want progression from past to present/future, don't you just set world progression to slow, and play with fewer enemies and an easier difficulty? That seems like what you're describing.

Or maybe Cities: Skylines? That's even more like SimCity, it's an archetypal city builder. It's praised for its attention to detail. Maybe give that a look?

I thought of Civilization too (one of my all-time favorites). The only "but" is that the scale is bigger than in a city builder, but everything else is spot on. If seeing your city adding buildings in the city view screen (Civ 3) or in the map (Civ 4) is good enough, then it is the perfect time sinker.

In my opinion, the best balance between city management and empire building through time was in Rise of Nations (a real-time strategy game with pause that unfortunately is not available on GOG).

I haven't played it, but from what I heard, yes. This particular game has no campaign and no winning condition. Just play and expand your settlement.

Not all townbuilding games are like this though. Some have missions and/or campaigns.

Not exactly. While there are no 'missions' per se, there are achievements and challenges. Can your settlement survive the winter, can you survive with no mining, no trading, did you hunt and gather and log out your forests and now you have no herbal medicines, do you build certain buildings and not others, did you cause couples to separate and now don't have enough babies for a future generation of workers, do you accept refugees and will they save your settlement or put a strain on it .... Achievements can be like missions - can you survive to a certain population or number of years, certain percentage of educated, healthy, employed, achieve trade to a certain level and then progress to the new achievement. There are also mods and challenge achievements within the Banished Community to try.

Many builder games do have missions and fighting, which can keep a player from building as they like, forcing the player to progress EXACTLY as the devs determine (minus cheats or workarounds). Banished lets the player see what you can achieve within the parameters of the maps and lets you select what achievements and rewards to build towards. It gives control and choice to the player. Great time to pick it up for anyone who has been curious or likes builder games! :)

Thanks for the info!

But just to confirm, there is no "game over; you won", is there? i.e. you keep playing, assuming you don't lose, as long as you want till you get bored?

True, there's no "game over" ... unless your settlement dies, starves, burns, is leveled by tornadoes, collapses or reaches the borders of the map with nowhere else to go. :) Next map seed ....

Some people have commented previously on the learning curve for Banished. I actually did not find it bad. It can be challenging if you do not pay attention. However, at the start of a game you can set levels of difficulty and whether or not to allow certain events to occur until you learn more of the dynamics of the game.

Thank you. I'll buy it. I've been thinking about buying it for almost 2 years now, but its price put me off and when it was on sale, something or the other came up (backlog too big, already bought too many games...).

Then this thread came up just as it appeared on daily sale. Must be a sign.

Enjoy! Just don't commit the mistake I made and build too many houses at once - it causes couples to separate and suddenly you have no babies being born. Wait until you get several late teens/early 20's of both genders, then build a few houses for them to move to and have families. ;)

I would suggest Map seed 644956986, Valleys, Medium as a good one to start with. It gives decent crops/animals to begin with and good river to buildable land with room to grow. Each map seed gives you only certain crops/animals to start with, the others you have to trade for.