Does anyone know of any good colony building games? Building up a colony and interacting with the natives peacefully or otherwise would make for a fun game. Rimworld scratches some of that itch for me but I'm not aware of any others. Do they even exist considering how "problematic" the corrupt games media would find that kind of genre?
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Stellaris.
You can find primitive planets and monitor them. Slowly integrating them into your empire.
Or you can of course invade and enslaved them then gene splice and nerve staple them so they breed rapidly, are docile and extremely delicious. They become the ultimate happy meal.
And if you use catalytic processing you can use food instead of minerals to make alloys so you can turn your happy meals into starships. Not even rimworld let's you do that.
So if you use necroids your undead population are flying around in ships made of people.
You didn't even mention the best part! You can lead Humanity to the stars and take what is rightfully ours! The Entire Galaxy
Paradox doesn't seem to be infested with the woke. And I'm glad I can still genocide entire populations in Stellaris. Also kick Jews out of my kingdom in CK after stealing their gold hahaha.
I would say they aren't fully converged, but there are wokists deeply embedded in Paradox. Just look at what happened to the Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 project. They're at the point where you have to go product by product, team by team to screen for leftists.
Honestly, Paradox's DLC policy is almost enough to get me to stop playing their games. I am watching them for signs of wokery like a hawk, because they're a bunch of Swedes.
The old-school Colonization (there's also a total conversion mod of it packed in with the Complete editions of Civ 4 iirc) of course! Fun game but I remember it taking a bit of getting used to.
Treasure Fleet is a half-decent modern attempt at remaking Colonization.
If you do pick up a Civ 4 pack to get Colonization (which is excellent), then consider looking into Caveman2Cosmos as a 'bonus.'
The scope is about twenty times bigger than mere colonization, but if you really want to simulate different civilizations domesticating different animals and crops, then bumping into each other, there's no better mod.
If you're tapped out, FreeCol is also an option.
Dwarf Fortress is that if you count "interact" as fend off goblin raids and trade with elves.
Cant go wrong with the og colony builder, not much of colonization in that game tho, rimworld fits more into that genre
AOW Planetfall is about colonization, sort of. I'm not sure what type of gameplay you're looking for.
Europa Universalis IV It's a grand strategy game by paradox and the graphics are very limited but the scale is Huge.
You can pick any country that existed from 1444 all the way through to late 1800s and control every aspect of that country from its politics, economy, expansion and warfare. And of course its colonies. You can pick one of the big four colonisers (Portugal, Spain, Britain and France) and colonise the New world either through sending colonists to unsettled lands, conquest or diplo annexing native tribes. You can even pick countries that never colonised like the Poland or even the Pope and ahistorically create a global Empire. Or if you want a challenge pick a native tribe like the Creek, Aztecs, Mohawk etc.. It's a game with immense replay ability and an incredibly amount of depth if you like those grand strategy country management kinda games.
First off, I will agree with u/CptLightning that Frostpunk comes highly recommended. You are in charge of "the last city on Earth" after an ice age grips Victorian Age Earth, and you have to decide how far you will go to make sure the city survives (with everything from balancing survival and freedom, to just straight up making a Fascistic Dictatorship or Machine Cult Theocracy).
For other options: I would say Anno 1800 would be a good fit. Your playing as the CEO of a Crown Company (think East India Company for an IRL example), and your responsible for building up your company towns, and you make most of your money by supplying your workers with the goods they desire. But you cant have a single island to do it, because not everything grows there. For instance, my current playthrough, my main island can grow potatoes (used to make Schnapps), wheat (used for bread, malt for beer, and livestock fodder due to a DLC I have), and peppers (can be combined with beef to make goulash, which is then canned and sold for high income pops). But my factory workers demand beer, and hops dont grow on my island. So you need to either found a new island that can grow it and ship it in, or trade with one of the other AI corporations.
I am also about to upgrade to Artisan pops, and they demand rum. Guess what doesnt grow in Europe? Sugar. Know what rum needs? Sugar. So I am about to set out and go colonize some Caribbean islands to start setting up some Rum trade. And on this note, while some people try to say Anno is a city builder, and that is certainly part of it, as you can probably tell, its first and foremost an Economy sim.
As for something not yet out but will probably scratch your itch, I would recommend Victoria 3. It is more of a society and economy simulator, and you can set up colonies or just go full French and trade directly with the natives instead of having true colonies. Or you can conquer it all for queen and country. Or you can play as the people attempting to be colonized and try to alter history and hold your own sovereignty (as alt-history is a staple of Paradox games). Hell, you can even enslave the natives if you want to make it that much easier and embrace your inner Belgian.
How do you feel about the other games in the series? Steam only has 2070, 2204, and the remake of 1404. GOG looks to have the rest (aside form 1800, which I'd guess is a Ubisoft exclusive.) I've been playing a modded version of Civ 4 Col, but the economy is pretty basic, even as much as the mod expands it, and it gets dull after a while. I don't intend to play much in MP, so the game being smooth/enjoyable in single-player is my primary concern.
Yeah, 1800 was one of the first games that Epic poached from Steam when they started doing their thing a few years ago, so you can only get it on Ubi's store or Epic store.
I have heard good things about 1404, but that is not really my style in terms of time period, so I havent played it. Just that a lot of the community holds it up as one of the best along with 1800. 2070 is pretty forgettable and you can easily skip it.
2205, I am going to break from the main Anno community and say that I like it, and that it is a very good place to start for someone totally new to the series. It gets hated on for being "easy" because a lot of the processes that you would normally have to worry about are automated in it, specifically your transport lines (you set the destination and the goods being moved, and the AI moves it for you). It also gives you an exact breakdown of how much input goods you still have before you reach a break even point, but I personally think that is fine. And to be honest, "easy" is not necessarily bad. Sometimes I will play it just because its fun to watch the little things happening in your factories or cities without having to keep an eye on your trade routes to make sure someone isnt shooting at your ships.
I will add, the economy itself isnt necessarily complex. The complexity of the game comes from trying to get the most income out of the most efficient factories you can make. Additionally, as you work your way up the pop ladder, the inputs become more complex, and so you having to make it all efficient gets more difficult.
To use 1800 as an example:
Farmers (your most basic workers), need Fish, Work Cloths, a Market, and for luxuries needs a Pub and Schnapps. Fish are gained directly form fishing docks, Work Cloths are made by having a sheep farm feed a framework knitters, and Schnapps is made by a potato farm feeding a distillery. The Market and Pub are a radius on the roads connected to them. Fairly straight forward.
Investors are your highest ranked pops, which pay the most but have the most complex demands. To really drive this home, the most complex item they want is a Steam Carriage. To make this, you need to have an Iron mine and a Coal mine (or 2 Charcoal Kilns) feed an Ironworks. Then, you have 2 Copper and 2 Zinc mines feed 4 Brass Foundries. These resources then get combined at an Engine Factory to create 3 tons of Steam Engines. THEN, you combine a Logging Camp and 4 Rubber Plantations (which only exist in the "New World", and thus require trade routes) to make 8 tons of Carriages. THEN, you combine the Steam Engines and Carriages in a Cab Assembly Line, which makes 4 Steam Carriages per minute (IRL minutes being the tic for the game timer). Also, the Engine Factory and Cab Assembly Line need to be connected to a power grid, which means yet another line transporting oil by rail to a power station. But each Investor residence will pay $180 coins per Steam Carriage, so you can make absolute fat stacks off of them, especially if you do tricky shit to make your line more efficient and/or less costly.
All of this is a long way of saying, they are good if you are interested in more economic focused city builders. And if you are still on the fence, you can always hit up Youtube and look up some videos to see for yourself.
Well, if you can stand older graphics,and never played it before, there's always Sid Meier's Colonization, either the DOS/Win95 version or the remake that came with Civ 4, though there are a couple little differences, I think, mostly to do with the Continental Congress, I think.
What about the OG Colonization? Sure it's an ancient game that fits on even the smallest flash drive these days but its two main modes are:
Literally colonize the American landmass with appropriately placed natives
Random gen landmass where you do the above, but random!
Age of Empires III is probably one of the best ones for this. Not exactly what you may be looking for, but the game is all about colonization of the New World.
Got some tobacco, rum, glass beads, old flintlocks, and cheap gun powder? Really, the oldest game of Colonization was the best.
everyone here has pretty good suggestions, I can recommend Anno, especially 1800 and 1404. the futuristic ones aren't that good from what I've heard. 1404 was for free in the ubi shop, maybe it still is.
I heard going medieval is basically the same as rimworld lite
I need to check out rimworld
Amazing Cultivation Simulator, see SsethTzeentach's review. It's Chinese Rimworld, but not exactly
Also Frostpunk might be similar to what you're looking for but not exactly it.
I've been searching since Outpost in the early 90's...
I've tried several over the years, but Rimworld being probably the closest.
Isn't this what Greedfall is about (and caught flack for from the usual suspects)?