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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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.