December 2023 PCG Article Links and Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Steam keeps on winning

Last year, they all came crawlin' back to Steam, and this year was another strong one for Valve.

www.pcgamer.com

The thing that interests me, though, is the possibility that GTA 6 could have a brief moment of Epic store exclusivity. Could GTA 6 do for Epic what Fortnite couldn't? Fortnite is played by the unwashed masses. Alan Wake 2 is a niche game. GTA 6, on the other hand, is a behemoth among gamers. I could see it giving the Epic store quite a real boost in a few years when it actually releases on PC.

 

[Pifanjr]

6 game genre trends that we think are going to define 2024

The landscapes of FPSes and RPGs and city builders are all right at the edge of some big changes.

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I don't have much to add to the first five points, but the last point made me wonder if someone has already made anything similar to Majesty 2, with a bigger focus on city-building.

I liked the general idea of Majesty 2, but I didn't like how much time pressure there was in the campaign. So a game where you can focus on building a city while also providing equipment and quests for adventurers seems like it could be fun.

There's been quite some games that mix dungeon delving with management mechanics, but as far as I know you always directly control the character(s) yourself. There's also city builders that let you send out expeditions, but that isn't quite the same either.

Does anyone know of a game that does what I'm describing?

 

[ZedClampet]

6 game genre trends that we think are going to define 2024

The landscapes of FPSes and RPGs and city builders are all right at the edge of some big changes.

www.pcgamer.com

I don't have much to add to the first five points, but the last point made me wonder if someone has already made anything similar to Majesty 2, with a bigger focus on city-building.

I liked the general idea of Majesty 2, but I didn't like how much time pressure there was in the campaign. So a game where you can focus on building a city while also providing equipment and quests for adventurers seems like it could be fun.

There's been quite some games that mix dungeon delving with management mechanics, but as far as I know you always directly control the character(s) yourself. There's also city builders that let you send out expeditions, but that isn't quite the same either.

Does anyone know of a game that does what I'm describing?

I don't know of one, but I'll keep an eye out.

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown may have something like that, but it isn't released yet.

 

[ZedClampet]

6 game genre trends that we think are going to define 2024

The landscapes of FPSes and RPGs and city builders are all right at the edge of some big changes.

www.pcgamer.com

I don't have much to add to the first five points, but the last point made me wonder if someone has already made anything similar to Majesty 2, with a bigger focus on city-building.

I liked the general idea of Majesty 2, but I didn't like how much time pressure there was in the campaign. So a game where you can focus on building a city while also providing equipment and quests for adventurers seems like it could be fun.

There's been quite some games that mix dungeon delving with management mechanics, but as far as I know you always directly control the character(s) yourself. There's also city builders that let you send out expeditions, but that isn't quite the same either.

Does anyone know of a game that does what I'm describing?

This might be somewhat similar to what you are looking for. This is copied from the January 23, 2020 update notes for the city builder/colony sim Foundation.

"We have made some major changes to the Military system and quests for the Winter Content Update. You will now need to raise your chances of a successful campaign by both training and equipping your soldiers with weapons.

Once trained you will be able to send your soldiers on an extended campaign where you decide the right time to bring them home. Each mission will vary in difficulty but the higher difficulty missions will bring greater rewards.

To facilitate these changes you will now find a new Military manager panel. Here you can check on your soldier’s stats, equip weapons as well as keep track on available and ongoing missions."

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't know of one, but I'll keep an eye out.

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown may have something like that, but it isn't released yet.

This might be somewhat similar to what you are looking for. This is copied from the January 23, 2020 update notes for the city builder/colony sim Foundation.

"We have made some major changes to the Military system and quests for the Winter Content Update. You will now need to raise your chances of a successful campaign by both training and equipping your soldiers with weapons.

Once trained you will be able to send your soldiers on an extended campaign where you decide the right time to bring them home. Each mission will vary in difficulty but the higher difficulty missions will bring greater rewards.

To facilitate these changes you will now find a new Military manager panel. Here you can check on your soldier’s stats, equip weapons as well as keep track on available and ongoing missions."

Thank you for the suggestions. From the description on Steam it seems like Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown uses a RTS approach where you directly control your units. Foundation seems like it just lets you send expeditions.

I was hoping more for a game where you can't directly control or direct your military. Dungeon Keeper would be another good example of a game where you mostly manage your "city" and have only limited control over the citizens of your realm. I'd like to see something like that but with more in-depth management mechanics.

 

[ZedClampet]

Thank you for the suggestions. From the description on Steam it seems like Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown uses a RTS approach where you directly control your units. Foundation seems like it just lets you send expeditions.

I was hoping more for a game where you can't directly control or direct your military. Dungeon Keeper would be another good example of a game where you mostly manage your "city" and have only limited control over the citizens of your realm. I'd like to see something like that but with more in-depth management mechanics.

I'm sorry. I'm still a little confused about exactly what you want. For instance, you send your military out in Foundations, but you don't control them (I'm pretty sure) other than to tell them what the mission is. They would do the fighting by themselves or the exploration, etc. But you want to only build the city and the military does it's own thing? You never tell them what to do at all? Same for the rest of the citizens?

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm sorry. I'm still a little confused about exactly what you want. For instance, you send your military out in Foundations, but you don't control them (I'm pretty sure) other than to tell them what the mission is. They would do the fighting by themselves or the exploration, etc. But you want to only build the city and the military does it's own thing? You never tell them what to do at all? Same for the rest of the citizens?

If I understand it correctly, in Foundation you just send your soldiers off map for expeditions and they return once they've won or lost.

In Majesty 2 and Dungeon Keeper, you can't really send your units explicitly, you can only set a reward for attacking an enemy and your units will decide whether that reward is worth it. Though in Dungeon Keeper you can pick up your units and drop them near enemies within your territory to force them to fight, as well as take control of a specific unit.

What I'm looking for is a game where combat exists, but it requires no extra management from the player, but is handled entirely by the AI.

Take for example the Anno series. You can declare war on other factions, but the combat mechanics kind of suck and micromanaging units takes the focus away from the city building part, which is the part I enjoy. So it would be nice if you would only be responsible for making sure a weapon industry exists, but not for actually creating or controlling units. At most you'd be able to set a bounty on a specific faction or city to incentivise an attack.

I suppose I could generalise it to any management game in which the thing you're managing is only a small part of a dynamic world, such that you need to keep an eye on what's happening around you to be able to adapt and give support to AI controlled allies. So there's a goal beyond expanding and/or making numbers (like income and/or population) go up.

 

[ZedClampet]

If I understand it correctly, in Foundation you just send your soldiers off map for expeditions and they return once they've won or lost.

In Majesty 2 and Dungeon Keeper, you can't really send your units explicitly, you can only set a reward for attacking an enemy and your units will decide whether that reward is worth it. Though in Dungeon Keeper you can pick up your units and drop them near enemies within your territory to force them to fight, as well as take control of a specific unit.

What I'm looking for is a game where combat exists, but it requires no extra management from the player, but is handled entirely by the AI.

Take for example the Anno series. You can declare war on other factions, but the combat mechanics kind of suck and micromanaging units takes the focus away from the city building part, which is the part I enjoy. So it would be nice if you would only be responsible for making sure a weapon industry exists, but not for actually creating or controlling units. At most you'd be able to set a bounty on a specific faction or city to incentivise an attack.

I suppose I could generalise it to any management game in which the thing you're managing is only a small part of a dynamic world, such that you need to keep an eye on what's happening around you to be able to adapt and give support to AI controlled allies. So there's a goal beyond expanding and/or making numbers (like income and/or population) go up.

I've sort of had an obsession with city builders and management type games for the last few months, and I've looked at a ton of them, and I can't think of one that meets that criteria, although I wasn't specifically looking for that at the time. I'll keep an eye out for one, though. There are a couple where your settlement gets attacked pretty frequently, and the NPCs automatically fight the enemy off with whatever defenses you've built. That's all I know about them. Sometimes it's hard to get that level of detail from the store page.