Question Your Favorite Building / Management Games

[McStabStab]

What are your favorite city building / supply chain management games? Here's a quick list of games I come back to often:

• Cities: Skylines
• Surviving Mars
• Anno 1800

I also really enjoyed Rimworld for a while but haven't tried the Royalty DLC. Frostpunk is great but in terms of difficulty I usually prefer something a little more laid back to pass the time. I know this is kind of a stretch for the category but Planet Coaster definitely held my attention for a while since I was a Roller Coaster Tycoon player growing up. Also Offworld Trading Company even though being more of an RTS game had me addicted for a while.

What do you all like? Has anyone tried Surviving the Apocalypse yet? How about Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic? Any big Tropico series players? (I have to admit I've never tried it)

Also feel free to post screenshots of your beautiful creations here!

 

[Pifanjr]

I've heard a lot of good things about Factorio, although I haven't played it myself. I recently saw there is a second version out now.

Personally, I really like Minecraft with the FTB Infinity Evolved modpack. There's some massive mods out there that allow you to automate pretty much everything, while adding a ton of new content and items to craft.

If you like Rimworld, I would suggest checking out Dwarf Fortress (with graphics mod pack).

I have also enjoyed various Anno games and the Roller Coaster Tycoon games in the past and I've been getting weirdly nostalgic for Theme Hospital ever since I saw it's available for free on archive.org.

 

[McStabStab]

I've heard a lot of good things about Factorio, although I haven't played it myself. I recently saw there is a second version out now.

Personally, I really like Minecraft with the FTB Infinity Evolved modpack. There's some massive mods out there that allow you to automate pretty much everything, while adding a ton of new content and items to craft.

If you like Rimworld, I would suggest checking out Dwarf Fortress (with graphics mod pack).

I have also enjoyed various Anno games and the Roller Coaster Tycoon games in the past and I've been getting weirdly nostalgic for Theme Hospital ever since I saw it's available for free on archive.org.

I've never played Factorio either and people say it's super addicting. Dwarf Fortress I've always read about but never tried just because of the graphical limitations you're referencing. There's the spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital, now that I also have not tried. Have you? Looks decent.

 

[Pifanjr]

I've never played Factorio either and people say it's super addicting. Dwarf Fortress I've always read about but never tried just because of the graphical limitations you're referencing. There's the spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital, now that I also have not tried. Have you? Looks decent.

I've also heard that Factorio is one of those games that can make a weekend disappear.

Since Dwarf Fortress is free, I can recommend you checking it out if you ever want to try something new and don't know what to play. There's a Starter Pack with a whole bunch of tools and some graphics packs that is very useful for new players.

I have seen something about Two Point Hospital in passing, but I haven't played it or really looked at it.

I just remembered about Banished as well, which I think I played while it was still in early access. It was pretty fun, if unbalanced and fairly shallow when I played it last. It seems to have very positive reviews on Steam now.

 

[McStabStab]

Some screenshots of my more successful creations:
Cities: Skylines
Anno 1800
Surviving Mars
Frostpunk

 

[MaddMann]

I currently have just shy of 400 hours in Factorio. It may be one of the most addicting games I have ever played. It really has the, just one more thing, type mentality to it. It also happens to be my favorite game to play co-op. Between creating insanely intricate factories that produce a huge number of products, building logistics systems to transport said products, all while trying to defend from what can best be described as zerg rushers, there is a lot to do. On multiple occasions I have started it up to "fix one thing" which leads to me finding several things that need to be optimized in order to fix said thing.
All in all, it's fantastic and I can't recommend it enough. Also... MODS. Mods for EVERYTHING

 

[McStabStab]

I currently have just shy of 400 hours in Factorio. It may be one of the most addicting games I have ever played. It really has the, just one more thing, type mentality to it. It also happens to be my favorite game to play co-op. Between creating insanely intricate factories that produce a huge number of products, building logistics systems to transport said products, all while trying to defend from what can best be described as zerg rushers, there is a lot to do. On multiple occasions I have started it up to "fix one thing" which leads to me finding several things that need to be optimized in order to fix said thing.
All in all, it's fantastic and I can't recommend it enough. Also... MODS. Mods for EVERYTHING

What are the overall objectives, so to speak? Is it to defeat the “zerg”? Reach a monetary or resource goal? Are there side goals?

 

[Frindis]

I did have a great time playing Cities: Skylines recently. It took a while to get the waste management in order though, as I kind of missed how that worked when making the town. I managed to make a somewhat functional city with a positive revenue stream. I think Lemmings would be my favorite *cough* supply chain management game of all time. Oh, and Pizza Tycoon if I could possibly squeeze that in with a pinch or two of the game Ports of call.

 

[MaddMann]

What are the overall objectives, so to speak? Is it to defeat the “zerg”? Reach a monetary or resource goal? Are there side goals?

So the "story" is that you crash landed on this planet. Your end goal is to build a satellite that can call home for help, but you start with nothing more than a mining pick. You have to gradually work your way up through research to build more and more complicated systems, up to and including nuclear power. You have to concern yourself with your air pollution (as a lot of things will be burning coal for quite some time and factories inherently cause pollution) as this is what triggers aliens to attack. The moment you attract the first aliens, they will start to evolve becoming harder and harder to deal with. So it has an interesting military aspect, but the major focus is on expanding your industry and automation.

 

[McStabStab]

So the "story" is that you crash landed on this planet. Your end goal is to build a satellite that can call home for help, but you start with nothing more than a mining pick. You have to gradually work your way up through research to build more and more complicated systems, up to and including nuclear power. You have to concern yourself with your air pollution (as a lot of things will be burning coal for quite some time and factories inherently cause pollution) as this is what triggers aliens to attack. The moment you attract the first aliens, they will start to evolve becoming harder and harder to deal with. So it has an interesting military aspect, but the major focus is on expanding your industry and automation.

So what happens when you build the satellite? Do you get to “phone home”?

 

[MaddMann]

So what happens when you build the satellite? Do you get to “phone home”?

Currently, you have to launch 5 rockets. Each time you do, you get the last tier resources needed for the highest technologies. Even after that, you have the option to keep playing. It can be infinite. The maps are absolutely ginormous.

 

[Zloth]

Any big Tropico series players? (I have to admit I've never tried it)

Did somebody say Screenshot?

I've played plenty of Tropico. In fact, I like it better than Cities: Skylines. I just started playing the new one.

I've played some of the old Roller Coaster Tycoon games, too. In RCT3, I decided to go completely mad in sandbox mode and make this monstrosity:

 

[McStabStab]

Did somebody say Screenshot?

I've played plenty of Tropico. In fact, I like it better than Cities: Skylines. I just started playing the new one.

I've played some of the old Roller Coaster Tycoon games, too. In RCT3, I decided to go completely mad in sandbox mode and make this monstrosity:

Jesus, from dusk til dawn haha. I’d love to see the G / negative G graph on that one. No human being could have survived that lol.

 

[Zloth]

Jesus, from dusk til dawn haha. I’d love to see the G / negative G graph on that one. No human being could have survived that lol.

+7G to -2.8G with 4.7G lateral. The stats are at the very end, though no graph unfortunately. Should be survivable but you're sure getting knocked around.

 

[Zoid]

Just popping in here to confess that I have fallen once again into the Factorio black hole. The developers have been awesome about updates ever since the initial early access release, and every time they add new content my life outside of Factorio flashes before my eyes.

 

[McStabStab]

Just popping in here to confess that I have fallen once again into the Factorio black hole. The developers have been awesome about updates ever since the initial early access release, and every time they add new content my life outside of Factorio flashes before my eyes.

Think you‘d be willing to share some screenshots or videos?

 

[Inspireless Llama]

I had a hard time starting to play Cities Skylines, but after retrying it I fell in love with it. I haven't played for some time now, but I really enjoy playing it. I tend to take building cities slow though, it took me +/- a 100 years to get my city to 100.000 citizens. Not that I mind that.

I like how I it pretty much works like this: Build something, watch it go well, forget about it and then a few hours later notice your traffic flow went down from 80% to 20% because you overlooked something when your traffic increased.

Besides that I like casual management games, but then the ones that focus more on management than on creation. I liked Parkitect which came out arround the same time as Planet Coaster but Parkitect looked more relaxed and more focussed on management than on creating rides. I also enjoyed Prison Architect a great deal when it was in Early Acces. Just haven't played it much after it got released so now I"ve 40 hours played with 1 achievement lol.

 

[jpishgar]

Chiming in to say that Anno 2070 was probably my fave of the past few years. I did enjoy Anno 1800 recently, but 2070 had some pretty great moments and a pretty fantastic feel.

Have any of you tried the most recent expansion to RimWorld, the royalty one? I'm tempted, but I know it's also a bottomless hole into which I can shovel a great deal of time getting my base just right.

Surviving the Apocalypse was okay when I gave it a whirl a few weeks back, but I feel like I need to wait until the game is more complete and closer to full version launch to really sink my teeth in.

Cities: Skylines causes me anxiety, though I acknowledge it as the foremost absolute in terms of city builders. The problem for me with it is that it's way too realistic. Half of the fun of the older SimCity games was that there was a kind of suspension of disbelief in the organization of a city management approach, and traffic wasn't the end-all be-all of creating a megalopolis. Cities:Skylines is like a full on real world applicable simulation. Some of the infrastructure solutions players have come up with in that game should qualify them for masters degrees in urban planning and transport.

For all-time faves, I'm gonna have to go Capitalism, Transport Tycoon, RimWorld, Factorio. I'm still not 100% sure what my thoughts are in retrospect on Satisfactory, which is basically Factorio in first-person.

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Across the years I surely played some city builders, starting probably from Settlers II. Damn, this game was so good to just chill and look at products being taken from place to place. I played some SimCity as well, but never found my footing in it.

In last decade or so (I am old, ok?) I mostly played Tropico series and bit of Cities: Skylines. Somehow I prefer having single player campaign or at least scenarios instead of freeplay - having everything available to me from the start makes me lose interest fast. I guess that's why none of my cities ended up being impressive or nice enough to make a screenshots of them.

 

[MadeManG74]

I can't remember what inspired me to play it, but I ended up falling in love with Tropico 3 a few years ago. How do the newer ones stack up?

I also used to really enjoy Theme Park on my Mega Drive of all things. I'm very tempted to get Two-Point hospital soon as well, that game sounds like a lot of fun. I just haven't been buying games lately since I'm clearing a lot of back-log first, but it's high on my list.

 

[Pifanjr]

Somehow I prefer having single player campaign or at least scenarios instead of freeplay - having everything available to me from the start makes me lose interest fast. I guess that's why none of my cities ended up being impressive or nice enough to make a screenshots of them.

I have this problem (?) too. I played through the campaign of Prison Architect, but the freeplay game I started afterwards just couldn't keep my attention for very long.

I think this is mostly a problem with games where you have to manage money though, because I don't have this problem with Dwarf Fortress or Minecraft with mods. Knowing you have a bunch of stuff you want to accomplish but not having enough money sucks, as the only option is to wait. With Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft, there's always something to improve or upgrade.

 

[McStabStab]

Cities: Skylines causes me anxiety, though I acknowledge it as the foremost absolute in terms of city builders. The problem for me with it is that it's way too realistic. Half of the fun of the older SimCity games was that there was a kind of suspension of disbelief in the organization of a city management approach, and traffic wasn't the end-all be-all of creating a megalopolis. Cities:Skylines is like a full on real world applicable simulation. Some of the infrastructure solutions players have come up with in that game should qualify them for masters degrees in urban planning and transport.

That's funny you say this because I find Anno 1800 to give me more anxiety than Cities: Skylines. The overwhelming amount of needs that require your attention whether it be supply chains, quests, pirates, fires, disease outbreaks, expeditions, etc. can make me feel frantic at times. At least in Cities: I can pause the game and work on infrastructure while everyone in frozen. You pause Anno and you get a pause screen!

I do agree that every time I look at the Cities: Skylines reddit I find myself jealous of other's infrastructure solutions. I think, why couldn't I make something that beautiful... but then remember I probably have 1/10th the amount of time in-game that those players have.

 

[Zoid]

I had a hard time starting to play Cities Skylines, but after retrying it I fell in love with it.

I have had Cities Skylines sitting idle in my library for years because the first time I tried it I also couldn't get into it. I suspect that if I retried it now it would hook me for many, many hours.

Think you‘d be willing to share some screenshots or videos?

I unfortunately don't have as much time to devote to the game as some folks, so there will be wayyyy cooler factories elsewhere on the internet, but I'll share a couple screenshots below. If you ever want to talk more in-depth about Factorio just hit me up with a message, or I may start a dedicated Factorio thread if I get around to it.

Spoiler

This is an early or early-mid game factory that I just started. I labeled the main areas. I'm building it with room to add additional production facilities that will draw from the main bus. The bus is buffered to help with resource spikes and shortages.

I have begun exhausting my iron supply at my starting location, and I was in need of more throughput anyway, so I am in the process of building a couple mining outposts. Next step is to get these linked up by rail to my main factory.

 

[MaddMann]

Think you‘d be willing to share some screenshots or videos?

I too have fallen back in there. Mentioning it here and introducing probably the 20th friend to it, I have gone in full on again. This is a little bit of an older screenshot, but it was of a nuclear power facility I was building and I wanted it to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Note: this design didn't end up working as well as I wanted as I was unable to get my water pressure to match my power needs.

https://imgur.com/a/MSHarXs

 

[McStabStab]

That looks really cool... and really addicting. I may have to give Factorio a try soon since we may all be in quarantine anyway.