Best City Builder / Settlement / Resource Management / Civ type games to play on Steam Deck?

[Baracus]

Sorry for really long post, but I've written it now and think maybe it will help others with similar questions to mine!

Struggling in a sea of choices to find the perfect game I want to play on the Steam Deck, so hoping I can get some ideas!

I want a quite chilled civilisation / city builder / trading / resource management type of game, with these factors taken into consideration:

1. Not a dark theme (i.e. not Frostpunk / vampires / apocalypse / war). Probably not space / sci-fi. I want a fun and cheerful theme, clear graphics.
2. Works well on Steam Deck (not too small text basically).
3. Top view / isometric / 3D — but we are overviewing, not RPG.
4. No combat, or at least not the core thing but “simple” combat “could” be fine.
5. Real time (probably)… not a 4x, something more creative and “ant farm” kind of thing to watch in action as you grow.
6. Not too complex to learn, but also not basic / shallow. A lot of deep gameplay and potential where it matters what you build but doesn’t kick you in the teeth for not being perfect in your approach.
7. Can take time to beautify the world (whether it matters to efficiency / bonus / benefits in game or not). Placing fences, decorations, non-grid like placement of buildings and roads etc to make it look “natural”).
8. Not against older games, but not too old (look nice and play well with 1280x800 and modern controls). Tried Tropico Pirate Cove which I used to love, but it just looks too old for me to really want to invest time in it now.
9. A unique or nice theme and/or unique elements of gameplay to learn. Medieval is good, but something more unique would be nice too. Not fantasy / dungeon keeper sort of “dark” though.
10. Not too heavy on micro managing.
11. Not pure sandbox (i.e. not Skylines).
12. Something where you need to build an efficient layout, and scale up, adding in new production chains and keep things moving but without micro-ing every little thing.
13. I don’t mind Early Access but would prefer a complete game.

The closest I have found of current “new games” and enjoy now is Timberborn and Foundation. A few things annoy me in Timberborn. It’s quite technical in the way you need to build or place things. For example if you build power connectors on top of platforms, the stupid beavers build the nearest one first and block themselves from building ones beyond it to connect to the actual wheel, so you have to build 1 piece at a time. And it’s a bit restrictive in placement of things which is fine once you have learnt it but ti takes a lot of failed tries to get to the point where you know enough to plan ahead enough to make a solid play-through and I haven’t even touched more than half of the buildings yet, so I expect a lot more failures before I know what I am doing. Would rather something a bit more flexible as you expand and get further into the content.

I love that Timberborn has a cute "gentle" and fun theme without being cartoony, it’s unique and has some great ideas in it, with a lot you can learn to get better at but maybe a bit TOO much for me to handle. Maybe I just need to get better, because it is very close to what I want - just get annoyed by needing to restart every time I try a new element and realise my whole city is not set up to make the most of it.

Games I already have (and why they are not what I am looking for):
1. Foundation - Still EA. Is very good and also very VERY close to what I want, but a little fiddly on Steam Deck as text and icons are just a bit too small to be comfortable, that is the main / only negative. As well as it being quite HARD to expand as I am always out of money!
2. Cities Skylines - I have played it a lot, but looking for something a bit smaller scale I suppose, a bit more “gamey” than this sandbox.
3. Islanders - too abstract / simple.
4. East India Company - old but good. Played a lot but I want less trading focus.
5. Surviving Mars. Decent, but not supported on Deck. Also a bit soulless (theme). I didn’t gel with colonist roles and building variety is too limited - all layouts end up the same.
6. Rimworld - amazing product but too much on the colony / people for me and far too much possibilities to know what direction I should take.
7. Banished - I didn’t click with it. Too dingy graphics also.
8. Oxygen Not Included - love tone and style, but it’s too much colony focus, quite complex now and has too many “threats” (stress!). I don’t mind 2D but it makes it less likely to have the non-grid and unique decorations I am looking for.
9. Tropico - a bit dated game mechanics. New ones are too much on the diplomacy side and a bit too dumbed down / hand-holding. Don’t really like the atmosphere in them. Want something with a bit more unique character (a well done indie game, I suppose).
10. Cities in Motion - too boring.
11. Factorio - too technical, don’t like walking around, too dark, don’t want combat / attackers.
12. Parkitect - does a lot what I want (creative, depth, decorations, management, ant-farm etc), but not really what theme I want, if you know what I mean. Too “cheesy” and it doesn’t play great on the Deck (controls a bit fiddly, but it sort of works).
13. A few others: Automata Empire, Citalis, Dorfromantik, Stacklands, Block’n’Hood, Radiis (all too abstract).

My shortlist to buy, but there is always something against each one so I have not found the perfect game to sink time into yet:
1. Airborne Kingdom (looks good but heard that the game is quite short, 20 hours and done. I want something I can dig deeper into and play my scene for a long time if it succeeds).
2. Fathest Frontier (also looks good, apparently works well on Steam Deck for font sizes etc. Just the city seems to end up too grid-like. I suppose Timberborn is the same so maybe this is one I should try properly even though it’s still Early Access?).
3. Farlanders (interesting that it’s turn based, simple but deep, but not sure I like the more puzzle-like terraforming aspect and the pixel graphics, whilst well done are not really nice to look at for long periods of time.
4. Manor Lords (well, for sure I will get this but until it’s really finished, can’t say what it will really play out like. I played the Demo but didn’t have much time to try it before it stoped working).
5. Sapiens (looks good but UI won’t fit well on Steam Deck. A bit weird graphics too but actually looks pretty close to what I want, barring the UI!).
6. Against the Storm (interesting fusion of roguelite and builder? But maybe the theme is a bit depressingly dark for what I want long-term to put time into. Looks interesting though from a mechanical point of view).
7. Wandering Village (too cartoony - the city middle zoom view is good but I don’t like the art style of the close up farming part or the worlds map).
8. Going Medieval (more of a colony micromanager than builder?).
9. Kingdoms Reborn (looks good - UI is not Deck Friendly? A bit TOO grid-like layouts, but otherwise this looks good).
10. Dawn Of Man (abandoned? Graphics look kind of bad).
11. Land of Vikings (looks promising).
12. Settlers? A bit too “been there, done that”.
13. Dyson Sphere Program (too sci-fi, too grid like, too technical I think).
14. The Universim (not really sure what the gameplay is like - maybe not really a builder).
15. Anno (1800 / 2070) - maybe a bit boring mechanics that haven’t really changed since the older games in the series?
16. Medieval Dynasty - not sure really what the FPS gameplay is like.
17. Ostriv (looks interesting - fits a lot of my requirements but still Early Access).
18. Snowtopia - could be fun but the theme doesn’t really shout at me (I am not into Skiing).
19. Stranded: Alien Dawn: theme too dark, too much “survival”?).
20. Settlement Survival: seems like more colony / survival than builder.
21. Architect Paris: not enough creativity having city already there at start.
22. Industries of Titan (too sci-fi, economy driven?).

Is there anything GREAT that I've missed? Please help with some suggestions or good reasons to go for one of my Shortlist or stick with the 2 I mentioned (Timberborn / Foundation)?! I have a feeling I am missing out on some slightly older but really well balanced games!

Thanks for reading (if you did) ;)

[RPG Gamer Man]

I think you might like this one. it is not on your list:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1073910/Before_We_Leave/

[Baracus]

Originally posted by RPG Gamer Man:

I think you might like this one. it is not on your list:

Hi there. Thank you very much for the reply and the suggestion. I have seen that before but totally forgot about it being an option. I'll check some reviews in a bit and see if it would be a good'un! Thanks again!

[imbrock]

I play this a lot on my deck. Beavers are cool. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062090/Timberborn

[@R+5]

if you like building stuff

https://store.steampowered.com/app/440900/Conan_Exiles/

At first glance it may be very different to what you are looking for, but if you spend a bit of time with settings to play single player mode, maybe the building aspect of the game could be interesting for you.

It can take a bit of time to find which settings to change and how, but you can set your own server for single player, and focus in the "creative mode". You can reduce how much time the night cycle takes, how long day time, and sunset, so you dont have to care a lot about limited light sources; you can change the amount of resources you can farm from plants and animals; you can reduce the amount of enemy encounters; and so on, so you can focus more in building than anything else.

[@R+5]

This one isnt available, but seems interesting for city building (its also rts, so maybe not what you are looking for)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1363080/Manor_Lords/

They offered once a demo, which maybe you can still download if you use steamdb to find the link

[Baracus]

Thanks for the further suggestions ;)

Originally posted by imbrock:

Timberborn

Yeah, I wrote that I have been playing this one. Works well enough on Deck and I do like it but hit some small frustrations with it but I guess I should persevere, as I see it's a great and infinitely replayable game with high skill ceiling, which is good.

Originally posted by @R+5:

if you like building stuff
Conan_Exiles

Good idea, but I don't really like that theme so much.

Originally posted by @R+5:

Manor_Lords
They offered once a demo, which maybe you can still download if you use steamdb to find the link

Yeah I wrote that I tried it briefly but didn't have enough time with it before they stopped it from working. Definitely on my "buy" list though, but it could still be years away!

Originally posted by RPG Gamer Man:

Before_We_Leave

Watched some reviews and although I like the concept of it, looks a bit frustrating having to constantly send resources between islands and planets. I might grab it on a sale and see if the game loop captures me!