Why Banished is the Hardest City Builder

[OhhJim]

In Pharaoh/Zeus/Caesar, you don't need time or materials to build most buildings. You place the building and it's there.

In Stronghold, you need materials, but not time, You place the building, the wood disappears from your warehouse, and it's there.

In Tropico, you need time, but not materials. Your workers somehow come up with the materials, but it takes them a while to put up the building.

In Banished, you need both time and materials.

[. -.-. .-.. .. .--. ... .]

Yeah. Plan wrong or wait too long and you can easily be doomed.
I didnt played Life is Feudal yet, but it seems like it too, but i dont know how hard it really is.

[ebunts]

It takes laborers to gather material to build the building., that is if you have the material stockpiled already. Make sure you have laborers available. You may not see any work being done on your new building if you have your laborers doing other tasks, such as gathering resources.

Resources already at site (building footprint) but not being built? Do you have builders or enough builders? Are they busy with other building, whether they are laborers, builders, miners, farmers, ect., they need to get food or need to get warm and will stop working to do so.

[Horoai]

Settlers?

[VladiMatt]

I can't speak for the other games but in Tropico you pay for the building's materials up front, as well as worker wages every month.

[OhhJim]

Sure, but you don't have to actually have the materials on hand. In Pharaoh, you also pay for the buildings, but you don't need to have materials.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Settlers?

[OhhJim]

I've never played Settlers. Does that game require time and materials both?

[ogreballerina]

Life is Fuedal is harder and way less forgiving.
I never thought of Banished as a hard game, more of a casual and fun city builder.

[ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠]

And this game here also has the added bonus of making all new players build too many houses near the start of the game and then not pacing house building afterwards, so that the old people die off in one go and the few adults left to work are unable to feed themselves the children.

[OhhJim]

I don't really think Banished is a hard game, either. I almost always play on Hard, just to make it interesting. I just wanted to compare difference city builders.

[Name Lips]

The early Settlers games were ridiculous. The number of resources and products were large, and the supply chains very complicated. Much like Banished, each unit of resource needed to be physically moved from where it was produced to where it was needed by a hauler.

To make bread, for instance, you needed a bakery with fuel, flour, and water. Flour needed to be made at a mill from wheat. Wheat needed a field, plus water. Water needed a well, which needs stone and wood planks. Planks are made in a sawmill from logs... It was very easy to end up with bottlenecks of basic resources when you built a single high-end building without realizing how extensive the supply chain would need to be to support it.

You also needed to get a weapon industry up and running and assign some units as soldiers to defend your town.

[Wiedźma Danaien]

Banished reminds me of old Settlers (mentioned above already) and Pharaoh games. I like those chains, I even like the thing "more houses=doom". I'm familiar with most of the mechanics, chains and buildings but there is always something new to discover, learn and master (like "breeding" people). Unlike other city buildier games, there is no time spent on just sitting and watching. Every minute, every second is worth looking at the game ;)

[Horoai]

Originally posted by Name Lips:

The early Settlers games were ridiculous. The number of resources and products were large, and the supply chains very complicated. Much like Banished, each unit of resource needed to be physically moved from where it was produced to where it was needed by a hauler.

To make bread, for instance, you needed a bakery with fuel, flour, and water. Flour needed to be made at a mill from wheat. Wheat needed a field, plus water. Water needed a well, which needs stone and wood planks. Planks are made in a sawmill from logs... It was very easy to end up with bottlenecks of basic resources when you built a single high-end building without realizing how extensive the supply chain would need to be to support it.

You also needed to get a weapon industry up and running and assign some units as soldiers to defend your town.

Not to mention bread itself was only another link in the production chain of coal und thus ultimately weapons. :D

To be fair though, settlers was more of an RTS than a city building game. The earlier titles anyway. Kind of like Stronghold.

[OhhJim]

Originally posted by Wiedźma Danaien:

Banished reminds me of old Settlers (mentioned above already) and Pharaoh games. I like those chains, I even like the thing "more houses=doom". I'm familiar with most of the mechanics, chains and buildings but there is always something new to discover, learn and master (like "breeding" people). Unlike other city buildier games, there is no time spent on just sitting and watching. Every minute, every second is worth looking at the game ;)

Pharaoh was my first city builder and still one of my favorites. You're right, a lot of time is spent sitting and watching, but that's how the game was designed-if you build your city right, it runs on its own, without you. But I like how Banished makes you always pay attention, too.