What makes Banished special?

[Davypi]

So, up front, I need to clarify that I don't own this game. I look at it every time it goes on sale, but I already have other city/base builders that I've not finished playing, so I kind of feel like I don't need to be spending more money on a game in this genre.

That said, its interesting that when I see reviews for other city builders or even for upcoming games, that comarisons to Banished come up quite frequently. While the game doesn't look bad, I don't see much in gameplay videos that, to me makes it stand out. In fact, the Wiki page for the game shows that it only got average reviews upon release. Yet, despite this outward "averageness", its still somehow noteworthy how often other games get compared to it and that the forums both here and on GOG are still relatively active. So there must be something special about this game that sets it apart that doesn't seem to get talked about in its encapsulated summaries. So, as somebody who has never played, can somebody explain to me what makes Banished special? What does this game do that merits constant comparisons? If I'm going to play a classic builder, what does it do that might make it better than Startopia or Children of the Nile or Tropico 4?

TIA

[ROFLpl0x]

It's easy to play once you learn the handful of rules it runs on and it has a ton of mods, some of which, like Colonial Charter, add like 5x more than the vanilla game itself provides.

Of the games you mentioned I've played only Tropico 4 and I don't think Banished is better than Tropico 4, only different in that it's a straight builder so it has a different appeal. There's no fighting or politics or any sort of research. You just build your town and watch your little people go about their (very boring and simplified) lives.

It's a really good time waster for making pretty towns, but that's all it is. It's not a simulation at all, more like the Call of Duty of city builders, and once you've learned the small handful of rules it provides no challenge whatsoever. That's not a bad thing, rather it's part of it's appeal. It's so popular because there's so many mods for it and because there's just not much out there that lets the player just build without having to deal with armies and politics, etc.

It's worth buying, even at full price, but prepare to mod the hell out of it for any long term replayability because the base game is practically empty. And when you do mod it, don't expect to change the game in any way. Mods just add more building models, resource chains and tweak things like AI carrying capacity. Some of the building models are actually fantastic. There's no actual building animations, though, because the game's engine doesn't support them.

[olympe]

Well, I haven't played either of the games you mentioned, but some earlier variations of Tropico (mostly the original). One of the most striking diffeences here is that you have no politics, no policies, no struggle to stay in power, no foreign relations, no slaves. And so on.

Another difference is that banished has seasons, which actually affect the game. You don't harvest year-round, but only in autumn. Early winter means that your crops need to be harvested early - or they'll rot on the fields. Hot summers mean that your crops won't grow - and probably won't be ready for harvest before winter strikes. If winter-y cold stays a bit longer, you'll also have trouble with your farms and orchards because sowing starts late. And, yes, there's also that problem with hypothermia and the kind of clothing you're able to produce. In banished, hypothermia can kill.

Also, you have no direct influence on working hours, only indirect ones via happiness and health.

Gameplay-wise, banished is a very proactive game, and absolutely not a reactive one. If ♥♥♥♥ happens - or even hits the fan - you probably messed up a year or several before you notice anything wrong. There's also a bit of a butterfly effect: If you forgot to build a farm or two when necessary, things can really spiral out of control months or even years in the future.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Davypi:

... So there must be something special about this game that sets it apart that doesn't seem to get talked about in its encapsulated summaries. So, as somebody who has never played, can somebody explain to me what makes Banished special? What does this game do that merits constant comparisons? If I'm going to play a classic builder, what does it do that might make it better than Startopia or Children of the Nile or Tropico 4?

TIA

Atmosphere.

Banished has a great "atmosphere" and setting. It sets a great tone for play and most elements come together to continue to support that "experience of starting a colony under harsh conditions." If anything makes it "special" it has to be the atmosphere and setting the game creates.

Seasonal effects:

Banished really turns up the "Cold." That's one of the more intimidating game mechanics. Many games have weather effects that actually impact game difficulty as the player plays. But, Banished has Winter/Cold that is focused on a great deal, making every "year" a sort of drama playing out that focuses on how dangerous Winter will be.

Crop planting and harvesting is A Big Deal ™. You wont' be burdened too much by it, but you'll definitely see its effects. This, combined with the stress of Winter, is good feedback for a player's performance. Some building games don't give you a lot of feedback until it's too late for you to recognize your mistakes after a couple of hours of play. Banished tells you how bad you screwed up pretty quickly. Most management games give you decent feedback as you see efficiency increase, but Banished has mechanics there that may not be immediately evident. IOW - You've got a sort of reversed kind of feedback coming at you. You can catch immediate problems fairly easily, but may end up not seeing true "existential" problems until they are in your face. It's a good environment for management/builder fans who enjoy min/maxxing and balancing acts.

The game's mechanics are, by and large, very approachable and easy to understand, but with enough complexity to satisfy most "building/management gamers."

Banished "scale" feels good. Playing the game for a long time, building up your colony, expanding to contain more citizens, more advanced structures, more types of resources, never divorces you from play mechanics. IOW - You won't get to a point where your advancement through the game reaches a point where some game mechanics/interactions become unnecessary. For instance, if you could invent an "auto-crop-field builder machine" in a game, that may make actually picking out where to plant crops a thing of the past as your new Tech advance would supersede that game mechanic. In Banished, you still have to deal with certain minutia. Even so, it's not very "micromanagey." It scales very well. It isn't designed, however, for outrageously ginormous cities, but you can reach impressive scales that still feel "big" and satisfy that kind of play.

Banished "feels polished." There are a few issues here and there, but nothing terribly noticeable on any particular playthrough. Any issues the game may have generally don't have a huge impact on play and go unnoticed. (There's one map bug that may be the most severe, but it's very rare AFAIK. Basically, a map that spawns with a bugged square that ends up effecting pathing. Very rare, though.)

All the above being said, however, Banished play can "top out" after a few playthroughs unless you're a player that enjoys many different difficulty levels and frequently sets your own goals. But, for that, there's "mods." There are some really great mod compilation packs out there that take Banished to a sort of 'next level" play. Vanilla Banished is a good game. With mods, its a good game with a lot of replayability and more interesting choices for creative players.

Note: Startopia, Children of the Nile, Tropico 4... All of these are top-notch builder/management games. Each play differently and "feel" differently as a result. If you had Banished in your Library, you'll quickly note that it gives you yet another type of play "feel." Want a game that plays differently than the ones you mentioned? Banished is an excellent choice for that. (I am very happy to see you mentioning those classic games. :) I'm not a big fan of Tropico, but have really enjoyed the others.) If you want some other building/management games to round out a fully-fledged selection, I'd suggest adding Rimworld and Space Colony. :))

[olympe]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Banished really turns up the "Cold." That's one of the more intimidating game mechanics. Many games have weather effects that actually impact game difficulty as the player plays. But, Banished has Winter/Cold that is focused on a great deal, making every "year" a sort of drama playing out that focuses on how dangerous Winter will be.

This is so true. It's not quite to the level of Frostpunk, but can be pretty close. Not to mention that banished doesn't have a weather forecast for the foreseeable future. So, to be on the safe side, you always need to act as if winter can happen NOW. And, yes, frost and snow in late spring can happen even after you planted your crops. That kind of thing isn't unheard of. But yes. Your crops have to be sown as soon as possible after the winter, and harvested as soon as possible in autumn. And, yes, your harvest needs to last to the harvest next year. You need to take care to store enough firewood to last through the winter. And, of course, your bannies need clothes to not freeze to death while working.

Banished tells you how bad you screwed up pretty quickly.

Sooo, so true. Pretty much every new player starts with losing all their population, sometimes in year one. And then do it again, due to a different problem. Getting the start just right is the hardest balance act banished has to offer, and you absolutely have to get it 100% right.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by olympe:

...
This is so true. It's not quite to the level of Frostpunk, but can be pretty close. Not to mention that banished doesn't have a weather forecast for the foreseeable future. So, to be on the safe side, you always need to act as if winter can happen NOW. And, yes, frost and snow in late spring can happen even after you planted your crops. That kind of thing isn't unheard of. But yes. Your crops have to be sown as soon as possible after the winter, and harvested as soon as possible in autumn. And, yes, your harvest needs to last to the harvest next year. You need to take care to store enough firewood to last through the winter. And, of course, your bannies need clothes to not freeze to death while working.

It's that constant buildup of "drama" and even bits and pieces of it during harvesting if you run into issues - Once you barely survive a bad Winter, that memory is there every year waiting for you. :) (Still haven't played Frostpunk, yet, but planning on it one day.)

Banished tells you how bad you screwed up pretty quickly.

Sooo, so true. Pretty much every new player starts with losing all their population, sometimes in year one. And then do it again, due to a different problem. Getting the start just right is the hardest balance act banished has to offer, and you absolutely have to get it 100% right. [/quote]

Population is the biggest issue, there. It's not like a lot of other builder/management games where the player rushes housing to get more laborers/population. If a player does that in Banished, they'll end up starving to death...

[Okinawa]

I played it right at the start when it was rock hard and you always seemed to hit a wall when your population grew to a certain size and then seemed to collapse from sickness and old age.

It had a lot of potential but as often happens the devs release it thinking its ready for the public due to them knowing the mechanics inside out but forgetting that games with such a steep learning curve end up getting uninstalled and forgotten.

Im going to re install it soon and see if they done a decent tutorial.

[olympe]

Originally posted by Okinawa:

I played it right at the start when it was rock hard and you always seemed to hit a wall when your population grew to a certain size and then seemed to collapse from sickness and old age.

It had a lot of potential but as often happens the devs release it thinking its ready for the public due to them knowing the mechanics inside out but forgetting that games with such a steep learning curve end up getting uninstalled and forgotten.

Im going to re install it soon and see if they done a decent tutorial.

There isn't. But we have a lot of great guides here on steam. :) Also remember that everyone needs 100 food per year, and then you should be able wing it.

[pwb:{]

In my opinion, Banished is really classic, the only comparable is SimCity4.

- The logistics of Banished is quite transparent, and therefore one can manage the economy accordingly. For example, to have excess food and tool to prepare for new nomads.

- The map is big enough such that one can build various town based on landscape and needs. Tropical 5 is nice but I feel the map is smaller and is more restricted.

- With many MOD one could upgrade the town and have a good feeling on the progression of economy.

- The micromanagement is minimized, that is, one cannot manage who is the farmer of specific land, or which granary to store what type of food. This may not be welcomed for some players, but I feel this actually helps to build a larger town/city. Other games requires micromanagement cannot have a settlement to be too complex.

[maiden4meldin]

Banished seems a simple game at the outset, but upon learning to play this so called simple game. One soon finds themselves immersed within a puzzle of balance the ever growing hoard of civilians seeking to devour every scrap of food ever made in the game. It will beat even the most hardy of game players at first. Then there are the challenges, that can only be gained through natural gameplay without the many mods that have been sent out and multiplied voraciously.
Another thing that makes Banished unique among all other games, is A) It is the first of its genre/kind. and B) It was dreamed up, made and completed by a single Person, No teams of developers out there, and It was delivered as a Finished game. Which also sets it apart from all the other's that have copied it, and followed.
Let's talk about the many mod's that have been made for this game, Instead of game expansions that would boggle even the most modded game like Cities Skyline. While CS has enjoyed massive profits through its many DLC's our Developer of Banished, simply put out an update, to all mods, and these Mods are very much like a DLC in and of themselves. With Colonial Charter being a Massive juggernaut of new and exciting gameplay, deepening the food chains, the production chains, all without skipping what makes Banished so replayable in the first place.

I dare you to play the first two times without Starving to death immediately.

[maiden4meldin]

And, another thing that has made Banished such a great game. Those that have played it, and loved it, are Fiercely devoted to it in general! One cannot help but admire the Greatness of the Creator of Banished, for producing such a simple, yet vastly complex nature of the game Banished!

[Davypi]

Regarding comments about seasons, Children of the Nile has this as well, so I'm not sure that is "unique" although the timing of the seasons and the unpredictability of winter are not in that game so I can certainly understand where its not appropriate to equate them beyond surface level. In some sense, it sounds like this is really the "stand out" feature of the game - that climate has a much more harsher and realistic impact on the game. I'm not completely convinced that it makes the game "unique" but I think I can understand why that would give it a different feel from other city builders. I think its fair to say that most other games of the genre are either generous or forgiving when it comes to food since players don't want to lose to starvation. I think its fair to say that I like city builders because I like games that let me build things (rather than destroying things, like most RTS, FPS, 4x, etc do). I mean, there obviously has to be building in the game or it wouldn't be called a city builder, but if crop management is that critical, again, I think I can see why it would create a different feel in gameplay.

Originally posted by maiden4meldin:

A) It is the first of its genre/kind.

But what, exactly, is that genre? If its not a city builder like the other games I mentioned, then what is it?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by maiden4meldin:

..., is A) It is the first of its genre/kind.

This is incorrect. I appreciate the enthusiasm that may have allowed you to assume this, but there have been plenty of "builder/management" games before "Banished." Banished puts much more emphasis on "survival" elements than some.

Banished "claim to fame" is really that it was the most visible greenlight/early-access game on Steam in the early days and got international exposure on legitimate news channels which was literally picked up and run with by a host of game and social media sites. It skyrocketed in the amount of attention it received after that point.

(Banished and Kenshi, IIRC, both have benefited from this kind of attention due to their early appearance on Steam and what some media sources resembled internationally published games made possible through "Teh Interwebz." Neither developers could have likely afforded the free marketing such coverage gave them. :))

and B) It was dreamed up, made and completed by a single Person, No teams of developers out there, and It was delivered as a Finished game. Which also sets it apart from all the other's that have copied it, and followed.

That's not terribly unique, even "pre-Steam." Though, it's much easier for single-devs and indies to become "self-published" due to Steam.

I dare you to play the first two times without Starving to death immediately.

I don't think I've ever had a colony "starve to death." At most, I think I may have restarted once due to some food-related/population-related thing I didn't quite understand at first. In any case, that would have been solvable, I'm sure. If I hadn't read anything or hadn't watched some instructional videos and the like, I suppose it's possible I could have "starved to death."

(I remember why I restarted my first playthrough - I learned that Quarries could never be deconstructed and would be very happy killing off all my workers... That's what made me restart my first play so I could locate quarries with that in mind.)

Any sufficiently experienced builder/management/resource genre player can, with a bit of looking around, understand all the basic elements, but the one that will "catch" those used to other mechanics is going to be the "Housing-related Population Boom" and the immense amount of stress it can put on food production. It's very insidious and Education adds additional difficulty in the form of delayed "workers" eating food and going to school, producing nothing... :) For players used to building/management/resource kinds of games, getting more population is usually a goal. In Banished... it can be deadly.

[olympe]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Any sufficiently experienced builder/management/resource genre player can, with a bit of looking around, understand all the basic elements, but the one that will "catch" those used to other mechanics is going to be the "Housing-related Population Boom" and the immense amount of stress it can put on food production. It's very insidious and Education adds additional difficulty in the form of delayed "workers" eating food and going to school, producing nothing... :) For players used to building/management/resource kinds of games, getting more population is usually a goal. In Banished... it can be deadly.

True. And, as I already said, you need to be proactive and consider the FUTURE needs of your population.
If you build a house, you need to be aware that several hundred food as well as a substantial amount of firewood just vanish into the house's internal storage.
If you build several houses at once, you need to be aware that you'll have an influx of children in the very near future - which will put an additional strain on your food, and your supply needs to be high enough to suffice.
If, on the other hand, you don't build any houses for a prolonged time, your population will go through a bottleneck - if it goes through at all. Because your young adults will stay with their parents until they have a house of their own to move into. However, their parents won't have more children because the house is full. And, well, houses only free up after all its inhabitants are dead. So,most of your young adults will be beyond their child-bearing years before a house frees up naturally, meaning there won't be (m)any more children... This, IMHO, is the most insidious of extinction events because you won't notice it happening until it's way, way too late.

If you forget or - *gasp* - forego to build a school, you will have young, uneducated workers. They have only around 2/3 of the efficiency of an educated worker, and (from what I've read here) are more prone to getting killed in accidents.
If you don't produce tools soon enough (or not enough tools in general), your workers will have to make do without - and lose about half their efficiency that way. Which can easily kill off your village, too.

[☆TheDough]

What I have found to be unique is Banished that isn't so prevalent in other games is what has come to be known by the community as the "Death Spiral". Unlike most other city-builders, it took me 3-4 tries to actually create a city(town) that actually survived. If you aren't aware of the impending threats or, more importantly, the balancing requirements... then it is almost guaranteed that your first city building attempts will be failures and everybody and everything in it will perish.

And you can't always simply "fix" things in banished, once the death spiral starts.... it's usually game over.

[76561199087057163]

Its a fantastic game. once you have the hang of it, endless ... i have 2300 peoples in a game :) just in the vanilla sort. you should try it for sure !!!!