How does this game compare to Songs of Syx for example?

[TomOfFinland]

I know that Dwarf Fortress is the game that started the spark for all the games of this genre. Or that is what I've been lead to believe.
However I've never played it and it looks absolutely more complicated, not so accessible UI wise and frustrating compared to rimworld and Songs of Syx for example.

What would you say are the selling points of dwarf fortress compared to other games of the genre?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by TomOfFinland:

I know that Dwarf Fortress is the game that started the spark for all the games of this genre. Or that is what I've been lead to believe.
However I've never played it and it looks absolutely more complicated, not so accessible UI wise and frustrating compared to rimworld and Songs of Syx for example.

What would you say are the selling points of dwarf fortress compared to other games of the genre?

Songs of Syx is a great game.

But, it's different...

SoS is a city-builder, management, game that's focused around something like running a City State and with play that's eventually focused on conquest. It is a sandbox/open-world sort, but it focuses much more on "civilization building.

So, for example, it has a Research mechanic. It has detailed combat with a sort of Total War breakout interface. It has, as a substantial component of a city-state, cultural play with different races and their needs and the like as well as birth/growth/education.

SoS has much more focus on "strategic" play and developing a culture and a big functional, well-running, city-state capable of taking on other city-states/nations.

DF isn't focused on that. It has a few of those elements and it does support some components of that kind of play, but it just sort of skims over the kinds of detailed cultural "civilization-style" mechanics, so the focus is a bit more intimate and keeps the player thinking about local, colony-building, mechanics. (to add: DF is also very much more focused on "survival" mechanics at the individual Dorf level. SoS has loose survival mechanics entirely appropriate for its wider design.)

One is like Civilization, but with much more detailed and free-form building construction mixed in with elements of Rome:Total War (original) and Children of the Nile or something like Caesar III on steroids.

The other is like a Banished/fantasy-verions on crack and steroids with Dorfs, z-levels, insanity, free-form building, militaries, monsters, RPG elements, socio-economic play (Nobility mechanics), and C'thulu...

DF is obviously much deeper with much more in the way of evolving gameplay and drill-down detail all over the place. But, SOS is awesome in being a free-form city-builder with a bit wider scope.

BUT, they are both in the "Great Game" category and both by good Indie developers, too. (SoS = Highly Recommended for fans of this sort of genre.)

[TomOfFinland]

Yeah thanks guys.
I already bought the game before you had time to answer here. :)
I think it's needles to say that I've already started three times over because I'm learning new things every time and realized what kind of mistakes I did in the beginning or what could've been done better.

The next one I start, I intend to play until the end. Having a blast with it so far and I like how deep it feels.

[VoiD]

If anything if you're a fan of these games it's nice to know where the idea came from.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by TomOfFinland:

Yeah thanks guys.
I already bought the game before you had time to answer here. :)
I think it's needles to say that I've already started three times over because I'm learning new things every time and realized what kind of mistakes I did in the beginning or what could've been done better.

The next one I start, I intend to play until the end. Having a blast with it so far and I like how deep it feels.

Ii started new embarks five times or so before I settled on one that's gotten me to having the Capital of my Civilization and a King in residence. (Kind of proud of that, but it wasn't terribly difficult to do. "normal" settings all the way, don't take a bunch of risks, keep food/drink, get Steel, trade/train... no problem.)

SoS is a great game, too. I bought it awhile back and played a good bit and still didn't discover all it has, particularly in the conquest bit. Nice dev, too, and really enthusiastic about his game. Honestly, he seems really happy when he can put out a new content addition or improvement. To me, for indie-devs, that's a hallmark I look for.

SoS does have some clear influences from DF, but so many games do, as Void mentioned, that the genre has accepted DF's original mechanics as "standard" for a lot of things.

I feel I'll spend hundreds+more of hours with DF if given the chance, now. :)

[TomOfFinland]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by TomOfFinland:

Yeah thanks guys.
I already bought the game before you had time to answer here. :)
I think it's needles to say that I've already started three times over because I'm learning new things every time and realized what kind of mistakes I did in the beginning or what could've been done better.

The next one I start, I intend to play until the end. Having a blast with it so far and I like how deep it feels.

Ii started new embarks five times or so before I settled on one that's gotten me to having the Capital of my Civilization and a King in residence. (Kind of proud of that, but it wasn't terribly difficult to do. "normal" settings all the way, don't take a bunch of risks, keep food/drink, get Steel, trade/train... no problem.)

SoS is a great game, too. I bought it awhile back and played a good bit and still didn't discover all it has, particularly in the conquest bit. Nice dev, too, and really enthusiastic about his game. Honestly, he seems really happy when he can put out a new content addition or improvement. To me, for indie-devs, that's a hallmark I look for.

SoS does have some clear influences from DF, but so many games do, as Void mentioned, that the genre has accepted DF's original mechanics as "standard" for a lot of things.

I feel I'll spend hundreds+more of hours with DF if given the chance, now. :)

SoS is nice game and feels really relaxing to play. But it also is almost too easy.

The games difficulty scales with your population, so if you keep it under certain level, you can build your foundation without any worries.

Then once you get your industry running and enough researchers and research tech, you can basically just research and build whatever your city needs atm.
And that is vert possible at around 1k pop already.

It gets pretty boring and I haven't either gotten myself to explore the wars and world map stuff like you said.

[Decado]

One cool thing about Songs of Syx - you get the full game as a limtless demo, but two versions older than current. That's a pretty bloody good way to do things from a marketing pov, means that you can really test it out and see if you want to take that plunge.

I really liked what I played of it but it's different again.

It's even more expansive by way of world. It has a top down, pixlated view which is really quite beautiful in its pixel detail IMO, but the way it handles time is a bit insane.

You can speed it to up to basically ludicrous speed to advance the city, and so you're seeing things like weather, day/night cycles fly past so quickly you're not getting any sense of time (if that makes sense).

Because it's a full fledged city/civilisation simulator, it needs that speed to sort of progress. You can slow it down etc but more often you're cruising at warp speed.

All in all, i much prefer this. But still i'm keeping an eye on SoS.