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Banished - Medieval SimCity

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
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The base game is fairly solid in mechanics, UI and aesthetics but quickly becomes easy/dull once your food supply is secured.

I could see modders creating something much more interesting.
 
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MoLAoS

Guest
He actually planned it as more of a proof of concept than a game. He is honestly more interested in engines I think.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
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Messages
27,792
Yep, that's fine. And $20 is a fairly reasonable price but if he's going to get my pennies he's going to have to set it much lower in a sale.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Same opinion here. IT is amazing game for 10-15 hours. But when you secure food there isn't anything to do.
Still this is 1 man game (+ a bit of outsourcing) and this is much better game than recent maxis turd.

20$ is good price for it.
 

Abelian

Somebody's Alt
Joined
Nov 17, 2013
Messages
2,289
For the next 16 hours, Banished is on sale for $10 at GOG.com.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Grimwulf

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Kodex Kommunistic Kastle
I enjoyed my time with Banished, but it becomes pointless in the end. It's totally worth it's money tho. Kinda reminded me of good old Beasts and Bumpkins.

Well, no choice but play The Guild 2. AGAIN.
 

Jools

Eater of Apples
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Insert Title Here Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Update 1.0.4 out. :)

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014-11-04-release-1-0-4/

Changes in this release:

  • - Increased memory usage allowed for save games. This allows larger modded maps than default to be saved safely. However at some point very large maps will crash the game due to out of memory, or textures failing to be created.
  • - Trade UI now expands automatically for orders.
  • - Fix a bug that caused mods to become unreferenced in save games when opening the mod dialog in game and then pressing cancel.
  • - Fixed a bug that caused mods that should be unloaded to stay in memory if they were loaded at game start. This fixed random ghost buttons on the toolbar.
  • - Fixed tutorials not progressing properly.
 

Grimwulf

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Update 1.0.4 out. :)

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014-11-04-release-1-0-4/

Changes in this release:

  • - Increased memory usage allowed for save games. This allows larger modded maps than default to be saved safely. However at some point very large maps will crash the game due to out of memory, or textures failing to be created.
  • - Trade UI now expands automatically for orders.
  • - Fix a bug that caused mods to become unreferenced in save games when opening the mod dialog in game and then pressing cancel.
  • - Fixed a bug that caused mods that should be unloaded to stay in memory if they were loaded at game start. This fixed random ghost buttons on the toolbar.
  • - Fixed tutorials not progressing properly.

Jeez. That guy just refuses to implement milking cows out of principle, huh. Oh well, at least modders are in more comfy conditions now.
 

CSM

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Dec 12, 2009
Messages
459
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
Got about 8 hours of fun out of it. There really isn't all that much to do, and it's fairly easy. 7.59 EUR matches the enjoyment I got out of it, I guess.
 

Goliath

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
17,830
I have recently tried Banished, played through the tutorials.. and afterwards had zero reasons to actually play the game. When this game was in development / early access there was a lot of noise about it, like it was some kind of super great thing.

However to me it seemed like the most generic, lifeless, and charm-free city builder I have ever seen. Is there some hidden awesome not covered by the tutorials?

Really, what is the point of this game?
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Developer
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Funny, I had the opposite feeling. It is not soulless, but a charming city builder. The changing seasons give a nice twist to it, and it is quite hard at first. Many say that the game is bad because it gets old after a while. I agree that after a while the game doesn't offer anything new, but that point only came to me after 20 hours, and definitely not after the tutorial. 20 hours is great from this budget title, expecially if you look at its city building mechanics which is one of the best in the last 2 decades.

Also, see its topic:
http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/banished-medieval-simcity-released.81538/
 

Metro

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Messages
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It was built by one guy. It's not bad but it's probably not a $20 list price game.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
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Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".

Most strategy games are still challenging after you learn the mechanics, otherwise you couldn't pump hundreds of hours into Civ. I suppose city building as a genre is more prone to death by optimal solution.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,661
I got my gf to buy this game and she's dumped untold hours into it. She has developed the same criticism, though, which is that once you get the hang of it there is little challenge outside of trying to fashion yourself a pretty-looking town. I'm kinda surprised that the game never really pushed to meet any of its potential since its release. I really thought the guy would pour more into it.
 

Whiran

Magister
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
641
I got my gf to buy this game and she's dumped untold hours into it. She has developed the same criticism, though, which is that once you get the hang of it there is little challenge outside of trying to fashion yourself a pretty-looking town. I'm kinda surprised that the game never really pushed to meet any of its potential since its release. I really thought the guy would pour more into it.
Why would he do that?

According to Steam spy it's sold probably around a million copies.

http://steamspy.com/app/242920

That's 14 million after Steam's cut. Probably closer to the 10 million mark given world distribution, sales, etc.

Still, he made bank and completed the game.
 
Joined
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Messages
8,818
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Italy
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".

Most strategy games are still challenging after you learn the mechanics, otherwise you couldn't pump hundreds of hours into Civ. I suppose city building as a genre is more prone to death by optimal solution.
you hardly keep playing civ for the challenge, you do it for the variables.
 

Destroid

Arcane
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Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".

Most strategy games are still challenging after you learn the mechanics, otherwise you couldn't pump hundreds of hours into Civ. I suppose city building as a genre is more prone to death by optimal solution.
you hardly keep playing civ for the challenge, you do it for the variables.

Civ is easy for you on its upper difficulties?
 
Joined
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Messages
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that's not challenge, that's cheating.
anyway, once you get your right timing down and know how to bottleneck the computer any challenge vanishes, but you keep playing not for the challenge but for the variables.
 

Metro

Arcane
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Messages
27,792
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".

Most strategy games are still challenging after you learn the mechanics, otherwise you couldn't pump hundreds of hours into Civ. I suppose city building as a genre is more prone to death by optimal solution.
you hardly keep playing civ for the challenge, you do it for the variables.

Civ is easy for you on its upper difficulties?
The AI becomes predictable the more you play it and while it starts off with cheats/bonus resources/etc. and progresses faster you can exploit it's behavior to maintain peace, get it to fight another AI, etc. I remember being able to get to a point where I could consistently win on Deity in Civ 5. I think 'Sid' is the only higher difficulty and that's where things become utterly retarded.
 

oscar

Arcane
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Messages
8,036
Location
NZ
There's some decent mods that add more in-depth building chains but yeah in the end there's not a massive amount of meat to this game, though I would recommend getting it on sale. It's entertaining for a few days.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
This game was always more about him having fun with the graphics dev blogs than an actual game. I don't understand how people missed this. And since its a backwoods survival city builder, of course there isn't much to do. I read all the dev blogs but didn't bother to buy it cause I knew it had no staying power. The whole blog thing was fun and cool and that part was free.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Isn't this true of every game? Once you know all the rules and have solved it, what game IS challenging? Anytime someone says something is "challenging", I've learned to read it as "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing".
Most strategy games are still challenging after you learn the mechanics, otherwise you couldn't pump hundreds of hours into Civ. I suppose city building as a genre is more prone to death by optimal solution.
That's not true at all. Once you learn the mechanics, once you know exactly how to play each stage of the game and what the optimal response to every situation is, it becomes trivial. Then you increase the difficulty and the game boils down to outlandish cheating vs. game-breaking exploits.
 

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