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[MoLAoS]

What sorts of titles are out there and what are their strengths and shortcomings?

On a nit picky note, do we really have any at all? Even Majesty, which is literally subtitled the the fantasy kingdom simulator its more of a city simulation than a kingdom one.

I've noticed that there tend to be more historical games than fantasy ones. There were about a dozen historical Impressions city/nation sims, depending on map size. Then there are a lot of Roman ones. Majesty is probably the only magical one. Even DF, in so far as its tangentially related doesn't really do magic.

We have a spate of minecraft inspired voxel type city simulators like Timber and Stone and Stonehearth. Banished may or may not be able to support several cities.

None of those has any magic. I've always wanted some more straight fantasy games, with various magical systems. But I'd also like some sort of magitech or steampunk game and possibly a magical-industrial complex game. I always wanted to play something like the Velgarth Eastern Empire with magic integrated into industry.

And we definitely need some sort of adept level mage or magical academy focusing on spells vs integrating low level magic and/or high level magic into the mundane economy.

Many city/kingdom builders tend to lack combat at all, like Impressions games with only superficial fighting. Others lack any sort of variance in both magic and construction between games. That is, there are no significant developmental decisions. On various city building forums many complain of the lack of variation in cities. Its come up a lot in regards to TiltedMill(some impressions employees) as they work on Medieval Mayor.

Majesty does not have a very deep tech tree. There are only a dozen heroes for instance. As someone who is really into Dominions and Warlords Battle Cry I like to have metric tons of unit types possibly with multiple upgrade paths.

Off that topic, who knows of cool or unique kingdom simulation games? Crusader Kings might count but I am not including Total War or Civilization style games since they are either highly abstract and/or turnbased or they focus too much on combat.

[Drakale]

If you never played it, king of dragon pass is one of the most memorable game in the genre. It's rather small scale though as you only have control over your tribe of about a thousand individuals, but you can eventually unite many tribes under your banner. Very different in the style from the games mentioned though, it's more a story telling experience with some development options than a full on kingdom builder.

[boki]

Seven kingdoms 1 and 2, old games.

[MoLAoS]

If you never played it, king of dragon pass is one of the most memorable game in the genre. It's rather small scale though as you only have control over your tribe of about a thousand individuals, but you can eventually unite many tribes under your banner. Very different in the style from the games mentioned though, it's more a story telling experience with some development options than a full on kingdom builder.

I have played the KoDP quite a bit. Loved the Earthshaker Warmounts to death.

[MoLAoS]

Seven kingdoms 1 and 2, old games.

Got those as well, kinda meh IMO. The econ doesn't have enough crafting and the cities are pretty simple.

[Sonlirain]

Well Colonization is kinda what you seek (altho you're only a colony belonging to a kingdom) but it lacks in the magic department (aside of a thing or two you might not even find during a playthrough).

You might also try:

Age of Wonders - Plenty of powerful magic (especially in the first one).
Rise of Legends - Magic steampunk and hi-tech duking it out RTS style.
Warrior Kings - Pretty good but it's probably a bit too RTSy for your tastes also there is magic (mostly useb by pagans) but it's mostly used to summon demons.
Alien Nations - Has a sequel and both are pretty good Settlers clones (building upon the foundation rather than ripping the blueprints)

[MoLAoS]

Well Colonization is kinda what you seek (altho you're only a colony belonging to a kingdom) but it lacks in the magic department (aside of a thing or two you might not even find during a playthrough).

You might also try:

Age of Wonders - Plenty of powerful magic (especially in the first one).
Rise of Legends - Magic steampunk and hi-tech duking it out RTS style.
Warrior Kings - Pretty good but it's probably a bit too RTSy for your tastes also there is magic (mostly useb by pagans) but it's mostly used to summon demons.
Alien Nations - Has a sequel and both are pretty good Settlers clones (building upon the foundation rather than ripping the blueprints)

Most of those games are light on economy and are all direct control of units. I played the ROL Demo and it was different but still quite RTS focused. Never played WK but have enough RTSes. I am not a fan of aliens.

[Mephansteras]

The old Lord of the Realms game was pretty good in that regard, if I remember correctly.

[TempAcc]

Age of Wonders is a pretty good pick, by far the closest anyone has got to emulate master of magic.
Master of Magic by itself is pretty great too, I'm sure someone made a modern OS port of it by now.

[MoLAoS]

Age of Wonders is a pretty good pick, by far the closest anyone has got to emulate master of magic.
Master of Magic by itself is pretty great too, I'm sure someone made a modern OS port of it by now.

I played AOW:SM quite extensively. But what has this thread got to do with master of magic or its clones? Those are pretty standard TBS games. This is about kingdom, or city since its as close as you can usually get, games.

[umiman]

Crusader Kings 2 is known as the best Game of Thrones simulator for a reason.

Also, a number of mods have extensive magic in it.

You should check it out. It's not particularly expensive as well especially if you get it during sales.

[Yannanth]

.

[Alkhemia]

What about Dwarf Fortress?

Once it get to the kingdom arc it will be the number 1 kingdom sim I think but for now it pretty lacking in that regard.

[Ringmaster]

There's the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games (I think there are twelve at the moment), number 10 and number 8 are regarded as the best, though if you live in Europe you can't get them for love nor money. They're good if you have a passing interest in Chinese history, and the gameplay's good enough that you don't really need to know much about the era to enjoy the game.

[MoLAoS]

Crusader Kings 2 is known as the best Game of Thrones simulator for a reason.

Also, a number of mods have extensive magic in it.

You should check it out. It's not particularly expensive as well especially if you get it during sales.

I've got CK2 and some mods. But in what way is there magic? Aside from modding in new units perhaps but that's kinda abstract. It's less magic and more 1 less defense and 1 less morale and 2 more attack than balls of fire. I actually spent 3$ less total on TOG that on every single dlc and art/music content pack before it. So 31$ for all CK@ stuff, excepting the norse graphics pack which I don't care about.

I have modded CK2 and played about 450 hours. God that's such a waste of my life