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[MoLAoS]

On another note, does anyone have an opinion on the other questions besides what are some kingdom sims? I had actually intended listing games as a tertiary goal of the post. Although I'm not surprised it ended up as the primary question answered.

[Grakelin]

I'm not surprised either, since it was the question asked in both the first and last line of your OP.

Also the only sentences in the whole thing with question marks.

Are you asking if anybody wants to comment on the strengths and/or weaknesses of the titles being mentioned?

[MoLAoS]

I'm not surprised either, since it was the question asked in both the first and last line of your OP.

Also the only sentences in the whole thing with question marks.

Are you asking if anybody wants to comment on the strengths and/or weaknesses of the titles being mentioned?

That first question also says what are their strengths and shortcomings. I also asked if we had any real kingdom simulators at all.

I suppose I should add some more explicit questions here.

Why don't we have more extensive economic and crafting mechanics in games? Certainly Impressions style city builders have some economic stuff but its pretty simplified. You can't actually make items in the sense of RPG or RTS games with it.

Why isn't magic more popular in city and kingdom simulators? Impressions games have intentionally none except maybe a few mythological references but they tend to be gods who you can't control and mostly punish you with disasters.

Most games also tend to be set in the ancient historical world as well. Paradox grand strategy, Impressions city builders, and most other games, primarily Roman history even. There are like 100 generic Roman city builders. Why isn't futuristic or magical or hybrid of both a popular setting? We are getting one from Gaslamp Games soon but that's still only 1.

A lot of TBS games like Age of Wonders have magic, but they aren't really simulators. The economics consists of mostly abstract "cities" on a world map with no scale relative to heroes/units that have maybe 10 upgrades that are mostly bonuses to abstract resources like gold crystal stone and that's it.

While Majesty possesses magic, specifically in a medieval or D&D way, it has minimal economy and only a few item types. It also doesn't simulate citizens in any way. The houses are really just non-interactive tax farms.

Even in the sense that we sorta have steampunk that's rarely really magical, mostly illogical obsessions with steam power and unrealistic gear/cog contraptions. We lack any of what I would call Magitech settings. This would involve lots of use of low level magic with mass produced magic infused goods or potions and such. A few urban fantasy genres tend to have half decent magical goods economies. These are all books though, urban fantasy games are even less common than steampunk ones.

Most magic in kingdom simulators work like Majesty, basically just bonuses to damage types. Magical crafting is almost non-existent in production like better or controlled fires with less industrial backbone as well as in crafting items which are themselves magical.

Most games lack any sort of environment interaction or territory control. In Majesty the only resource is gold. City builders tend to have little if any combat so the concept of territory control/defense doesn't exist. Standard RTS tends to have the most territory control but all resources, all 2-4 of them, are all over the map so specific areas don't matter.

Anyways I have more but I already know what I think. That is enough wall of text to give various examples of complaints I have.

[Isdar]

Most games also tend to be set in the ancient historical world as well. Paradox grand strategy, Impressions city builders, and most other games, primarily Roman history even. There are like 100 generic Roman city builders. Why isn't futuristic or magical or hybrid of both a popular setting? We are getting one from Gaslamp Games soon but that's still only 1.

Anno 2070 is set in the year 2070(Duh) after the icecaps have melted. But, yeah, there's a lack of any futuristic citybuilders and magical ones.

But the reason for most citybuilders not being very complex regarding economy and military is probably because they are mostly low-budget games. When was the last time you saw any citybuilder with a large publisher behind it? And that there isn't a very big market for citybuilders anyway, which leads to them not getting as much funding as the next Call of Battle: Bad Ghost Company's

[Neonivek]

The houses are really just non-interactive tax farms

Sorta, the houses are more of a complication then a benefit.

It is why the greater strategy for the game is to actually turn off all taxes from houses.

[Grakelin]

Most games also tend to be set in the ancient historical world as well. Paradox grand strategy, Impressions city builders, and most other games, primarily Roman history even. There are like 100 generic Roman city builders. Why isn't futuristic or magical or hybrid of both a popular setting? We are getting one from Gaslamp Games soon but that's still only 1.

I never said this.

[Isdar]

Most games also tend to be set in the ancient historical world as well. Paradox grand strategy, Impressions city builders, and most other games, primarily Roman history even. There are like 100 generic Roman city builders. Why isn't futuristic or magical or hybrid of both a popular setting? We are getting one from Gaslamp Games soon but that's still only 1.

I never said this.

I fucked up the quotes. Rectifying now.

[MoLAoS]

Most games also tend to be set in the ancient historical world as well. Paradox grand strategy, Impressions city builders, and most other games, primarily Roman history even. There are like 100 generic Roman city builders. Why isn't futuristic or magical or hybrid of both a popular setting? We are getting one from Gaslamp Games soon but that's still only 1.

Anno 2070 is set in the year 2070(Duh) after the icecaps have melted. But, yeah, there's a lack of any futuristic citybuilders and magical ones.

But the reason for most citybuilders not being very complex regarding economy and military is probably because they are mostly low-budget games. When was the last time you saw any citybuilder with a large publisher behind it? And that there isn't a very big market for citybuilders anyway, which leads to them not getting as much funding as the next Call of Battle: Bad Ghost Company's

Well most of the budget for big name games is actually art and marketing rather than gameplay. Sure Anno2070 may have an issue with money, but that's cause they are using unnecessarily good graphics. Consider what Impressions/Tilted Mill could have done if they didn't spend so much time making loads of separate games. The difference between Pharaoh, Caeser, and Emperor and a single medieval city builder where the extra time was spent on mechanics is huge. Every individual game has a lot of boiler plate crap that takes up dev time plus again assets and marketing and the publisher's cut.

[MoLAoS]

The houses are really just non-interactive tax farms

Sorta, the houses are more of a complication then a benefit.

It is why the greater strategy for the game is to actually turn off all taxes from houses.

This is quite true. I tend to turn off taxes and just pop the extortion button every several minutes to grab the taxes. Honestly the same thing I do for guilds.

I only leave markets, bazaars, and blacksmiths for tax collectors and the second two tend to be off until they build up a lot of cash.

[EuchreJack]

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.

Seven and Six were also quite good.  Seven is great if you like kill-crazy AI (literally, the AI rulers kill almost anyone they capture in war that doesn't submit to serve them, unlike most of the other games).

[MoLAoS]

Well, I love a few fresh corpses in the morning.