Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Shadowlord]

I quit playing AI War because my ships' captains were all too dumb to live, didn't understand concepts like kinetic energy, inertia, etc, and even though everyone in the game, AI and human alike, believed in fixed weapons ranges, they still didn't understand the concept of falling back to remain outside enemy weapons range. They could not be trained to learn any of these things either.

[Sonlirain]

Tropico... kinda. Didn't play the later games in the series but in 1 you had to weave between USA and CCCP (or ally with one of the powers).
Mount & Blade. Some mods (like Rigale) let you create your own village... and it's kinda tough when the nobles notice you and decide your village is too rich for its own good.

[snelg]

I quit playing AI War because my ships' captains were all too dumb to live, didn't understand concepts like kinetic energy, inertia, etc, and even though everyone in the game, AI and human alike, believed in fixed weapons ranges, they still didn't understand the concept of falling back to remain outside enemy weapons range. They could not be trained to learn any of these things either.

Isn't there settings for those kind of things in the controls menu? I haven't actually tried them but pretty sure I recall settings to stay away from enemies.

[Neonivek]

I quit playing AI War because my ships' captains were all too dumb to live, didn't understand concepts like kinetic energy, inertia, etc, and even though everyone in the game, AI and human alike, believed in fixed weapons ranges, they still didn't understand the concept of falling back to remain outside enemy weapons range. They could not be trained to learn any of these things either.

The best is when they will just camp their ships in range of a one hit kill cannon and not do anything about it.

[Mech#4]

Tropico... kinda. Didn't play the later games in the series but in 1 you had to weave between USA and CCCP (or ally with one of the powers).
Mount & Blade. Some mods (like Rigale) let you create your own village... and it's kinda tough when the nobles notice you and decide your village is too rich for its own good.

Tropico 3 and 4 have the USA and USSR to balance against each other, though it's more forgiving than the original. It's not so much 'stay small' as it is 'you are always small' because while you may be able to build up an army of 30 hardened troops to quell all uprisings, it's game over if you antagonise the huge powers into stomping on you.

For a constant struggle all throughout, the "Misery mod" for "S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat" takes the difficulty of S.T.A.L.K.E.R and ramps it up past eleven. This is a mod where a piece of bread which used to cost 30 roubles now costs 2000 roubles. Selling artefacts gets you maybe 3000 roubles while to even collect artefacts you need to invest in storage containers to prevent death by radiation from carrying the things. Repairing is more expensive than finding new weapons, and accuracy is... well difficult.

The name is quite appropriate. You need to work for every little thing for small advances in power. Personally I played it for a bit but got annoyed when I couldn't snipe a bandit from 150 metres away with a rifle before he detected me hiding and shot me with an assault rifle.

[Neonivek]

it's game over if you antagonise the huge powers into stomping on you

I will say it is really hard to do that on purpose yet alone by accident.

[Geltor]

since im currently playing it, id recommend you to try out Rome:TW patched to 1.5 with darthmod on hardest difficulty and play as a nonroman faction. by the time you get big, there are other factions your size (especially romans) and the game starts to play as a roman invasion survivor simulator.

[Mech#4]

it's game over if you antagonise the huge powers into stomping on you

I will say it is really hard to do that on purpose yet alone by accident.

Yah, the game's more difficult when it comes to finances than keeping everyone happy. Even then, with things like the free cement factory and just having farms everywhere it's not terribly tricky.

[Sinistar]

So I'm looking for games that make you struggle in all stages and don't evolve in the usual 'start from nothing and become god' escalation.

Haven't played it myself yet, but from LPs I've seen...maybe try Factorio?

I'd say it fits at least the first part of above sentence. Your job is, basically, creating a factory. You do start from essentially nothing and expand constantly but here's the trick - with expanding, things get even more complicated rather than easy. Sure, your aim is to research new tech that helps you process or make more advance materials/items. But really, to do the later, you must ever expand, make more material processing machines, more conveyor belts, more steam engines/solar panels, more more more...add the possibility of hostile lifeforms attacking and destroying your machines, Factorio seems like a game of constant struggle.

Personally, I enjoy watching LPs from this guy. I think they convey a pretty good idea of what this game is all about.

Then again I like this guy's videos in general, but that's another story.

[gimlet]

OK, so it can't be a "4X" game since that's one of the X's, although some do allow strategies where you stay relatively small.  That leaves a ton of other genres - almost all RPG's, Action/Adventure, Sports Management, Sims, plus some Business Management and Wargames.

If you like the fighting part of games, consider Wargames - Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm, Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge, Unity of Command, etc.   Generally you get X amount of forces, and don't ever grow "bigger".

FTL, Space Rangers 2, Prospector - you only ever have 1 ship.   Same in most Air Combat or Submarine Sims.

[Ai Shizuka]

Thanks everyone for the input. I already have some of the mentioned games in my huge Steam backlog.

Will check AI War first, I think.
And Factorio seems very interesting. Never heard of it before, thanks.