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[pedrito]

When I hear slow paced, relaxing build game I think of Settlers 2, but it's really ancient. Shame they messed up that series so badly.

Never titles that scratch this itch, not so many in my opinion, and none exactly the way Settlers did.

Factorio obviously is a valid mention, probably the best pure building game out there, although I wouldn't necessarily describe it as slow paced or relaxing, not even on peaceful. It's rather stressful, and you have to think a LOT, constantly. Love it though.

I really like RimWorld too, it's out of beta soon, and given the stability and amount of content it has had for years now it might have been out of beta for years compared to many other titles out there. I like playing with Phoebe as storyteller, low level of threats. Or Randy. But yeah, it does take time.

[Cathar]

Fallen Enchantress does fit the bill. Design-your-civ-leader-and-unit then play as a kind of age of wonder 3 style. Recommend.
Thea, the Awakening, fits the bill to a tie. Coop hexagrid survival with card based combat. It's excellent.

[Niveras]

Three pages and Anno wasn't mentioned?

My understanding is that the majority of the playerbase prefer Dawn of Discovery: Venice (previously Anno: 1404), but I am partial to Anno 2070 and Anno 2205 because I prefer the more futuristic settings.

They're city builders somewhat like SimCity or Skylines, but you're more hands-on in managing the territory. Instead of just zoning an area, you're managing the resources that the area mines, processes, produces, and sells or buys. The population has tiers with increasing requirements for items they consume in order to maintain their satisfaction level (which affects how many people of that tier are present, and therefore how much tax income you receive).

There is some warfare involved in the territory maps of Venice and 2070, but it is also possible to play "casual" maps where the opposing AI factions aren't aggressive and, while they may expand into areas you wanted, can be bought out without combat. In 2205, the combat sections are quarantined from the main "building" gameplay into their own maps. There are some points where you need to play a combat mission in order to advance, but even the three star maps are fairly easy, and there is no time pressure to complete them. 2205 also seems to do away with individual "scenario" maps. Instead, it is a single global area, and manage multiple territories more or less at the same time, moving between them more or less seamlessly.

A lot of people didn't like 2205, and I admit there were some things missing from it that I liked in 2070, but I'm okay with the changes. It's a similar game trying different things, instead of just the same game in a new setting.

About the only thing I don't like is that it requires Uplay. At best it is annoying if you bought it on steam, and it is simply yet another superfluous DRM platform. At worst it can be aggravating getting your Uplay account to recognize that you legitimately purchased the game via Steam.

[Empty]

Latest update for 2205 has invasions in your maps. Every half to full hour. Every time. And it takes like 10 minutes for your slow ass ships to fix the issue. (including travel time if they don't invade the same map again or you did another mission)

I just stopped playing. Was too damn annoying.

[Niveras]

Damn, you're right. I forgot about that part.

[scourge728]

Zoo tycoon 1, especially the complete collection version, 2 is... not as good imo, and the xbox one is just bad

[Nelia Hawk]

hmm wasnt there a fishy game too lately? aquarium something... edit: "megaquarium"

there are also "stonehearth" for a town buildy game and "staxel" for a farmy buildy game. or "empyrion" for a space base/ship buildy game.
oh there some hospital ones too recently ("twopoint hospital"). or there a bunch of railway train ones too like "transport fever"

[scriver]

omagad are you related to tawny hawk?

[Nelia Hawk]

haha nope, never played them skateboarding games either back then... think a lot were on consoles and i was more on pc

[EuchreJack]

Did you know that you could play Stellaris (a 4x space game by Paradox Interactive) in an empty galaxy?

That is right: NO other empires, no pre-FTL civilizations, just you and a galaxy in which to build.  Can also turn off Late-game crisis, so that you don't have to worry about something coming around and wrecking it all.  Personally, I'd play as a Machine Intelligence, as they are built for the joy of building and won't worry about anything else (no factions, no happiness, no food).

On the more conventional side, the Tropico series is always a relatively stress-free fun experience.  You can customize the difficulty, and except for the first one, things move quickly along.  I like Tropico 5 because of the different eras and actual difficulty, unlike 4 which seemed almost impossible to lose.

[ChairmanPoo]

What's the point of playing stellaris in an empty galaxy? Its not like there is much to do as you're removing a major driver in the gameplay

[Reelya]

As far as a sandbox galaxy goes, I found it pretty relaxing to terraform planets and build up colonies and trade routes in Spore's space stage. It's also pretty satisfying to uplift other species and start them out as allied empires.

[xaritscin]

Starbound could fit somehow in that part. there's a storyline and all but once you unlock the spaceship for use you are more or less free to explore the galaxy as much as you want. explore other planets, get resources, build a cool base. you can even delve in farming and bring colonists.

its not much but its something and you get some other cool mechanics like using mechs, adding automated defenses or getting portable pets. albeit i wish the developers could have fleshed those things much more.

Terraria can also be an alternative. you'll have to fight enemies pretty regularly but for the most part building a base i only hard on the resources. on the sad part the NPCs dont do much outside of one or 2 services + being vendors

and of course, there's also Planet Centauri which is uhmmmm like fusion of both and i havent been able to test but yeah. way more stylish, has some interesting mechanics to add to the base building part and character progression.

[EuchreJack]

I like Alpha Centauri, but it's rather competitive, with the aggressive opponent AIs and all.  I swear, the AI in that game understands the terraforming mechanics better than I do.

[Ai Shizuka]

Pharaoh could fit your request. City builder in ancient Egypt.
There's campaign mode, going from small settlements to big cities with luxury blocks and big-ass monuments. You can usually choose between one more military-oriented city and one more focused on monuments and high quality housing.
And there's also a sandbox mode.

It's old (1999), but it's aged surprisingly well. Last time I checked, there was also a mod/patch to play it on modern resolutions.
Available on GoG.