official Banished

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Has anyone given Banished a go?

 

 

Shining Rock Software

 

 

It's tough.

 

I am on my third town already as the first two died off because of no food.

 

Coming from The Settlers, my first thoughts were resources but this game is pretty different.  Each resident needs a house and food.  Only after reading online have I managed to get to where I am now by building a Forester and Gatherers hut together.  I added a hunters hut and a farm.  My cows eventually got themselves in a field.

After building a stone pit, I ran out of tools, so everyone was wondering around with broken tools.  A smithy sorted that out, which is where I am now.

My next buildings are schools and hospitals.

 

I'm not too sure with it really.

If this town dies, I don't think I'll be bothering with it any more as Age of Empires looks more to what I want (buildings change with age / old fashioned to modern).

 

What is your opinion?

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Just went to look at some screenshots. Looks interesting, but being at the office I can't get much information about it.

Going from your comment about AoE, does this play out similar? So you have to lead your tribe through history, deciding whether to win through conquest or diplomacy and so on? If so, what's the range of ages?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

This is where the game falls down - It's more about skill of survival than going through the ages.

 

Buildings stay the same, although you get a choice of wood or stone houses.  There's a lot of different buildings and some don't function like you would have thought.

 

The main "complaint" is that the game has no end.  There are no aims, no other towns to conquer, the aim of the game is purely to survive.  The winters are harsh, with food running low, logs (for burning in the houses) low too.

 

If you have some spare money, give it a whirl, but only if you have some spare monies.

[Bi4me]

Looks like good old Stronghold without the combat.

[Luc2k]

Sorry but this game takes too much hard drive space for me to justify it.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Sorry but this game takes too much hard drive space for me to justify it.

 

250 MB is too much space? What size HDD do you have?

[LOC Veteran]

Banished shouldn't really be billed as a City Builder style game. It's more of a village survive the elements and seasons simulator. Still, people seem to enjoy it quite a bit because of it's difficulty. It's a hard game.

[Luc2k]

250 MB is too much space? What size HDD do you have?

Over 6 TB in total. I was only joking since I'm actually impressed by how it looks for that size.

 

Haven't tried it though. Not much into city builders unless it's Pharaoh/Cleopatra.

[Island Dog]

I've been playing and it's been fun, but I definitely agree about the end game points made.

[spaceelf]

It looks good and I like playing it, but I keep expecting something to happen and nothing does.

 

Mind you I haven't really built up a proper village before everyone dies yet, so there's that.

[scaramonga]

Banished shouldn't really be billed as a City Builder style game. It's more of a village survive the elements and seasons simulator. Still, people seem to enjoy it quite a bit because of it's difficulty. It's a hard game.

 

And that is exactly what it is. Survival, nothing more, nothing less :)  No combat, nothing, apart from trying to make your people survive, but brilliant stuff :D

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Well, as I have progressed through the game I have a few more tips to add:

 

• Have a large map.  I am on year 25 or so and have pretty much ran out of space.
   
• Cows are good.  They give leather (for clothing) AND beef (for food).
   
• More houses = more people.
   
• More people = more food.
   
• Build four mine spaces, but pause the building of two.  This way when the others run out, you will already have a site for the next one.
   
• Have two Foresters and two Gatherers in two different areas.
   
• Fill your professions!  Don't have 3 miners when you can have 6 in one mine.
   
• Watch sheep - sometimes they don't reproduce so buy more than 4 at a time.
   
• Using the "clear rocks / trees / iron / everything" options will decrease the amount of goods transported throughout your land.  Everything will slow as anyone doing nothing will go and clear that area.
   
• Unless you have LOTS of coal, just make the standard tools as people steal the coal to heat their homes before the Blacksmith can get any.

 

I think the main problem for the game for me is that it just takes too long for anything to get done.  You can't simply flood your town with more builders because then nothing gets transported anywhere.  You can't build more houses because there aren't enough stone miners for the stone.  You can't steal miners from your gatherers or foresters huts because then there will be no firewood or food.

So everything just takes an age to happen.  Half an hour for a market to be built is poor, which does spoil the game as I am sat waiting for 5 mins (even on speed = 10!).

It's a shame there is no "priority" over goods and where they should go.  I want my blacksmiths to have more coal so they can make the better tools.  While on the subject of the tools, I made some of the iron ones, which seemed to last just as long as the steel :/

 

Plus, seasons change too quick for my liking.

 

However I have played a good few hours over the past few days so will continue to see how it develops.  Then again, I may end up starting a new map as this one is getting boring now!

[Nashy]

Been playing since I saw this thread posted up.  Really like the game, but as others have said, it's a tough one.

[Lamp0]

If you have some spare money, give it a whirl, but only if you have some spare monies.

 

I think that is incredibly harsh. It's a $20 game built by one dude. It might not be your kind of city builder, but the game is a well built & unique little city builder.

 

 

Half an hour for a market to be built is poor, which does spoil the game as I am sat waiting for 5 mins (even on speed = 10!).

 

Well that's not right at all. My guess is you have too many things going on, with not enough labours, builders &/or resources. Something isn't right if it takes half an hour, on speed 10, to build a market.

[ShadowMajestic]

Love this game.  City Builders do not need goals or whatever. Just playthrough. Quite a hard game, took me 3 times before having a village that survived the ages. Hope the game expands in the future. As once you figured out the food supply and labors it gets so much of the same.

[Decebalvs Rex]

A difficult and beautiful game! I have stopped playing it for a while because my citizens died of hunger.

Thanks for the tips dear Neowinians, I'll consider building another town and concentrate on food.

Also, don't place your huts and mines too far away, villagers might die on their way to work (winter)!

[Island Dog]

Just need to take it slow, and think ahead a bit.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Played a few more hours and was really starting to enjoy it.

Then I took in (about 14) nomads and killed off 50 people in my town!

 

I think I found it hard because you can't build loads of food producing buildings without building a tool maker.  He then needs iron, but I put it down to the map seed I was on.  I've started again now.  The map isn't brill but good enough.

I played on the Settlers 7 and couldn't get to grips with that so went back to Banished and all seems a little better this time around.

[Symal Taneous]

I do love this game, but I am definitely looking forward to mod support being added to it. I'd love to see what people can come up with in terms of mods for this game. I'd love to see mods that add time progression functionality, like as the years progress, new technologies can be discovered, new techniques (like fishing boats for fishing), new jobs to replace old ones, new buildings (law enforcement/fire safety would be a good one, same with bakery), and adding more features to the game as the years go by, like once you get to the age of machinery, you could gain the ability to modify the landscape, so you could create artificial rivers and remove obstacles like small hills and such.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

its like Oregon trail but staying still I cant keep anyone alive I love it for the challenge.

[spacer]

I have this game on my Steam wishlist, but I'm waiting for it to go under the $5 range. I love the fact that it was made by a single person. It's incredibly impressive, and I really wish I had the knowledge to do that myself; so I wouldn't mind supporting them. But I'm not a huge fan of hardcore-sim games like this. I get the itch to play a city-building game every once in a while, but I never play them for very long. Hopefully the Steam winter sale will bring it down to my target range so I can try it out.

[Krome]

Do you have to have Steam or such to install this game?  I want a standalone game.

[Symal Taneous]

Do you have to have Steam or such to install this game?  I want a standalone game.

I believe it's also available on gog.com

[Krome]

Thanks... game looks good...

[blank]

Been really getting into this game. It seems buggy and annoying at first, but thats just the hardcore feel i suppose.

Once you realize what you're doing wrong, it makes alot of sense (not having enough of one thing, not planning ahead, etc).

Alot of balancing.

 

Towns kept dying out, mostly due to random starvation, but i pretty much have that figured out now, and on my 500th attempt i finally have a decent town going. Several hundred people, tons of food, all is well.

 

Game is pretty fun. can sink hours into it easily without realizing it.

 

Amazing that one guy made it.

 

Current town:

 

 

edit:

well thats annoying. just had over 200 people die of old age. :|

Edited July 19, 2014 by blank