1849: Gold Edition

This game was fun for about 20 minutes; I was excited to find a game that seemed to have everything I wanted as far as management in a unique scenario. My excitement soon turned to dismay as I realized I had already explored all the content in the game in the amount of time it will take you to read this review. I buy a lot of games on GOG after looking at the reviews, but I also buy a lot on impulse based on nothing but the title, the box art and the first sentence of the description. I really wish I had read the reviews in this case. This game is tepid, uninteresting and devoid of features. It is almost certainly a mobile game heavily reliant on exploitive microtransactions that was converted to a standalone PC release with a similarly exploitive pricepoint. Knowing what I do now, the game is worth maybe watching a 30 second commercial for, certainly not the $15 I accidentally shelled out for this garbage. Meanwhile, the publisher and management team of this game are laughing all the way to the bank, perhaps not realizing they've slaughtered the golden calf of cheap game creation. Producing a game like this, so utterly lacking in content, innovation or even anything interesting to do after half an hour, and pricing it at a hefty $15 when free games are usually of higher quality, is detrimental to the entire game industry. I certainly won't be buying anything else from this publisher or these developers, and I'll be more leery with my dollars in the future. If we don't buy garbage games, they won't make them. In purchasing this game, I feel like I made a horrible mistake.

Got the impression that it was a spiritual Western successor to the old Impression city-builders. What I got was a glorified Facebook game. I'm afraid I can't go into the details on the mechanics of the game since I didn't spend enough time in it. It had it's ups, but mostly downs. It feels simplified and very ungratifying. I cannot recommend it based on how it presents itself as an extensive city management game. It would fit right in on the mobile market if only they made it free and added microtransactions instead.

It's a fairly simple city/economy management sim, though definitely more casual than most. It's fun, though once you work out the mechanics and how to manipulate them it gets a little easy. Though quite expensive for what you are getting, it is good for a few sessions of fun and there is enough to keep you coming back for a while. Would be 4 stars if not for the price.

Stay away from this one, even if it's on a sale! This game isn't worth a dime. Here's how you win every scenario during the campaing: 1. demolish everything 2. mark as many places as you can as habitable. 3. place some food related buildings 4. maybe also some sheriff & fire dept. 5. choose the highest speed possible and go away 6. come back. you now have lots of money, can build all of the buildings necessary and win. See, people who come to your town will make a shack. If they can't find a job (no buildings, nothing!) they will leave, but first they will pay you a tax. And they will keep on coming, despite there being no jobs for them. They'll bring some food with them, and they will pay you tax. And so you will get richer every month, even when your town is just a warehouse with lots of the unemployed. The game is broken, my cat could win it. Also, there are silly mistakes in buildings description telling me 1849 was a hack job. There are many other stupid mechanics (like a mine costing you more in building cost / salaries / tools than you get from it) , but I won't list them 'cause time is too precious. Just don't buy this game. Get Caesar, Zeus, Pharaon or even old Sim City instead.

Here's my experience so far. I'm about 40 hours or so in, around mission 19 of the California campaign the win conditions wouldn't load the finish action, so even though I had the amount asked for finishing the mission it wouldn't finish. So I switched over to the Nevada expansion campaign, and are in around 10 hours in. This is a city management game with trade being very important, every mission is a instance where you have goals to complete to get to the next objective (there is a sandbox mode). You make money from citizens homes, which can be upgraded from items that you can make or be brought in. You spend money on buildings in which create a unlimited resource, a limited resource, or turning a resource into another type of resource. Trade is made up of resources as well, mostly comes down to resources you have vs resources you need; in the Cali campaign, you can trade at any time though if you don't pay attention to your settlement it won't take long before you loose your people and thus money, in the Nevada campaign the trade system is handled by trains that come on a certain day cycle which does mean you won't need to worry about you settlements need but you will have to be weary of the days in which it comes in and whether you'll have enough to get by. Things are a bit more interesting in the Nevada campaign, in the Cali one getting gold is as easy as making a building. In the Nevada one ya need at least 4 or 5 resources to get a mine going, and you'll also need another building and a couple more resources just to make it gold. Price may seem high, but my question to you is are you willing to spend ten's to hundreds of hours in a city builder management game with the theme of the Klondike days? If yes, then go ahead, if maybe with the city building idea is appealing then maybe price drop, if not then skip.