Banished

So I'm the sort of player that stopped playing the Stronghold military campaign because all the fighting was distracting from my lovely production chains, and was greatly annoyed to find that fighting was shoehorned into the Stronghold economic campaign as well. Boo! The standard game starts with 10 people and a few storage facilities, and it's up to you to clear forests and mine stone and ore, find or grow food, build housing, make sure everyone has firewood and tools, eventually (big deal) build a trading post so that an occasional merchant can leisurely offer you some seeds or livestock. Do you want to play a game in which building a new sheep pen is big deal? Do you want to be excited that your church is almost full of parishioners? Do you want to be a little upset that a (very rare) building fire has interrupted your mushroom gathering? Do you want to think "Oh no, the frost came early this year. I lost 10% of my pumpkins." God, I love this game. I can't believe it took me so many years to buy this game, but it quickly gained a spot in my "I am never uninstalling"-list.

This is a game where you start from very little and gradually, slowly, build up to something that's satisfactory. There are no disasters or fires or jails. There is no invasion or threat of invasion. There is no timer. There isn't even a "win condition". If you want any of these things, then this game is not for you. Instead, there's the quiet ebb and flow of life as citizens calmly go about their assigned roles in the vast, beautiful sandbox that is Banished. You decide how to play it, and you decide when you're done. That doesn't mean that it's not a difficult game, mind you. You'll face some hard winters. Once the easily-accessible iron is gone, you'd better have planned ahead and have a mine. A quarry will be needed, but it'll scar the land. When the nomads come, will you welcome them (after all, you were refugees once!) or turn them away? And I hope that you've traded well so that you can start those farms that you'd like to have. You won't lose the game because of a spontaneous fire that wrecks everything, but you will lose the game because you didn't consider all the consequences when you delayed getting a blacksmith. It's a marvelous game of consequence and understanding, very different in many respects from SimCity and its ilk. Give it a try.

Great game, wish there were more like it.

Gameplay feels so much like the Anno series and Sims city combined; which is fun and challenging. Graphics is wonderful and the game is quite stable for it's release.

This game is beautiful, challenging and fun. The graphics are remarkable. The play is intuitive. The challenge is playable without wishing for a cheat code. Don't let the small download stop you - there is a lot of game here. If you like sim-builders this is a must have. No regrets here. This is one game that I'll be putting many hours in over time and play sessions. I am impressed. The cost per hour of play is pennies. My suggestion: Get this game.