Posted on: November 2, 2025

SeeJohnson81

Games: 51 Reviews: 1

I wish there was more

I remember wishlisting this game when it was announced, and I got it about three years ago. I played for a while - until my city collapsed - and I just wished there was more. I think it's lacking a tech tree, and some other elements that other games do better, like more insights into what is happening in your city. I like that I can just build and build, but eventually, it's just a bit redundant. I just recently fired it up again and played for a few hours. I'm not sure I'll continue but instead finish that book I started.

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Posted on: November 30, 2016

pahster

Verified owner

Games: 353 Reviews: 11

Banished - to the bitbucket

This is the SECOND GOG purchase I truly regret. I SO wanted to like this game. I've spent all day every day since I bought it trying hard to like it. But ultimately, not only do I not like this game - I HATE it. It sounded so perfect. A city-building game where there was no annoying combat to deal with. No zombies. No werewolves, vampires, or hideous mutants. Just you and your people, building up your town and civilization. HA! Death stalks you at ever turn. Heck, there's a review over at Rock Paper Scissors that says everything about that particular part of the game that needs to be said. But ultimately it wasn't the arbitrary things that were constantly leading to death that was the problem. There are tons of mods to get around the worst of those imbalances. What finally broke the camel's back for me was discovering just how tetchy the game is about object placement - say, roads, for instance. I got sick and tired of trying to lay down road across what looked even close up like dead level terrain, only to have the road tool tell me it won't put a road on a 3 square long section. Or trying to place building on anything even faintly resembling some sort of rational plan only to have the AI refuse to place a building in line with all the rest of the street because of some minuscule undetectable by the human eye difference in the level of just one square in the footprint of the building. Or even worse, not being able to lay down an entire field because of said invisible terrain level difference. (There's a mod for that last one, but nothing to be done about the rest) Seriously. These guys can allegedly mine iron ore out of deep mines - but they can't handle one bump in a 20 acre field? Annoying. That's what this game is. Just freakin' annoying.

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Posted on: February 18, 2017

aly360

Verified owner

Games: 33 Reviews: 1

Better than most sims

I find most games in this genre reach a peak when everything becomes ok and the challenge of maintaining an expanding populace becomes hassle free. Not with Banished. It's a constant juggling act, trying to match the in flow of your resources to the people and their needs. Things can take a drastic turn for the worse when this equilibrium isn't met. It's a wonderful mixture of a village builder, city management and survival game. I love designing my little town and watching my people go about their business and managing, but the pressing issue of villager death keeps you on your toes. Buy this game :)

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Posted on: February 28, 2017

disulfiram

Verified owner

Games: 1321 Reviews: 44

Enjoyable city builder

For me it's one of those strange games that manages to relax you in one way and stress you in another. It's a city builder where every single citizen matters and balancing production and labor is key to success.

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Posted on: March 1, 2017

1rik

Verified owner

Games: 56 Reviews: 1

Great potential, could have been a gem.

Let me start off with the positive. I love this game. I've clocked 40+ hours in it and it has been an overall positive expierience. It's positively challaging and I would love to be able to reccomend it to you. But... It's let down by some bugs. Most notacibly a bug in wich removed roads can stay in this kind of "phantom state" in wich they are removed but you can't build over the tiles annymore. This, combined with the glaring lack of a way to modify the terain and limited open space, is game breaking in late-game. This is the reason that, at 40+ hours in, I'm shelving this game. And it makes me sad, becouse this could be an absolute gem. It is a challaging game, build a few to many houses and your population crashes becouse you have to many mouths to feed. You'll probably have to do some research to find out why a certain aproach is't working, but once you figure it out, it sure is worth it. Yet becouse of it's current state, I sadly can NOT reccomend you to buy this game. So, buyer bewarned!

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