Rise to Ruins

This used to be one of the most enjoyable tower defense city builders in the game. Then Update 2 came out and added faith mechanics to the game while also adding more realistic moving of the villagers. Sounds great? In practice, it is horrendous. 1. Before update 2, the player gained energy to perform miracles by mainly villagers burning a refined resource. It was labor intensive, but it worked. Now, energy is gained through your occultist villagers praying. The problem is... when they want to pray, which can end up being never. Bad game design relying on RNG for something so essential to gameplay. This also comes with an additional problem in #2. 2. Gaining energy in update 2 is far more villager intensive than before update 2. As I said, energy gained before only required the villagers to refine crystals to crystallum, which were burned in the energy collectors. That process was far less labor intensive than Occultists in update 2 as if Occultists didn't do anything but pray, they'd be only for energy, while Crystallers (the refiners) refining crystals is useful for many other applications like upgrading buildings. Again, it is a bad game design change. 3. Faith sounds good on paper: Your maximum energy pool resolves around how much faith your villagers have in you (mostly). However, in practice, it's a terrible mechanic. The villagers are extremely wish washy in their faith. So, your maximum energy will wildly vary, which is extremely annoying and broken. 4. The worst change is the realistic villager movement. This causes the villagers to drop and pick up every resource one at a time instead of all at once with an animation. This GREATLY slows down the game, which makes it feel like a slog all the time. Update 2 was a terrible decision, and I regret updating my game to that version. I hope that one day GoG allows me to revert to before update 2 so I can enjoy my game again.

First off, this game has tons of late game things to do and after 50+ hours I still haven't even left more than one town at a time. I keep trying new things and I've lost many towns due to the difficulty. Very challenging and I keep coming back for more.

When you say you're modeling a game after Black and White, Settlers, and ActRaiser, that sets the expectations completely differently from what's happening, here. Sure, there's some Black and White and Settlers influence that is easily recognizable, but on the line between Economic Simulator and Real Time Strategy, those two games lean rather significantly towards the RTS side. Conversely, this game is a Dwarf Fortress clone which leans much further towards the Economic Sim side of that scale and is designed to be nigh-unwinnable. You have very little direct control over the game and the goal is to just last as long as possible, which is really not what I signed up for.

The game is awesome, it is complicated and well crafted with a lot of details in it and details about the details when you think of this and that and how to upgrade what is important etc... you actually have to make planning all the time, to see and predict the future so to say, to think one step ahead how to deal with eventual problems and get back on the track and i find that very good, inspiring and challenging, Also have implemented so to say strategic level which is also important and well developed and you have to make planning there too - where when and how to go and you have global bonuses in way of chests that you receive for survival time for example. From the first step you make, you have always to think what you do and where will you do it - even where you begin is strategically and tactically important. Graphics are very nice - mixing the pixel art with some new stuff that are now possible. The music is very good and is one of those soundtracks I am never tired or bored off, and never tried to mute it. The native sounds are cool and give you idea what is going down there and give you the feeling for the world you are in making it quite alive - for example how when you go over corrupt territory you can no longer hear the music but only the spooky sounds in the mist and darkness, etc. NO any nasty stupid loot-boxes and micro-transactions, neither nasty DLC-s which mean that this game is NOT broken to pieces to be sold piece by piece to you and be able to extort as much money as possible which in my case would have been just no-deal. The only DLC (and I bought it actually) is the soundtrack that is offered to you as separate music, so you get something real. I actually cannot think of anything negative to say abut this game. It is complicated, - you have to discover your way to stay in balance and face the future and problems without getting out of it and this is key for survival and not going down to the steep slope of demise.

... if you like city builders and the art style. I don't think a regular gamer will beat the game, but personally I played a couple of levels and enjoyed it every time. There is also some challenge there that can be tweaked to your liking. I think this is a good purchase even at regular price.