Recommend me a game.

Empty09

Empty09

Still Mildly Glowing
The category of games that I like are named, as I found out on Wikipedia, "serious games". I'm referring, more exactly, to those business-simulator kind of games. A mixture between strategy and micro managing a business, be it a shop or a country...yes I am addressing to the geo-political simulators as well. Despite my efforts, I couldn't find too many games that fit that description.

That's why I made up my mind and decided to raise the following question in those forums:

Can you recommend me some good business simulation games you played or at least heard about?

It must have at least some kind of income/expense-supply/demand system in it. Just tell me everything that rings a bell in that direction.

I'll have to mention some of the games I found and liked (or not, but fit the description at least) so far.

- Capitalism 2 - One of the best I found.
- Super Force 2 - Pretty boring, but the idea is nice.
- Europa Universalis - I suppose the game could be better, but I didn't quite like it.
- Geo Political Simulator 2 - Bugged and really, really screwed up. But it was real fun while it lasted. I'm waiting for more patches.

I'm trying out Tropico 3 soon.

Also, even if it doesn't fit the description entirely I also played, The Guild 2. A brilliant game that I really recommend to all of you. (with the last patch that is)
 
I am not really into that genre but I did enjoy Tropico 3 (and Absolute power) probably because it was pretty funny and light-hearted without being too easy.
This might of course turn you off, or it may be too easy for veterans of the genre.

At the time I played Tropico 3 some pretty nice user generated scenarios started coming out.


I haven't played the other games you mentioned.
 
Might also want to try Evil Genius. It's a simulator of Bond-like villains, very self-aware and light-hearted, but it's not super-easy either. It's on Steam, well worth 10$ if you ask me.
 
Both games look promising, especially Imperialism. Looks like my kind of game. I'll check out both of them, thank you.

And by the way, the more diplomacy and less war the better. Just saying.

Let's see other suggestions too!
 
I've had a great time playing Transport Tycoon back in the day. You basically run a transport company you have to make grow, exploring the possibilities of air, train, sea transport...
It's old and pixelated, it's simple, and I don't recall well if there's diplomacy involved, but it's good.
Oh, and I'm discovering it's also free

http://abdussamad.com/archives/60-Classic-strategy-gaming-with-Transport-Tycoon.html

There's even an opensource version

http://abdussamad.com/archives/68-OpenTTD-charms.html

(not my blog)
 
I find it very very sad that there has been no real progressin the field of simulations/strategy games (like Rail Road Tycoon or Sim City type of games) because they have been always one of my favourites next to RPGs.

But it really seems like there has been no real intentions by biger developers and companies to do here anything. I guess it is not the kind of game they think would sell 3 Million copies : /
 
Jesus, Imperialism is a gem!
I'm playing it right now.

I feel that way too Crni...there are 1000 clones of COD but if you want to find games like these you have to go into advanced research to find few unique games made by some poor companies which don't get too many sells.

Personally, I hate FPS. I just consider them to be a waste of time when it comes to gaming. You could spend that time playing something more...challenging...I don't know.

But everyones opinion's like an a**hole. We all have one and we all think the others stink..you know that wise saying :).
 
SMAC and ROTK comes to mind.

Since SMAC needs no introduction, here's something on ROTK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms_(computer_game)

It's not for people without patience. It's tough to keep people happy and you will struggle to make all the cities prosperous.

I also played this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War_(computer_game)

That was fun. I remembered playing as Japan and yet I forced Germany to surrender after they've declared war on me because I bought out all their industries.

If you really like this type of games, I would recommend you learn Japanese or Chinese, since there are a lot more of these types of games in those languages. Worse comes to worse, you can always pick up Mah-jong.
 
Empty09 said:
Jesus, Imperialism is a gem!
I'm playing it right now.
Click to expand...
The sequel is even better. Introduces the twist of colonizing the new world. Takes a rather amoral stance since wiping the natives out is way more clean and expeditious than cooperation IMO. In Imperialism, greed is indeed good.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(game_series)

If you don't mind a little action in your simulator, the X series, X3:Terran Conflict in particular, comes to mind. I love the mix of exploration, simulation, and combat. Not to mention its a much better and perhaps deeper game than EVE online without all the timely bullshit your to do in that MMO. It's so much better than freelancer. While I've never played Elite, from what I've heard, X does that series proud.

http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

Another space simulation that I've tried out a bit and is even more complex than X is Evochron: Merceneries. Probably the best and largest indie game I've ever seen.
 
ZeusComplex said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(game_series)

If you don't mind a little action in your simulator, the X series, X3:Terran Conflict in particular, comes to mind. I love the mix of exploration, simulation, and combat. Not to mention its a much better and perhaps deeper game than EVE online without all the timely bullshit your to do in that MMO. It's so much better than freelancer. While I've never played Elite, from what I've heard, X does that series proud.

http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

Another space simulation that I've tried out a bit and is even more complex than X is Evochron: Merceneries. Probably the best and largest indie game I've ever seen.
Click to expand...

I heard of those "X" games too, but what I didn't like from what I've seen on youtube is that you ...fire from your ships in first person or something like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyATLAxZMz0
 
Yeah, they do. The first one actually has a cockpit view but the others had that taken out. I can see why some might find that to be a stripped feature, but I personally didn't mind. For one it is less of an obstruction and allows you a larger field of vision, and thus gives you the chance to post up more information about current situations. Trust me, information is a rare commodity in this game (unless you use the net for guides, you cheaters.). Two, it would be a lot of work to place in unique variants of each ship. There is a huge amount of ships you can pilot, from regular one man fighters and frigates, to entire capitol ships. Small craft have a more traditional point of view, where much larger craft have the camera positioned above the ship, right on the bow (like that video) to give the player a better sense of control.

If you want cockpit views, there are a few mods out there that faithfully recreate the cockpits from previous games for the smaller ships. I had a few to see what it was like, but honestly, it didn't effect the feel of the game for me one bit.
 
This is probably a lame recommendation that isn't within your guidelines but Sim Earth use to give me great joy as a child.
 
I think I've played around 75% of the games listed...

Which Europa were you referring to? 2 was just an expanded version of 1 (though I'm not complaining, 2 won my 'fave waste of time' award of '03). 3, though it upped the eyecandy, is still rather plain in comparison to other games. The best thing about 3 is that it is more open-ended than 2. It's more unpredictible. I've had games where Aragon ate Castille, Venice colonise the New World and Burgendy conquer half of Germany and France, making them top dog in Europe. Events are now randomised, so events will only fire when the situation matches it, not when history demands it.

On that line, you also have Hearts of Iron and Victoria, both of which I like and play, though not as much as Europa.

I quite liked Supreme Ruler 2020, though it does have some bugs in it (such as the AI won't demobilize after a war, slowing the game right down)

I still hold the apex of rail sims is Railroad Tycoon II. I have Railroads, but it fell into the now-common problem of more candy, less substance.

Now, I'm in two minds of the X series. I have both X2 and I found that it's depth quite amazing. However, with X2 there were two serious problems. Your AI control and the lack of economic development. Firstly, you will have to control all your freighters yourself because you can't give them complicated orders (like collect X from Y, then deliver them to Z) On their travels, the AI will simply send them the quickest route. You can't tell the AI that a particular sector is out of bounds, so you could end up losing most of your transports within minutes.

Secondly, the economic side has a serious flaw. You will need to build the whole industrial framework yourself - for it is deficiant of all resorces except raw silicon and energy cells. I ended up building 12 different factories to support just 1 - and 18 transports to lug the cargo to and fro. I did make a ton of cash, but I spent all my time routing transports I never had time to either have fun or scout for new oppotunities. Oh, and the AI never builds new factories.
 
If you've ever got a lazy day browse through this.

Only thing I've found gamespot good for nowadays is browsing their lists of games to find some oldies.

Two recommendations would be Zoo Tycoon and Constructor.
Zoo Tycoon because it's a well established park simulator, also it has dinosaurs with an expansion.
Constructor has you managing a council estate in England fighting rival planning companies. It's hard but funny if you like oddball British humour.
Also no other recommendations involve the ability to disrupt your enemies with zombie invasions and killer clowns.
 
fantasy empires

TB risk style game with RT combat

you may now grovel at my feet for my greatness.
 
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