Banished - Medieval City Building

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:35 pm

LordMortis wrote:
Kelric wrote:AEdit - Watching quill18's Banished #15, and man he's an idiot sometimes.
He was on 12 when I left off. I can believe I've spend six hours watching him play. It makes no sense. I'm not even wasting six hours gaming. I'm wasting six hours watching someone else play a game for me.

And yeah, it's like I'm that guy watching TV. I find myself having to refrain from kibbitzing frustrartion at my screen. I guess it's good practice in not being a douche to someone else' game.

Finally, I don't know about Anno 2070 installs in reality. I know that Steam is telling my $50 would get this:

3rd-party DRM: TAGES™
3 machine activation limit

I can't imagine paying $50 for it. I've played several anno games, and I got some time out of it, but I can get a lot better uses out of $50.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:12 pm

noxiousdog wrote:I can't imagine paying $50 for it. I've played several anno games, and I got some time out of it, but I can get a lot better uses out of $50.

And that's why I never pulled the trigger. At $20, I'd have said screw it but $50 is still a pretty good night at the bar or a new board game.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:15 pm

noxiousdog wrote:
LordMortis wrote:
Finally, I don't know about Anno 2070 installs in reality. I know that Steam is telling my $50 would get this:

3rd-party DRM: TAGES™
3 machine activation limit
I can't imagine paying $50 for it. I've played several anno games, and I got some time out of it, but I can get a lot better uses out of $50.

Anno 2070 goes on sale for ~$20 every time there is a Steam sale. I think during this last Christmas sale it was $22 for the complete pack, which included the expansion. I may be mistaken but I recall reading that the activation limits and the worst of the DRM have been removed from the game for quite some time. I know that I have personally never encountered a problem with it. The worst thing I can say about it is that it uses the Ubisoft launcher regardless of if you buy it on Steam or not.

The game itself is up there with my all-time favorite city builders. The depth and attention to detail the game has are really quite amazing. The game has three distinct factions that actually play considerably different from each other; one of which is focused on building almost entirely underwater. Graphically, the game is also a wonder. You can zoom in on any structure and actually see how everything works. I remember being amazed the first time I zoomed in on a greenhouse type agriculture building and noticing that, not only could I see the crops inside, but robotic planting arms and sprinkler systems inside were actually modeled and animated.

As an aside, Banished looks quite nice too!

D.A.Lewis · Post by **D.A.Lewis** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:37 pm

He was on 12 when I left off. I can believe I've spend six hours watching him play. It makes no sense. I'm not even wasting six hours gaming. I'm wasting six hours watching someone else play a game for me.

I know, I know. I had never been interested in playing Minecraft until I saw a Lets Play from these two English guys play the multiplayer version. They weren't great players but they were having fun. And that's the thing about the Quill18 guy. He seems like he is having fun which means I'll have fun. I can hardly wait to get into this game.

But woe to my virtual citizens, I am horrible at these games. My cities go bankrupt. My villages run out of resources. My citizens revolt. My Castles get sacked. Woe to what ever virtual community I deign to rule. Woe is them Woe is them.

Bring on Banished

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:39 pm

D.A.Lewis wrote:I know, I know. I had never been interested in playing Minecraft until I saw a Lets Play from these two English guys play the multiplayer version. They weren't great players but they were having fun. And that's the thing about the Quill18 guy. He seems like he is having fun which means I'll have fun. I can hardly wait to get into this game.

That's probably it. Like having and old sense of enjoyment renewed vicariously through a child.

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:22 pm

LordMortis wrote:
D.A.Lewis wrote:I know, I know. I had never been interested in playing Minecraft until I saw a Lets Play from these two English guys play the multiplayer version. They weren't great players but they were having fun. And that's the thing about the Quill18 guy. He seems like he is having fun which means I'll have fun. I can hardly wait to get into this game.
That's probably it. Like having and old sense of enjoyment renewed vicariously through a child.

I've also watched his three vids on the hard mountain scenario (small map, mountain, harsh weather, need 50 population for 20 years) and he does enjoy it. He also mentioned that he talks a lot during these things, and he hates watching streams where the guy just sits there for four hours playing while just staring at the screen and not emoting. I'm sure the talking and sometimes reading chats from his subscribers gets very distracting and he loses sight of the game at times. The whiskey he was drinking in the last episode probably didn't help either...

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:21 pm

A new message from the developer about support & bug reporting

Only a few days to go before Banished is available for purchase!

I’ve set up some support forums to help with bug tracking and reporting. They aren’t pretty yet, but they’re functional. In addition to being able to get help from me and the rest of the community, the forums allow for uploading crash dumps and save games.

If the game crashes, a small crash dump will be output which you can then submit along with a bug report. This file will show me where in the code the game has crashed and helps to track down and reproduce bugs more quickly.

Save games can also help to reproduce bugs – usually if a problem exists a recent save game will continue to show the bugs after it has been loaded.

My plan is to collect any issues and bugs and list them in a known issues thread, so that everyone can see what issues exist and what I’m working on fixing.

Now it’s time to relax until the game is released, and have nice dreams that the Bug Reports category on the forum will stay empty….. Ha!

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:57 pm

Why couldn't he release it before the three day weekend? Tuesday & Wednesday are going to suck for me at work, so being in a miserable mood each night won't make me want to play. Humbug.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:11 pm

Kelric wrote:Why couldn't he release it before the three day weekend? Tuesday & Wednesday are going to suck for me at work, so being in a miserable mood each night won't make me want to play. Humbug.

This is exactly why I retired, work kept getting in the way of my game playing time. For example, they laughed when I said I wanted all release day Tuesdays off. I think they were totally unreasonable.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:36 pm

Kelric wrote:Why couldn't he release it before the three day weekend? Tuesday & Wednesday are going to suck for me at work, so being in a miserable mood each night won't make me want to play. Humbug.

I'm positive this was Steam's decision and not his. They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:12 pm

baelthazar wrote:They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.

This comment deserves a clever link or two to some Byzantine themed games, but the best I could find was Crusader Kings II: Byzantine Unit Pack and Crusader Kings II: Songs of Byzantium

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:22 pm

jztemple2 wrote:
baelthazar wrote:They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.
This comment deserves a clever link or two to some Byzantine themed games, but the best I could find was Crusader Kings II: Byzantine Unit Pack and Crusader Kings II: Songs of Byzantium

You can play the Byzantines in Knights of Honor, which I was just playing (as Wales) to kill some time before going out.

Freyland · Post by **Freyland** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:24 pm

Kelric wrote:
jztemple2 wrote:
baelthazar wrote:They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.
This comment deserves a clever link or two to some Byzantine themed games, but the best I could find was Crusader Kings II: Byzantine Unit Pack and Crusader Kings II: Songs of Byzantium
You can play the Byzantines in Knights of Honor, which I was just playing (as Wales) to kill some time before going out.

Any mods?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:48 pm

jztemple2 wrote:
baelthazar wrote:They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.
This comment deserves a clever link or two to some Byzantine themed games, but the best I could find was Crusader Kings II: Byzantine Unit Pack and Crusader Kings II: Songs of Byzantium

I was writing a lecture on the Second Crusade when I typed this. Does that count? That is both medieval and Byzantine!

Wasn't there a Rome: Total War expansion/mod that let you play the divided empire? Otherwise, there are not many Byzantine-oriented games.

It's all Greek to me...

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 1:44 am

Freyland wrote:
Kelric wrote:
jztemple2 wrote:
baelthazar wrote:They have a Byzantine release algorithm to schedule all of the releases they get.
This comment deserves a clever link or two to some Byzantine themed games, but the best I could find was Crusader Kings II: Byzantine Unit Pack and Crusader Kings II: Songs of Byzantium
You can play the Byzantines in Knights of Honor, which I was just playing (as Wales) to kill some time before going out.
Any mods?

Beyond the basics of Knights of Honor? Not that I know of. I've never looked.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:11 am

OK, I missed this, so maybe someone else did... Banished now has it's own Steam store page; This game will unlock in approximately 1 day and 13 hours, or about 1pm or 2pm EST on Tuesday (depending on the rounding factor).

Butterknife · Post by **Butterknife** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:16 am

It's been a long time since I paid full price for a game, but I'm thinking about breaking my two cardinal rules (no full-price games, no day-one purchases) for this one. I've got a soft spot for guys who can make a game by themselves, and I know my $20 will encourage him to make more games. Plus it is really looking great.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:21 am

Butterknife wrote:but I'm thinking about breaking my two cardinal rules

No red clothes or funny hats?

Sorry, it's late, I need to go to bed...

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 10:47 am

Butterknife wrote:It's been a long time since I paid full price for a game, but I'm thinking about breaking my two cardinal rules (no full-price games, no day-one purchases) for this one. I've got a soft spot for guys who can make a game by themselves, and I know my $20 will encourage him to make more games. Plus it is really looking great.

This is me. Totally.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:11 pm

If we get six more inches of snow tonight then I am going to something I haven't done since I don't know when. Maybe the day of Diablo II. Take a vacation day to play video games.

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:56 pm

LordMortis wrote:If we get six more inches of snow tonight then I am going to something I haven't done since I don't know when. Maybe the day of Diablo II. Take a vacation day to play video games.

I wish I could call out tomorrow. If today had been a regular workday I could probably get away with it, but not the day after a 3 day weekend with my new boss.

Tuesday Morning Edit - I can, however, work from home! And I think my lunch break will be a late one today, probably around 2pm. Between the oncoming snow hitting right during my evening commute and the fact that schools are closing early because of that, I have enough of a reason. I love not going into the office and saving 3 hours of commuting time.

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 8:39 am

Banished looks to be available on GOG and the developer's website, wherein he also provides a Steam key and gets to keep more of the profit for himself.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:17 am

Impressions, please. I'm really on the fence on this, my big concern being replayability.

telcta · Post by **telcta** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:55 am

Kelric wrote:Banished looks to be available on GOG and the developer's website, wherein he also provides a Steam key and gets to keep more of the profit for himself.

Thanks. I just purchased through the developer's website (which went to humble bundle) and received the DRM free and Steam key. Only 100MB download, nice.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:20 am

telcta wrote:
Kelric wrote:Banished looks to be available on GOG and the developer's website, wherein he also provides a Steam key and gets to keep more of the profit for himself.
Thanks. I just purchased through the developer's website (which went to humble bundle) and received the DRM free and Steam key. Only 100MB download, nice.

Me too, nice to have the option to get it early. I do have a question, if there are updates to the DRM free version, do I go to the developer's site or Humble?

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:52 am

Kelric wrote:Banished looks to be available on GOG and the developer's website, wherein he also provides a Steam key and gets to keep more of the profit for himself.

Would have gone that route, had I known but I just converted a Best Buy Gift Certificate to Steam Wallet money earmarked for this game, so it'll be a Steam Purchase for me.

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:26 pm

Don't worry tgb, I'll get you some impressions before my bed time.

LordMortis wrote:
Kelric wrote:Banished looks to be available on GOG and the developer's website, wherein he also provides a Steam key and gets to keep more of the profit for himself.
Would have gone that route, had I known but I just converted a Best Buy Gift Certificate to Steam Wallet money earmarked for this game, so it'll be a Steam Purchase for me.

It'll be through Steam for me as well, as I have $18+ sitting in my account there.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:55 pm

This looked promising enough for me to bite. I'm only in the tutorials but the game looks great so far. It's just what I wanted: a grown-up version of Settlers that just focuses on the village and survival. I really like all the little attention to detail, like when a building is constructed the stone foundation is more than just a rectangle; it's laid out exactly how it really would be for that particular building type.

One early review I saw said it's much more fun if you switch it to hard difficulty right off the bat. I'll be giving that a try and only dialing it easier if I find myself getting really frustrated.

The biggest criticism I've seen in early reviews is that some people may be thrown off by the lack of set objectives, but for me that's a-ok. I really like how open-ended the game is designed, so I can build whatever I want right off the bat, and in any order. I like having objectives just come out through the flow of the game itself.

tgb wrote:Impressions, please. I'm really on the fence on this, my big concern being replayability.

As far as replayability, it's far too early for me to have an opinion on that, but one review I saw said that the groundwork is laid out for moddability, so between official improvements to the game and mod-improvements, there's a good chance of it having longevity.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:08 pm

wonderpug wrote:The biggest criticism I've seen in early reviews is that some people may be thrown off by the lack of set objectives, but for me that's a-ok.

After watching 18+ episodes of Quill play

my criticism without playing is that "the man vs nature" aspect without a man vs man aspect doesn't seem like the interesting mixture it could be. There is very little prepping for disaster and seeing how your village deals with it. Only rebuilding after one comes through.

Objective are handled in the form of achievements so objectives exist.

We'll see what my opinion really is after I actually play.

(I still can't believe I watch him play for 9+ hours. That's just crazy but it does speak to my interest in the game.)

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:11 pm

Sounds like you'd like a bit more Dwarf Fortress aspect to it.

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:15 pm

Downloading via Steam, only 240 MBs and already installed by the time it took me to come here and post. Wow, okay, time to start playing before my lunch ends.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:25 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Sounds like you'd like a bit more Dwarf Fortress aspect to it.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:24 pm

Impressed so far, but terrified of an Easter island scenario so going slowly.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:49 pm

Leaving work to go play Banished!

ibdoomed · Post by **ibdoomed** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:55 pm

I gave him my $20 just to show support. I'll give the game a shot though, might be fun.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:38 pm

Uh oh! Banished community #1 has lost one adult and two kids to starvation already. It's taking way longer than the community expected to build those hunter/gatherer huts! Now it's already autumn, we're nowhere close to getting a wood cutter, and one of the four houses doesn't have enough firewood for the winter.

edit: I know the hunting cabin isn't finished yet, but you just walked right by that deer! He let you get close enough to touch--just hit it with a hammer or something!

ibdoomed · Post by **ibdoomed** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:41 pm

wonderpug wrote:Uh oh! Banished community #1 has lost one adult and two kids to starvation already. It's taking way longer than the community expected to build those hunter/gatherer huts! Now it's already autumn, we're nowhere close to getting a wood cutter, and one of the four houses doesn't have enough firewood for the winter.

Wow, three people died at the exact same time?! What are the odds. At least the rest have food now.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:41 pm

ibdoomed wrote:
wonderpug wrote:Uh oh! Banished community #1 has lost one adult and two kids to starvation already. It's taking way longer than the community expected to build those hunter/gatherer huts! Now it's already autumn, we're nowhere close to getting a wood cutter, and one of the four houses doesn't have enough firewood for the winter.
Wow, three people died at the exact same time?! What are the odds. At least the rest have food now.

If I understand it right, the initial food stores get distributed to each house, and the last house I built was the one left wanting. I think all three that died were in the same family.

edit: crap, and here comes the snow!

ibdoomed · Post by **ibdoomed** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:04 pm

wonderpug wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:
wonderpug wrote:Uh oh! Banished community #1 has lost one adult and two kids to starvation already. It's taking way longer than the community expected to build those hunter/gatherer huts! Now it's already autumn, we're nowhere close to getting a wood cutter, and one of the four houses doesn't have enough firewood for the winter.
Wow, three people died at the exact same time?! What are the odds. At least the rest have food now.
If I understand it right, the initial food stores get distributed to each house, and the last house I built was the one left wanting. I think all three that died were in the same family.

edit: crap, and here comes the snow!

You would think that within a few minutes of the first dying, the others would be eating...

telcta · Post by **telcta** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:05 pm

wonderpug wrote: edit: crap, and here comes the snow!

Ah! Not more snow! Maybe I should wait until spring to play this.