Recent reviews by TheDeadOne84

A very good game, forces you to make hard decisions. Although I never felt like I had an abundence of everything, survival itself was a lot less difficult than I was led to believe from reading about the game online, and in my first playthrough, the city survived to the end of the main story. But with no food left and most of the survivors starving due to my complete failure to stockpile any food, I'm not sure how much longer it would have lasted while food production was ramped back up. In any case, 502 people survived, and I think with some better forward planning, I can do a lot better. Efficiency is key, and I think I wasted a lot of precious resources through bad planning which forced deconstructions, and meant I was heating land that I ended up never using, and sometimes I was simply doing nothing - not passing laws, not researching, not using special abilities. I allowed a lot of survivors in the wilderness to die, simply because I never sent any scouts after them until it was too late, and they could have been really helpful. That said, I ended up with about 200 unemployed people anyway through not being able to build enough workplaces for them due to lack of materials! So some tips for my next playthrough and for new players:

1. Don't build steam hubs close to the generator. You'll only need to move them later. Build them a good distance out and apart from each other, and focus construction around them, rather than trying to cover every building that's around the generator. You will cover them later by improving the generator's range.

2. Don't be afraid of the "double coal usage" and similar warnings - coal is easy to come by. At least it was for me - I had 4 steam buildings producing it (and a charcoal place) and I kept a steady stockpile of around 10k coal - enough to last nearly 2 days with a fully upgraded generator and if coal production were to stop completely. I put off upgrading my generator for a long time, and I don't think it was necesaary.

3. Unlike coal, wood and steel was much harder to come by for me, and it meant that towards the end of the game, I just couldn't build enough workplaces. Stock up as much as you can, and start early.

4. A big effeciency drag for me was heating empty workplaces at night, because I had to heat homes that were covered by the same steam hub. Next time, I will focus homes exclusively around the generator, and use hubs for the workplaces, so I can switch them off at night.

5. There is no benefit to overlapping heat zones.

6. Hunters huts do not require heat. Build them on the edge of the crater. Also build resource depots on the edge - no heat required. The beacon doesn't need heat either, I don't think - so put it on the edge! Or at least far out of the range of the generator and hubs.

7. You can upgrade buildings by dropping the better version on top, it's cheaper than building a new one. I didn't discover this until near the end of the game.

8. Use building abilities as often as you can. I held off and I think I suffered for it in the end, your hope and discontent will recover, but there is no way to make back lost time.

9. You will never, ever have enough steam cores. They can only be obtained from the wilderness, so go explore! And I wouldn't waste them on automatons either. No more than one or two, anyway. And use more than one scout group. This is how I let so many survivors die - I simply couldn't reach them all.

There are other stories to play after you finish the main one, but I'm going to do the main one again first. Now that I know what's coming, and how to play the game properly, I'm sure I can build a much more effective settlement.

I haven't said much about the game itself - what's good and what's not, becasue there are so many other reviews out there that describe it so well. A sandbox mode would be nice, with random events, to add a bit more replayability. But people saying it's over in 6 hours and has no replayability, I have to disagree. My first play of the mian stroy took me 13.6 hours, and I'm ready to go again immediately. The gameplay is so engaging, and the detail in the world is sublime. Even if the story is a touch shallow and perhaps a bit impersonal, tragedy still feels like tragedy when you discover a lonely man with no hope of seeing his daughter again hanging from the rafters of his house, where you confined him for his own safety. It's an excellent game and I highly recommend it.

A masterpiece. Easily the most powerful experience I've played in many years.

In my first few hours in this game, I have to say I love it so far. It takes me back to old SimCity, which I had endless hours of fun with. After reading about and being bitterly disappointed with EA's latest effort (but not surprised), I've been looking at this game for a long time and finally grabbed it on sale. Even though it's been many years since I played a city sim, this game is very accessible and yet has depth. Can't wait to see what I can build.