Greg Recommends City Skylines

Website: STEAM / Paradox Interactive

As of the writing of this article (October 2017) Paradox Interactive's "City Skylines" is the best city builder on the market. It's basically Sim City except bigger and better in all the ways that matter. It's a relaxing "go at your own pace" ginormous sandbox of opportunity that layers a multitude of systems on top of each other to create a city building experience that keeps it simple enough for beginners but with enough depth and mechanics to keep the expert city builders occupied for hundreds of hours.

Image from the Steam Community

Anyone who has played a Sim City game will immediately be familiar with the 'zoning' system whereby you designate what types of buildings can be built in different parts of your city. You start out every city by laying road down off a preexisting highway into whatever layout you like and then designate different zones (residential, commercial, and industrial to start). Virtual citizens will then start flocking to your tiny town and start building houses and businesses for themselves. The amount of each type of building as well as their location relative to each other matters. Residents will need jobs to work at and shops to frequent and the various industrial and commercial businesses will require workers to run. You need to keep a balance so that your city can keep growing. Keep on eye on the RCI panel to see what type of buildings are needed.

As mayor you're responsible for providing your citizens with basic utilities and so you'll also start off by laying down some water pipes underground and then connect them to a clean source of water for drinking and somewhere else (hopefully down river) to dump your water waste. (Don't worry, you'll eventually unlock more environmentally friendly ways to dispose of your raw sewage). You'll also need to provide electricity via a power plant (cost effective but makes lots of pollution) or wind turbines (expensive but eco-friendly). More options are unlocked later.

As your town grows you'll begin to reach population milestones that unlock more features for you to play with. You'll be 'plopping' down schools, parks, police stations, fire stations, clinics, and public transport buildings that will increase the value of your land so the buildings on it will upgrade themselves while also preventing danger and injury to your little people.

All of this is pretty standard and almost a direct copy and paste job from previous Sim City games. Where City Skylines surpasses Sim City in the basics is in its pathing logic, customization, and logical infrastructure. In Skylines your little people actually live and work in specific buildings while in Sim City your sims take the first vacant building / working spot they can find on their commute to and from work. In Skylines the traffic has always made sense while in Sim City the traffic only kind of makes sense after years of patching to try and fix what was originally a nightmare. In Skylines the relationship between residential / commercial / industry matter, you need to have a good balance to thrive while in Sim City your sims will be happy to live in a city with no stores, no schools, and no jobs.

A traffic solution I build myself!

As your town grows and becomes a city you'll run into problems with traffic. This is normal as the types of roads you had access to at the start weren't designed to accommodate the vast amounts of people who now want to live in your community. The question (and the fun) in this game is 'what are you going to do about it?' How are you going to fix the traffic problems?

Skylines gives you some powerful options for dealing with traffic. You can increase the number of lanes, you can make a road one-way only, you can build ramps and tunnels, but most importantly, you can place roads pretty much however you need to without the game telling you 'you can't do that' or auto-snapping your roads to where it 'thinks' they should go (like a certain other city builder series). There also options for mass-transit (buses, trains, ferries, metro, etc). You can even place or remove individual stop lights and stop signs at specific intersections if you want to really micro-manage traffic flow throughout your city and it will make a huge difference when you do.

Here's a story from my own city. At the entrance at the edge of the map I had a super busy four way intersection. North connected to the highway. South went into the downtown. East went to my farms. West went to my lumber industry. Everyone coming in and going out had to compete with heavy freight traffic wanting to go east, west, and north. Everyone had to stop at the lights and there was always a lineup on all four sides. At first I replaced the four - way with a roundabout so there would be no stoplights. This worked for a while but the traffic didn't flow as nicely as I wanted it to and lineups still happened. I did some brain storming and thought about real life overpasses and then tried to build one myself. It took a little trial and error but I eventually did it, I built my own overpass so now the traffic flows smoothly from every direction, no more stopping, no more slowing, it was a very satisfying feeling when I had finally gotten it to work.

As your city keeps growing it will become beneficial for you to separate it into different sectors. This is easily done from the HUD and costs you nothing to do. Sectors are areas of your city that follow specific rules that affect what your little people can and can not do, how much they pay, and how much they produce. You may want to put pollution restrictions on an industrial zone but also give them permission to double their production by cutting corners on safety. You may want to make an especially high value part of your city pay higher taxes and restrict pets and freight trucks to keep it as desirable as possible. I was especially pleased with the sector option that made large commercial buildings double their sales which ended up doubling my income per month in taxes even for my small city.

Sectors also allow you to customize what specialization your industry will have in that area. Farming (if on fertile ground), forestry, mining, and oil are all options that will produce needed goods for your city as well as a lot of freight traffic to import and export needed materials. It is usually worth thinking through how you will keep your freight traffic smoothly going where it needs to go and away from your busy commuter routes.

You'll also need to set up a garbage disposal system, a 'death care' system, public transport, put down more schools, and experiment with new zoning types (high density residential / commercial and offices). If you have the 'Night Life' DLC then you'll also be wanting to look at the entertainment industry to bring in tourists and the potential for lots of crime.

Underneath the hood of this game there is a lot going on. Your city actually has specific needs that your little people will try to fill. Businesses require workers of varying education levels as well as specific materials to function. Your stores need specific freight of varying types which can be produced by your industries or imported. Your industries require specific materials to make their products. Home and business owners will expand if all their needs are being met so even more people can live and work there. Your little people will drive, bike, walk, and jump between all manner of public transportation to get to work, go to school, go shopping, and go home. Each of these things affects your city and Skylines provides lots of tools to track these analytics. You can see at a glance how effective each of your systems is, and which areas of your city are being overlooked.

As you keep growing things keep changing and the old systems and infrastructure that used to work fine will need to be upgraded, changed, or removed and replaced with something else. The result is an organic city building experience that moves at the pace you set for yourself.

After a while you will start rubbing up against the sides of your portion of the map. That's ok, you're allowed to buy more sections. You can even download a mod that lets you use the entire 5x5 grid to build a massive metropolis provided your CPU can handle it.

Two bus routes and two metro routes combine at the center of town to take everyone where they need to go.

The fun in this game is definitely in the building, the problem solving, and the watching. Planning out how I want my little people to meet their needs and move about smoothly is fun and the Skylines has enough options and more than enough depth to make the planning phase a stimulating endeavor. The robust mechanics ensure that there will always be things to do and problems to solve as well as a multitude of ways to solve them. This game respects you and gives you free reign to use all the tools a real city planner would have and lets you make mistakes so you can learn from them.

The game is also beautiful. It may not be as polished as Sim City (Maxis loved to polish all their stuff) but it still looks great. I sometimes lose track of what I wanted to do just looking at the busy streets and all the traffic flowing like life giving blood through the arteries of a living thing.

screenshot from Jonathan Bolding's review on The Escapist Magazine

It gets better though. The game is fully supported for mods which means the community has put together a very large body of easily added buildings, vehicles, people, utilities, and much much more to grace your city. Simply visit the City Skylines Steam Workshop and start subscribing to whatever content you would like to have access to for free.

The only things I can say that could use improvement in Skylines would be if they had in-game tutorials, campaign or, challenge maps. There are plenty of tutorials online, which are good, and you can download player-made challenge maps, but these tend to be unrealistic.

The game is a bit expensive if you're purchasing the base and all the DLCs at regular price. As is common with Paradox games the base game is always being added to with free features as new DLC is being created while the DLCs themselves still really add a lot to the base and it is worth picking them up if you enjoy the game. Here is a list of the current DLCs and what they do.

After Dark - Adds 'Leisure Specialization' which makes your commercial buildings extra active at night and 'Tourism Specialization' which makes your commercial buildings near the beach a hotbed for tourism.

Snowfall - Adds the option to have a winter city with snow removal being another system to layer on top of your city. Unfortunately there are no changing seasons (yet).

Natural Disasters - Adds the ability to afflict your city with a variety of natural disasters.

Mass Transit - Adds a variety of new mass transit options to get your citizens from point A to point B without clogging your roads.

Green Cities - Adds a bunch of specializations, buildings, vehicles, parks, policies, and scenarios of the eco-friendly variety.

Concerts - Adds the ability to get live performances in your stadium(s) to generate money, traffic problems, and maybe crime.

Cosmetic Packs - There are a variety of packs that add extra buildings from the top of the modding community.

On a final note perfectionists may need to just relax and mentally prepare before playing this game. It is entirely possible to build a perfect city with a perfect grid and a perfect balance of all types of buildings and services. however, I would advice against this and I think that it is far more interesting and freeing to not try and build a perfect grid. Allow yourself to make things unsymmetrical and even (dare I say it) mistakes on purpose. Let your city have some personality. If you try for the perfect grid every time then you'll be frustrated as you run into new options you hadn't considered when you first started building.

City Skylines - Easy to get into, difficult to master, organic, vibrant, deep, mod and community friendly, this is the best city builder in a long time.

Greg Recommends The Anno Series

UBISoft / STEAM / GoG

Dirt Cheap to $50 depending on the title.

The "Anno Series" are real time strategy games that blend city building with business and resource management. The first title, Anno 1602 launched in 1998 and the most recent title, Anno 2205 launched late 2015. Each of these titles is good and you can start with any one of them.

1601 - Tobacco Plantations. Good graphics for 1998.

Your goal in each of these games is to go out and locate a new home to settle, build up, and 'conquer'. I put conquer in quotations because the game is 98% settling, building, and perfecting. These are peaceful and often slow strategy games with a heavy emphasis on building placement and resource management over and above combat.

1503 - An army lies siege to your city! Graphics upgraded from 1602.

One of the core mechanics behind the series is that your citizens will require (demand?) certain things according to how fancy their house is, similar to the old Caesar classics but far easier to control. So taking the first game, 1602, when you create a new house the residents require that they live within a certain distance from the town center building and that your island inventory contain enough food to feed them. If you don't meet these basic demands the people will eventually leave and the building will collapse over time. Alternatively should you go above and beyond the basic requirements and provide some of their requests like being a certain distance from a chapel and have access to wool cloth, they will be happy to pay higher taxes and even improve their residence should the appropriate resources be available to them. These upgraded houses represent an entirely new class of resident with the former demands and requests now becoming the baseline to maintain them and a new list of requests being presented. So now instead of pioneers requiring community, a chapel, cloth, and fish you now have settlers who require all these things but now also request alcohol, spices, education, and tobacco. The higher the tier of housing, the more people live therein, the more money you can tax, but the more they require to stay happy.

1701 - Zooming in close to one of your ships. Large graphics upgrade from 1503.

As the population of your settlement(s) grow you gain access to new buildings that you need to keep growing or just make your existing infrastructure more efficient. To ensure that you branch out from your original island home no one island will have everything that you need to keep growing. Once you are established on your home you will find yourself loading up a ship in hopes of finding more new land, hopefully containing the right conditions to grow your own grapes or spices or whatever it is that your people need before they upgrade their houses again.

1701 - A lively port city!

The result is a game of mostly peaceful building with ships sailing this way and that delivering goods back and forth as you slowly add more layers of complexity to keep up with the needs of your people before meeting the map's win conditions. Later titles after 1602 add a few interesting twists like different types of resources, expanded diplomacy with other players, lesser NPC nations that hold exclusive luxury goods, tech trees, going underwater, additional society factions, or landing on the moon, but the core premise and game-play fixtures are always the same.

1404 - Everything is somehow bigger and crisper than 1701.

The graphics are always good for the time in which the game was released. Anno 1602 graphics were quite good for 1998 and Anno 2205 has great graphics for a 2015 game (read: beefy video card and processor required), but I have always found the details limited. Everything looks good, but it all starts to look the same after a little while. If you've seen one block of housing you've seen every block of housing and your cities tend to feature lots of blocks of housing. You can zoom in to see your people milling about in the newer titles but your people do little more than just mill about. This isn't like Tropico where every person is busy doing things on the island, the 'people' you see in Anno are just eye-candy and while the buildings and the countrysides look beautiful they are just representative of the real game of supply and demand and expanding your infrastructure to make your city bigger. I think that, in a strange way, the beauty of the game works against itself in that people expect to find a higher level of detail and personality in the graphics of a game that looks so good.

2070 - Welcome to the future. Everything is much bigger here.

One thing I have always appreciated about the Anno series is the music. Orchestral and dynamic right from good old 1602 onward. Many of the songs are downright gorgeous and make the game a joy to play. Here's a link to some good music from 2070 to show you what I'm talking about.

As for the combat it is minimal and the least interesting part of the Anno series. Should your expansion for more resources get blocked or if you're just greedy or a jerk then you build warships of varying sizes to go sink your rival's boats and blow up their coastal buildings. In the pre-2070 titles you can also build a handful of soldier types to land on your rival's island and take it over one warehouse at a time while the new titles employ airborne drones with which to bomb things. The defense against ships, soldiers, and drones is to build static defense towers to shoot at enemies within range in addition to having your own ships, soldiers, and drones. There is no strategy beyond 'attack as a big group' and taking out an opponent is a long and boring task.

2070 - An underwater base. Very important for producing algae, oil, and many rare elements.

The fun of this game is definitely in building a big city and setting up the supporting infrastructure. Whether that's lumber camps and clay pits in Anno 1602 or Oil Rigs / Processing plants and mass produced fast food in Anno 2070. Some of the production chains to get desired items can be quite involved; like creating service bots in 2070 which requires sand from a river, copper from a mine, corn from a farm, seaweed from an underwater farm, a chip factory, a biopolymer factory, and a robot factory. Getting the balance of lower tier resource gathering buildings to higher tier refining buildings mixed with the ever growing demands of your population can be a daunting task after a while, but this is part of the fun.

2205 - You thought things in 2070 were big? This is REALLY big.

There is also fun in just sitting back and watching a well oiled infrastructure servicing a city. All those ships coming and going and, depending on which title you're playing, either delivery people carrying wheelbarrows of goods this way and that or airborne drones ferrying cargo all over the skies.

The Anno series is about long term gaming. You can't really just play through it in a week and be done, completing a map takes a long time and there are lots of maps to play through should you desire them.

There is multiplayer, although I have never tried it outside of building peacefully with my family in 1602.

2205 - Building on the moon.

The one caveat I have on this series is that the DRM on Anno 2070 was so stringent that I couldn't actually play my legally purchased version of the game for years and their customer service team eventually just threw up their hands and said "we don't know how to help you." I eventually found the answer in a steam forum about which setting was off in my network that made the game impossible to play.

Other than that I think the games hold a lot of merit. They make infrastructure fun, they look and sound fantastic, and they are primarily a peaceful building game which we probably need more of in our violence obsessed culture.

Greg Recommends Viridi

Price : Free
Website : STEAM

So here's an unusual game. Viridi is a plant simulator where you can arrange, water, and admire a virtual pot of plants. You start out by picking a 'starter' pot which comes with a handful of seedlings and a snail who slowly cruises along the side of your pot. You water your plants when they are thirsty and zooming up close to any one of them allows you to sing to your plants which may or may not make them grow faster and bigger. The game is real time so you can check in once every few days (you get a time-lapse viewing from since you last logged in) to pluck weeds and water thirsty plants. Once a week you can collect a free seedling to plant or save at your leisure. You can also buy virtual seedlings via micro-transactions.

It's a surprisingly calming and beautiful little game with gentle music that you can check in on every once and a while to keep your plants happy and healthy and maybe linger a bit for stress relief. It may not be for everyone but it is free and as far as plant simulators go, it's a quality product.

Greg Recommends Startopia

Price: $5.99
Website: https://www.gog.com/game/startopia

Startopia was a phenomenal game for its time (2001) and aside from some initial hiccups at setup it is still a really good game fifteen years later! It was created by the same folks who gave us Populous 3 and Dungeon Keeper 2 so be prepared for innovation, quality, and quirkiness in this classic space station / amusement park / gardening management sim.

Not bad for 2001 graphics.

Startopia puts you in the unique position of a space station administrator tasked with turning a derelict space station into a profitable hub of business and pleasure. You are provided with basic structures, some scuzzer bots, and a sum of energy (money) to get started and it's off to the races! Your first goal will be to attract aliens to land at your portion of the station and get them to pay you for things that they need or want. In the beginning of the game this usually means offering basic food, sanitation, lodging, health, and maybe a love nest or some simple shops. The more services and higher quality of those services, the more aliens will land and if they leave happy the higher your popularity will be. As you start to earn a profit you can look at investing in a variety of options to gain the advantage over your rivals ranging from factories to disco/rave pits to communication relays to spiritual retreat centers to advanced medical care and beyond. The more you grow the more options you unlock and the more things that could go wrong. The progression isn't perfect, but it is fun.

The outside of your space station. The glass enclosures are sections of the biodeck,
below is the pleasure deck and at the bottom is the utilities deck.

The map in Startopia is unique in that it is a spinning doughnut shaped space station partitioned 'horizontally' into 3 decks. The lower utility deck is where all the industry occurs, the middle 'pleasure deck' is where your guests can shop, have fun, and enjoy luxury living while the upper 'bio deck' is sculpted to resemble a 'Halo type' planet surface for aliens to 'get some fresh air' and enjoy reconnecting with nature. The space station is further partitioned 'vertically' by enormous blast doors that can be unlocked once you pay the required amount of energy to repair the adjoining section.

The style of map is sci-fi genius, tactically unique and interesting (as much as it needs to be for this game). There is only so much room on the space station and you will eventually grow to the point where you are rubbing shoulders with your rivals. More on this later. What might throw new players is that gravity pushes everything to the outer edge of the doughnut structure of the map and so once you unlock enough sections you realize that everything appears to be moving uphill in both directions and that aliens (and buildings) far away from the camera look like they could tumble down the slope.

The Utilities Deck

The first bit of fun is figuring the system out for the first time through the guided campaign. You're AI assistant 'VAL' (a sarcastic parody on Space Odyssey's 'HAL') leads you through nine scenarios each of which focus on a specific aspect of the game. In the first level you learn the basics. Some buildings come as is and you just place them on the ground. Other buildings require you to set a floor plan and then decide which other pieces to include and where to put them inside the building. If the buildings / furniture placed were in your inventory then scuzzer droids will grab the crates (because everything gets packed into crates) and unpack them. If they were not in your inventory then you use energy to make them materialize which is convenient but expensive. Aliens need food, sanitation, sleep, health, social, and fun. The first alien types (Gruelian Salthogs, Grays, and Grekka Targ) are fairly simple and tend to get along with cheaper accommodations even if their tastes differ on a few points. Soon you'll have a handful of aliens aboard paying you energy credits for meals, beds, and basic shops and you will feel like a benevolent disembodied observer looking upon the works of your hands.

The second bit of fun is finding ways to advance beyond your humble beginnings. The campaign does a good job of introducing new concepts and new ways of advancing such as producing your own buildings / furniture / droids with factories, or trading with different species, or growing plants to harvest on the boi-deck, or research, each with its own pros and cons. Manufacturing goods is cheaper than materializing them but it takes longer, and you can only manufacture goods that you know how to make. Researching new buildings and products takes a lot of time and setting up research facilities can be very expensive while simply purchasing a needed item from a trader, even at a high price, may be a lot better in the short term. You have to decide how to proceed and which aliens to hire onto your staff as each alien type provides a different function and each specific alien has its own stats to consider (competence, loyalty, and dedication). Unlocking new buildings and items to attract more aliens and make your station look awesome or become more efficient will net you a larger income and hopefully an edge over the competition.

Lots of aliens enjoy the bio deck.

The third, and largest bit of fun (in my humble opinion), is just watching everything. The developers put love and care into the visuals and it is fun to just watch everything happen. Aliens going this way and that way, talking, working, dancing. lounging. Scuzzer bots zooming this way and that to clean or repair or recharge or move crates. The graphics are amazing for 2001 polygon technology and placing plants and decorations strategically still makes the game look pretty good even by today's standards. The bio-deck is fully customizable allowing you to adjust elevation, water level, heat, and humidity. The game also rewards you for watching closely as you can earn extra credits by manually warping trash into a recycler and you can catch non-staff aliens fraudulently using facilities or terrorist aliens planting bombs and so alert your security staff accordingly before they do too much damage. (you can build security systems to flag and arrest or kill hostiles so you don't *always* have to be on the lookout.)

The fourth bit of fun is the intrinsic humor infused into this game. Your in-game assistant and campaign narrator is a sarcastic dry-wit AI who is full of advice that draws on stereotypes, pop references, and enjoys humorously insulting and complimenting you often doing both at the same time. The game is full of little touches that give it humorous style, from the campy looking terrorist space man conspicuously 'sneaking' to the scuzzer bot charging stations that comically flip robots upside down to screw a loose bolt into their bottoms, to the dubious trader "Arona" finding various ways to try convincing you to buy his overpriced (and quite possibly stolen) goods. Their is also the way aliens have their 'love' desire met, by going to a 'Love Nest', standing before a 'Siren' type alien, and allowing him / her to shower glowy lights and hearts down upon them. Don't worry, alien love is very child friendly, rated 'E' for everyone.

The Pleasure Deck

Eventually your little money making paradise in space will run into an opponent (assuming that you're playing with AI or a friend). The station is only so big and it is only a matter of time before you unlock a section adjacent to another administrator. Assuming the competition doesn't go bankrupt due to your ruthless efficiency at providing better services at less cost to yourself you can look forward to some firefights that will leave buildings in fiery ruins and send non-combatants running for their lives. If you can get a security scuzzer bot to the other side of an opponent's section of the station it can hack the blast doors and cut the section off from your opponent and rewiring which energy source it runs on thus making it officially yours and allowing you to build there unless your opponent takes it back. The combat mechanics are not very interesting, but they serve well enough for a non-combat game. Basically just hire all of the big beefy combat loving aliens you can, order a scuzzer bot to hack the controls in enemy territory, and start flagging which enemies you want your mob of laser shooting aliens to target first. Once you take out all of your competitions' energy collectors they are knocked out of the game.

A rogue Grey has been caught using medical equipment at your expense. He is being escorted off the station.

There is little strategy involved in combat and it is probably the least fun element of the game. All of the strategy in the game is in netting a higher income, reducing your costs, and making things more efficient. Buying low and selling high with trade ships, realizing that you can make an extra 50e per medical examination if you can pick up medical supplies cheap from the Grey traders, or even better, grow them yourself in the bio-bay. It's using research to unlock strategic technologies so that you can build things yourself instead of playing a game of chance with which trader will show up next and then paying through the nose to get what you need once it finally becomes available for purchase. It's building a tourist trap so attractive and so luxurious that the filthy rich Gem Slug race not only come to spend money but also stay long enough to leave valuable "turdite" on the floor which offers a high energy return rate with the recycler. It's making an efficient security system that can detect saboteurs before things blow up and arrest criminals before they start pretending to be staff and start costing you money (you can also make money by rehabilitating said criminals). Under the sci-fi cutesy ant-colony exterior (which is a good exterior, make no mistake) it's all about efficiency.

Startopia is fun but it's not perfect. The management tools aren't very maneuverable, the diplomacy settings are confusing, and navigating the staff bar becomes time consuming and unwieldy by the end of the game. There is no opportunity for interaction of any type between players except for sending your mob of laser gun wielding staff to do 'aggressive negotiations'. The game isn't very challenging once you know what you're doing, and events like plague ships, asteroid showers, or space beetle invasions are interesting the first few times they happen, but ultimately do little to shake up the underlying efficiency game. I also feel that there could have been a lot of potential for more 'extra' aesthetic items as well as fostering negative reactions among differing alien species beyond just a sad or angry face. But hey, the game was made back in the distance digital the bronze age of 2001 by a small team, so I can forgive Startopia for not being perfect.

What it does do well is simulation and atmosphere. The various game systems (trade, manufacturing, research, medical, hiring staff, alien needs / wants, etc) blend together very well and the graphics are as good as early 2000's graphics get. Part Deep Space 9, part Rollercoaster Tycoon, part Tropico, and part monopoly the game is full of heart and a must for gamers who can appreciate gentle paced sci-fi or management games in general, or even just games where you get to peacefully build cool things.

Go pick it up for dirt cheap at https://www.gog.com/game/startopia.

Greg Recommends the WARGAMING.NET Series: World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, World of Warships

Price: Free, Free, & Free

Website: http://na.wargaming.net/

Three Great Games: One Universe

World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and World of Warships. Three great games made by one company. As far as war simulation goes you will be hard pressed to find anything so robust, balanced, good looking, and exciting as these three titles. Each is uniquely different and all were crafted with love and care. Special attention was given to making these historical tanks, planes, and ships accurate and realistic but not to the point where realism throws off the balance of the game. The matches are quick and exciting with a moderate learning curve for new players and enough strategic depth to keep pro-gamers coming back for more. Each title is also free to play with a fair monetization model that does not interfere with gameplay. I have personally logged tons of time into these titles and am pleased to call them my action war simulations of choice.

World of Tanks

The first of the Wargaming series launched for PC in 2011. I originally scoffed at the game thinking it was some sort of World of Warcraft clone for tanks but was pleasantly surprised to find an action strategy World War 2 gem instead. Matches consist of two teams of fifteen players duking it out to either be the last team standing or to capture the enemy base before time ends. Playing smart, using terrain and cover to your advantage, and good teamwork are the keys to success.

World of Tanks rewards skill and teamwork. It is realistic enough that playing the game like an arcade will get you blown to bits in the first minute but the realism is offset by enough arcade gameplay to keep things balanced, fair, exciting, and fun. The mechanics take geometry and physics into account which makes positioning very important for deflecting enemy fire and landing critical hits on your enemy's more vulnerable components. Each vehicle is different and offers diverse styles of play.

Light Tanks are small and fast with great handling and superior spotting capability. They are ideal scouts and artillery hunters. Once an enemy has been spotted every team member within radio distance can see them, which makes these little guys an essential part of any team.

Medium Tanks are larger and more heavily armoured than their light cousins. Most can be upgraded to pack a heavy punch and are maneuverable enough to intercept lights and surround heavies.

Heavy Tanks are the backbone of a platoon, with thick armour and hard hitting shots they are a force to be reckoned with. Their lack of mobility and slower firing rate, makes them vulnerable if not supported.

Tank Destroyers are the snipers of the tank world. Their long range guns and heavy front armour make them deadly at a distance but lack of maneuverability and weak side and back armour make them vulnerable up close.

Artillery has little to no armour but carries the biggest punch of all. "Arty" can fire all the way across the map and destroy unwary enemy tanks in one shot. However, the reload time is agonizingly slow.

World of Tanks has seven tech trees full of authentic historical war vehicles to upgrade, customize, and master.

What sets world of tanks apart from the other two titles is the importance of cover and geometry. Despite what most cinematics for this game will show you the bulk of your time will be spent hiding behind cover, not zipping about going toe to toe with other tanks in the open. Positioning behind a sturdy building, trench, line of trees, or sand dune makes it so the enemy team can't see you and allows you to get off some good shots when they move about in the open. Cover is also important for deflecting enemy shots and keeping you safe from lethal artillery strikes. To do well in this game you need to minimize your tank's exposure to damage while also keeping line of fire on your enemies. This is more exciting than it sounds as you try to gauge when to re-position yourself either to move up with your team, gain line of sight over the next ridge, or avoid being surrounded. Likewise failing to properly scout enemy positions and just rushing forward can get you ambushed by enemies lying in wait. This game makes you think like you're in a real tank battle.

When a team works together the game is gold. Getting a surprise surround on a heavy tank and taking it out with two or three allies never gets old. Focus firing enemies with a platoon of friends safely out of the line of sight of the enemy team as your scout spots their locations is a blast. Getting into intensely close matches is always exciting. When your team is dysfunctional... well... thank goodness the match will probably be short.

World of Warplanes

The second of the Wargaming titles, this one was released in 2013. Much more than just 'World of Tanks' in the air, World of Warplanes looks and feels like an action filled dogfight simulation. Two teams of fifteen pilots each are tasked with either eliminating the other team or gaining victory points by destroying enemy ground targets. The action is fast but the controls are intuitive and players can choose between keyboard, mouse, and joystick without any real disadvantage putting everyone on equal footing. Warplanes is more arcade-like than World of Tanks but the simplification of flying a plane makes for exciting matches and a reasonable learning curve for new players.

The progression of Warplanes follows the same pattern as World of Tanks, you begin with access to the first planes that were used in WWII for a handful of nations including the US, Britain, Germany, Russia, and Japan. Each match you play earns you experience and silver according to your performance which can be used to research new components, upgrade your plane, and purchase consumables and new planes. There are four different classes of plane to choose from.


Fighters

The nimble fighter exercises aerobatic superiority, able to out maneuver larger planes in close combat and evade enemy fire with tight turns, barrel rolls, and other creative high-speed tricks. Fighters excel at getting into enemy blind spots and punishing less maneuverable targets for straying too close.


Multirole Fighers

An all-purpose fighter capable of filling multiple roles on a team. While less nimble than their smaller fighter cousins their larger design fields more powerful armaments and engine. Some can be outfitted with rockets and bombs or high caliber machine guns to damage ground targets. The key to playing this role is versatility.


Heavy Fighters

The hunters of the sky, these large fighters are usually equipped with two powerful engines, a devastating armament up front, and a rear gun to defend the back. Heavy Fighters are very fast and out perform other planes and high altitudes. Their low maneuverability makes them vulnerable to close combat but their speed and power make them ideal for high altitude diving and fly-by attacks. They can deal moderate damage to ground targets and some heavy fighters can be equipped with bombs.


Attack Aircraft

The anti-ground target aircraft, these large and heavily armoured aircraft boast heavy front machine guns, bombs, and rear gunners. The least maneuverable class, what they lack in speed and turning radius they make up for in armour, hit points, and firepower. Unwary fighters will find themselves quickly scrapped if they wander into the line of fire of one of these flying fortresses. Attack Aircraft are best played at either high or low altitudes to sneak past enemy planes on their way to important ground targets.

The matches are quick and fun, especially quick (and perhaps less fun) if you don't know what you're doing. World of Warplanes rewards player skill and proper use of flight dynamics. Different planes should use different tactics according to what they encounter and endlessly turning to get a shot on an enemy is an unimaginative and often easily countered tactic. The key to out maneuvering other pilots in equally performing aircraft is to use speed and potential energy against them. Put in layman's terms: "always try to stay above them." You have more potential energy if you are higher up. You can descend to pick up speed, out maneuvering your foe, and get some good shots off while they are either unable to hit you or have to use up their speed to climb up towards you. This is what makes heavy fighters so powerful, as they can climb higher and faster than other planes and then turn around and descend at very high speeds while enemies are either still and their original altitude level and most now evade or foolishly attempted to follow on the ascend and are sitting ducks because they used up all their speed.

The maps are understandably larger and more open than World of Tanks. Each map features a variety of terrain types which provide cover for low flying planes and hazards for low flying pursuers that range from canyons to trees to bridges. Both factions will be responsible for protecting several ground targets while attempting to destroy the ground targets of their enemy. For each enemy destroyed (plane or ground target) the victory count down speeds up in your team's favor. For each ally lost (plane or ground target) your victory timer is reset and the enemy's timer speeds up. Each team also has a head quarters which increases the accuracy of the various AA guns which automatically shoot at enemies within range. The HQ is a prime target for enemy attack aircraft.

Where you position yourself on the map has tactical value. Different planes perform better at different altitudes and there are ground features and cloud cover to mask your presence from the enemy team. When you are targeting an enemy the icons in the HUD will indicate their firepower, speed, and maneuverability in relation to you own which will greatly affect how you deal with that target. If you have superior firepower then a head on assault will be favorable but if you do not then you will need to evade their assault and try to hit them from a different angle. If you have superior speed then it will be easier to use altitude to your advantage and safely disengage from close combat. If you have superior maneuverability then it will be favorable to engage in close quarters dogfights with tight turns.

Teamwork is important in Warplanes. Attack Aircraft need to be escorted and zippy little fighters will quickly be scrapped out of the sky if they are solo and encounter a group of enemies. Enemy planes are easier to hit when they are zeroing in on an ally so breaking off from your current target to assist an ally is both helping your team and hurting the enemy more than if you had done otherwise. Situational awareness is also very important for navigating the angry swarm of enemies and allies in close quarters combat as collisions are fatal... and surprisingly common. I have witnessed too many allies colliding and killing each other while chasing a wily enemy pilot. Baiting enemy pilots with one or two low flying fighters may convince the entire squadron to descend and upon them up to attack from hidden allies up high.

Warplanes is my combat flight sim of choice. It's beautiful, fast, and fun. I love games that reward skill over luck or reflexes and Warplanes does just that. I like that it's realistic enough to feel like you're engaging in a dogfight but arcade-like enough to not have to bother with controlling multiple flaps, landing gear, and tail fins while also manning a machine gun. It's just pick up and go and while die-hard flight sim fans and history buffs will probably look down upon the liberties taken to make the game fast, fun, and balanced, I love it.

World of Warships

The newest game of the Wargaming series, World of Warships was recently released September 2015. After my exceptionally good experiences with World of Tanks and World of Warplanes I had high expectations for World of Warships and am pleased to say that it did not disappoint. Warships is, as far as I know, the only multiplayer modern naval combat sim in existence but it is also well made, with polish and depth just one would expect from Wargaming.net. Part World of Tanks, part Artillery sim, part slow motion chess, and part telepathy World of Warships is unique, engaging, and fun. Just like the games that have come before it Warships allows you to engage in 15 v 15 multiplayer battles and rewards teamwork and skill.

The layout and progression follows the same format as Tanks and Warplanes but with some notable exceptions. At the time of this writing Warships only has 2 nationalities, the US and Japan and you begin with their first tier cruisers. Every game you play nets you experience and silver according to your performance which you can use to upgrade your ship and unlock other ships through the national tech trees. Where warships differs from the others is that the game introduces upgrades, crew skills, and consumables one at a time as you level up making for a more gentle learning curve. In addition to this the tier of your ship does not have as great an effect on how you fair in combat and players have the option of teaming up against the AI (useful for trying out a new ship or upgrading from stock).

The maps are very large and even the low tier ships have guns with a firing range of 10km. Piloting your vessel through the water is a different experience than driving a tank or flying an airplane. It takes longer for your ship to gain and lose inertia which means that once you commit to an action you cannot take it back. This means that you always need to be thinking a few steps ahead, anticipating what the enemy will do and acting accordingly. The slower reaction time combined with the fact that most ships fire a dozen guns at once make the game feel epic rather than sluggish. These ships are titans of the sea and their grace and power make them feel the part.


Since the guns on your warship are so big you will be able to hit enemies from a fair distance. This means two things, first it means that you will need to fire where you think the enemy ship will be once your shots land, second it means that you need to be aware of enemy lines of fire or you will be taking shots from every part of the map. Similar to world of tanks it is important to stay in cover, although the cover for a battleship will be different than the cover for a Tiger I. Most maps in warships are dotted by islands big and small which will hide ships from view and block enemy fire. Destroyers are able to put down smoke screens to mask allies and a change in course soon enough can evade artillery fire.

Another interesting point that sets Warships apart from Tanks and Warplanes is the way to get critical hits against your foes. Every ship can fire either explosive rounds are armour penetrating rounds and the strength of your guns determines their effectiveness. If you are able to penetrate the armour of an enemy ship you can try to aim for the 'citadel' points (boiler rooms + gun magazines) for extreme damage. These citadel points are located directly below smoke stacks and gun turrets and the option to target them offers more skilled and daring captains a risk / reward scenario that always feels fantastic when pulled off successfully.

There are four different classes in World of Warships, each plays significantly different than the others.

Battleship

Historically battleships were made obsolete by torpedo carrying aircraft even while they were being created. In Warships though they function as the heavy hitting damage soakers that tear smaller ships to bits and can fire half way across the map. Equipped with multiple primary heavy artillery, a large arsenal of secondary short range guns, and AA defense these ships are big, heavily armoured, and slow. The thick armour on a battleship makes it invulnerable to critical strikes from all except other battleships. While powerful and boasting the most hitpoints and thickest armour the Battleship is vulnerable to torpedoes, bombers, and being surrounded by other ships. A smart Battleship captain will go with an escort and use his presence to support fellow team members and leading a charge, not going solo which is a good way to die.


Cruiser

Cruisers are the multipurpose ships capable of filling multiple support roles and acting as the natural counter to enemy destroyers. Smaller and lighter than battleships cruisers are faster and more maneuverable while still capable of firing full artillery salvos. Each cruiser is different, some are heavier and play like a fast firing mini battleship, some are very fast to hunt down destroyers and out maneuver larger ships, some have torpedoes, and some have special anti-aircraft guns. Cruisers play a very valuable support role for battleships and the team as a whole.


Destroyers

Destroyers are the stealthy killers of the seas. They are small, lightly armoured, very fast, and are capable of launching devastating torpedo attacks. Their low profile allows them to get closer to enemy ships without being spotted and their maneuverability makes them a difficult target to hit. Destroyers also come equipped with smoke screens and engine boosts to make them even more elusive. When firing torpedoes captains have the choice of using a wide or narrow spread to either maximize number of hits or chance of hitting. Torpedoes deal massive damage and will often cause enemies to flood taking additional damage over time. It is possible to sink a Battleship with full health by hitting with a full round of torpedoes.


Aircraft Carriers

Aircraft carriers play very differently than the other ships. Instead of firing artillery and trying to zoom your sights in on distant targets aircraft carriers zoom out to get a tactical view of the entire map and command squadrons of fighters, torpedo planes, and bombers. Aircraft carriers are powerful support class ships and the highest priority targets as they are capable of superior scouting, long distance torpedo attacks, and superior anti-aircraft defense.

So there we have it, three games, one review, all of them recommended on their own merit. The folks at Wargaming.net know their stuff. Their titles strike an excellent balance between historical realism and gameplay to make them exciting, challenging, balanced, beautiful, and fun. I love free to play games that actually let you play for free and have a quality experience, and Wargaming.net has put out three titles that do just that.

Greg Recommends Tropico 4 + Modern Times Expansion

Price: $16.99

Website: http://store.steampowered.com/app/57690/

Tropico 4 is a smart city builder with a twist; you play as El Presedente, a ridiculous but brilliant (or quite possibly just very lucky) tin pot dictator who must build up a Caribbean island nation while stashing away as much money as possible while also ensuring that the Tropican citizens don't arm themselves and storm the palace. With over 90 hours of game play logged I have played through all of the content in Tropico 4, including the Modern Times expansion and all DLCs. The mechanics are deceptively deep and intricate while also seamless, the graphics show some aging but still offer some beautiful shots, and the humor spread throughout is a blast. This is definitely my city builder of choice.

Special note: Don't bother with Tropico 3 as it is the same game as Tropico 4 except but with less options.

Special note 2: Tropico 5 is a significant revamp of the Tropico series and is worth playing if you enjoy city builders. Tropico 4 is my favorite though and it's cheaper.

Gameplay

Humble beginnings... your lonely palace, a handful of corn
farms, a dock, a construction office, and some shacks.

The general goal of each Tropico game is to take your tiny underdeveloped and poverty stricken island village and turn into a profitable Caribbean paradise. There are many ways to do this and many challenges along the way; the scenarios in the campaigns also tend to mix things up a bit with special objectives and unique challenges.

As already alluded to the mechanics of Tropico 4 are complex and very well integrated. As El Presedente you are responsible for all aspects of your islands' infrastructure, economy, politics, military, and the well being of your citizens. To summarize things very briefly the two main things that lead to success are the happiness of your people and the amount of money you are able to generate. Generally speaking you begin by build up basic industries to export goods which make enough money to build more industries as well as the things that make your citizens happy (real houses, churches, hospitals, entertainment options, etc). As the game progresses you will be able to expand beyond basic raw material exports (crops, metals, lumber etc.) to processed goods (Rum, weapons, furniture etc.) as well as create hotels for tourists to come give you their money, that is, assuming you have the infrastructure to field these things. Where you place buildings matters as a long commute may cost you productivity or citizen happiness and some buildings have area affect bonuses depending on what is around them. Efficient roadways are important and require a measure of planning as they can become clogged and bog down production. There is rarely enough money, time, or resources to make everyone happy until a successful mid - late game and the fun is striking a balance and watching your island nation grow. In terms of the size of your city you are only limited by the size of your island (up to 'very big') and the speed of your processor.

Turns into skyscrapers, factories, shopping malls, tourist
traps, luxury entertainment, and bustling roadways.

Every citizen is procedurally generated with varying importance spread out among several needs (food, housing, job, entertainment, safety, health etc.) and will seek out ways to meet needs that get too low. Your citizens choose which building to live in, where they want to work, and which political faction they support. They interact with your city and react to how you rule them. You can click on any one of them to see their stats and have them fired, arrested, executed, excommunicated, bribed, or arrange an accident... Likewise you can click on specific buildings to adjust the wages they pay, who works there, and how many positions they are allowed to fill. El Presedente's ingame character can even visit specific buildings to increase their 'quality', make construction crews work faster or give speeches from the palace to raise the respect of everyone who attends. You can zoom the camera right in to street level and get up close and personal with your creation and the people who live there. These sorts of micro-management options are especially useful at the beginning of the game when money is tight and high school / college educated citizens are in short supply, but what is even more impressive is the way the game gives you information and control at the meta-level.

Zooming in on a residential sector with a nice little restaurant on the corner.

The 'Almanac' gives El Presedente a bird's eye view of all the important statistics of your island. The happiness of your people (for example) is listed as percentages which can in turn be clicked on for a full breakdown. You can get a birds eye view of your economy, trade, political factions, and the various demographics of your citizens. The almanac is especially useful when an election is called and you want to see where you stand with the various political factions (Capitalists, Communists, Militarists, Religious, Nationalists, Environmentalists, Loyalists). The makeup of these political groups will affect how you approach your island. A Communist majority will have different demands than a Religious majority and appeasing one group may make other groups upset with you. It's an uneven sea-saw and you are in the middle trying not to fall off.

At least the people respect their leader and are eating well... No, you cannot have more liberty!
Here's some blocky soviet tenements and a church to appease you while I bathe in my money.

The foreign superpowers also affect how you will rule your little island paradise. The US and the USSR will provide you with annual financial aid and unique trade options according to how much they like you but will invade if you make them angry. Other foreign powers like the UK, China, and the Middle East will provide lucrative trade options and gifts if appeased. The foreign powers as well as Tropico's political factions will offer minor objectives throughout the game asking you do something they want in return for money, respect, or a trade deal.

Also available to El Presedente are powerful edicts that can be unlocked to change how things are done on the island. Some examples are 'Food for the People' which gives a large boost to food quality at the cost of allowing Tropicans to eat twice as much of your food, 'Martial Law' which cancels all elections and greatly reduces crime at the cost of liberty and tourism ratings, and 'Off to Florida!' which sends all criminals to Miami on a government approved raft-like structure at the cost of US - Tropico relations for the next five years.

Looking over a mid - late game Tropico.

The campaign does a good job of breaking you in slowly as you learn how to build farms to feed your people and set up basic industries to start earning some cash. New concepts (foreign affairs, military, education, and edicts to name a few) are introduced slowly at first and it makes for an enjoyable tutorial as such. There are always strategies for how to run the island as well as a multitude of ways to squeeze extra money out of exports and tourists either into the island's bank account or into El Presedente's retirement fund... some of them are even unsuspiciously legal!

Between the robust mechanics and a multitude of options there is no right or wrong way to rule your island, although some strategies are better suited than others depending on the situation. Keep it simple as a self-sufficient farmer's haven or try for the big bucks by building factories and importing the necessary raw materials. Keep your citizens uneducated and indoctrinate them to become Loyalists Kim Jong-il style or embrace democracy and bring your people all the luxuries and liberties of the western world. Find the play style that works for you and then use your political influence to encourage some factions to grow while discouraging those troublesome nay saying factions. Bribery, coercion, control of the media, prison labor camps (DLC), and good old fashioned execution are all at your disposal. A word of caution though, ensure that your army is big enough (and loyal enough) to handle any explosive consequences that come from aggressive political shaping. A secret police HQ wouldn't go amiss either...

The Tropican Armed Forces intercept a group of rebels intent on storming the palace!

Bright Aesthetics & Humor

The overall tone and atmosphere of Tropico is as bright and silly as a city builder could be. The graphics are of an older generation but they are nonetheless full of vibrant colors, swaying palm trees, busy streets, blocky communist style tenements, glass skyscrapers, and beautiful gardens surrounded by the blue of the Caribbean Sea. The soundtrack is an absurdly happy, catchy, lively and (depending on your tastes) possibly annoying medley of Latin-American inspired musics which set the mood for upbeat fun in the sun. The representatives of Tropico's factions serve as your advisers and each one is a silly caricature that will chime in with helpful advise every once in a while and will occasionally take control of the radio and comment on El Presedente's actions and quite possibly bicker with other faction leaders over the air waves.

The story line of the campaigns starts out normal enough but becomes a wacky over the top concoction of conspiracies, international espionage, outrageous master plans, and crazy vendettas all wrapped up in some excellent humor and lighthearted fun. This is a story where El Presedente begins as a simple tin pot dictator with delusions of grandeur and in his quest to make Tropico the richest most powerful nation on earth he ends up the victim of an elaborate conspiracy (original game) and then in the expansion also single-handedly diffusing World War 3, defeating international terrorism, landing on the moon, warding off the zombie apocalypse, and moving Tropico out of the path of a nuclear missile by building lots of wind turbines. The characters are bright, zany, and varied. El Presedente is obviously corrupt but is so charismatic that he convinces everyone that he's the hero. You're #1 adviser worships you and is utterly incompetent, but his crazy schemes usually end up working in the end. Your environmental adviser, Sunny Flowers, is a tree hugging hippy left wing loon and your military adviser tries to scare off tornadoes to make them retreat while your capitalist adviser tries to sell discount weapons to the rebels over the radio. Everything is a joke in Tropico, everyone is happy in Tropico, everything is corrupt in Tropico, and Tropico is most definitely the best place in the entire world.

A Note on the Modern Times Expansion

The modern times expansion adds new buildings, edicts, and an additional campaign to Tropico 4 that build off the existing mechanics. As time progresses in your games these new buildings and options will be unlocked (makes the decision of when to use certain options more interesting). Older buildings can be replaced by modern day buildings improving efficiency and (maybe) decreasing pollution. Many of the modern buildings have options that affect how they function as well as potential bonuses depending on location. It adds a nice addition to the Tropico experience and makes for a more interesting late game but it's not necessary and I'm not sure I could recommend buying it at full price to new players. Play through some Tropico 4 to see if you enjoy it enough to commit the time required to play a few games through. My recommendation would be to wait for a good Steam sale and pick it and all the DLC up for about $15.

A nice Tropican skyline brought to you by the Modern Times Expansion.

Summary

Tropico 4 is a smart city builder with great style. Robust and seamless building, economy, and political mechanics covered in bright and lively aesthetics wrapped in some of the most humorous writing I've ever encountered in a video game make this a personal all time favorite. The learning curve in the campaigns is gentle enough to ease new players in while also leaving all the options open for more adventurous players to experiment and go wild. Pick this title (and all the addons) up in the next Steam sale for some excellent city building and seriously silly fun in the sun.