RTS and Relaxation

I've played my share of RTS games such as Age of Empires and its descendants, and while some require more hands-on activity* than others, I've found that the RTS that focuses on civ and/or city/settlement building is the right sort of RTS for me.

Such as Madruga Works' games Dawn of Man and Planetbase.

Part of my first base in Planetbase. I need to
design better so that I don't have too
many chokepoints.

Dawn of Man is pretty much as it sounds: an RTS where you guide a settlement from the Paleolithic through the Iron Age. In addition to the traditional RTS problems with occasional baddies showing up to attack your settlement, there are issues with food, shelter, clothing, wild animals, and religion to contend with.

My little settlement is doing so well it now
has a satellite fort to the north.

Planetbase is actually older than Dawn of Man and it involves building a settlement on a remote planet. The difficulty can scale up if you unlock enough gameplay in your current difficulty level, but I don't think it's necessary to do that to enjoy the game.

I know the biggest downer that people have with both games is that the pacing may be so relaxed that you have to frequently speed up the game to keep moving forward. Yes, you can manually switch the game speed, and if you've got downtime of a season or so in Dawn of Man, for example, speeding up the game is a really good idea.

Another issue you have to manage that I forgot to mention is that of resources: mines can get played out and crops can contract diseases. People can become sick and die, and if they're a critical person (such as the only person who knows how to repair a robot in Planetbase, for example) that becomes a huge problem that could sink a settlement. Or, perhaps most insidious of all, is having too much of a good thing and have so many people come to join your settlement that your production and crops can't keep up.

Still, for those who --like me-- are happy with a relaxed pace to a game, both titles are worth pursuing. I'd pick them up when on sale --as always-- just to see if it's worth the purchase.

*And stress, especially when there's a zerg rush going on and you don't have quite enough defenses ready to handle it. 

#Blaugust2024