Forums

First of all, I have to say that this game is awesome, and it feels like the Sci-Fi successor that the Anno games always deserved. I am a huge fan of city builder games and science fiction, and I am very happy that this game exists. I do however have one complaint, the citizens lack a bit of extra liveliness. While I'm playing city builder games, my favourite thing to do is occasionally zoom in and just watch the little people live their lives and just do things. As a result, I have a few suggestions that would make the game much more enjoyable for myself and others like me.

1. Martial Law and Protests. Martial law in this game brings little visual feedback and feels more like a reform than an act of repression. In real life, martial law is an extreme measure taken by police states to control their citizens. This should be better represented in-game. Protesters also use interesting tactics to get their point across. The protests in the game should extend to block tunnels once they gain enough support, blocking the commuters and stopping work, and this should be visible, with a line of protesters standing together in a line. If martial law is activated, there should be visible police forces that move in and break up the protest. These police should also begin to patrol around the colony. The citizens acting as police should be the workers in the police drone building (maybe increase the number of workers from 4 to 8), or workers in a new police station building. Martial law should also have a stronger effect, reducing crime by 60 per cent instead of 30, and reducing freedom by 16-20. Police colonists should wear riot armour based on the spacesuits or on a new model. There should also be random deaths and injuries (if possible), representing resistance and police brutality

2. Crime. Crime is another thing that is implied but not visible. In areas with crime levels above low, there should be occasional animations in which citizens attack/steal from each other in the tunnels, and if the crime level is high, they should attack each other in groups (as gangs). If there is police coverage, the police should be seen breaking up the fights. These situations could also lead to random deaths and injuries, adding to the problem that crime presents in your colony. Again, police colonists should wear riot armour based on the spacesuits or on a new model.

3. Parties. There should be a new policy that, when enacted, causes all lounge and bar buildings to host large parties for all citizens across the colony. These should be represented by the tunnel entrances to these buildings filling up with citizens dancing (maybe using the protest animation?) and moving in and out of the buildings. This policy should massively increase morale (10-20%, maybe even more?), but it would have several drawbacks. Crime around these buildings should increase a fair bit, addiction rates should rise and these buildings should have increased power consumption.

4. Sound Effects. I think this is something you probably already have planned, but I'll put this down here just in case. Right now the game lacks sound effects for city buildings. Industrial buildings should have the sounds of machinery, Power plants should humm and also make industrial sounds, housing should have crowd noise and bars and lounges should have thumping music... et cetera

5. General Animations. Sitting down and having picnics in parks, talking to each other, hanging out in groups, having walks outside the colony and other events that give the npcs a bit of life

6. Military Base. I don't know how feasible this is, but I'll put it out here. You already have scrubbers, and you have defense turrets planned, so I have a new suggestion for dealing with spores and any other surprises you may have planned, and that is having soldiers. There should be a new four tile building that is cheaper than the scrubber drone building in both nanites and in power consumption. It could have an appearance similar to the immigration centre. This building should hire between 8-16 colonists, and they become soldiers. They should be represented as wearing armour, either based on the spacesuit or a new model, and armed with assault rifles. These soldiers should be capable of dealing with spores and all other threats in a less efficient manner than scrubbers and defensive turrets, and with the added risk of random death. When dealing with these threats, the soldiers should be visible both outside the colony and inside the tunnels firing their rifles at the threats. The presence of the military base should also reduce crime. The military base could be upgraded to make the soldiers more effective at eliminating threats. It should basically be a multi-purpose building  that exists partially as either an early or late game solution to various problems at once, and partially as an excuse to have some battle animations, which is something everyone wants in this type of game, let's be honest.

I have other suggestions, like reproduction based population growth (which would bring a whole host of policies and new gameplay), a new fire event, et cetera, but I don't want to get carried away. Please respond with your opinion, just so I know you have seen it, whether you consider my ideas infeasible or outside the limitations of the engine or whether you like them and think they can be implemented, just to know for sure.

I just wanted to agree that the game is awesome!  😀

Seems like a hard ask to do all those animations - I would just like more distinct colour coding for the levels in the overlays.

Realistically, everything falls apart pretty quickly if you're not > 70% on everything - I want the overlay to be red between 70 and 75% preferably.

Some more prioritiy to warnings that will end your colony like food, water and air quality would be nice for beginners. I quite like it that the game suddenly implodes on me but I feel bad for my colonists you know?  😀

I definitely think that new animations is something this game sorely lacks, alongside new policies. A lot of the fun of a city builder game is going down to citizen level an watching them do stuff.