Know any recent challenging economy sims?

Heyho,

I have been wondering and searching for a while now. Are there any recent challenging economy sims?

Especially in the 90s there was a huge boom of economy sims. Granted, they pretty much all came from Germany, but they existed.
Like Mad TV, Hanse, Die Fugger, Der Planer or even Biing!
The only international one I can think of and which vaguely fits in is the first Railroad Tycoon Games.

These games all shared the same characteristics:

1. You manage a company and try to make money, from earning money via trade with your medieval ships or making your hospital lucrative
2. No levels for artificial challenges or goals you have to reach in a given time
3. They all were inherently challenging. If you suck at managing and making profit, you go bankrupt and the game ends.

Modern games about management mostly split up into two groups: (City) Building and Survival.

Games in the (City) Building Group, which was likely founded via Civilization, either offer a free mode where you can just build your stuff, which is not challenging at all if you are not a complete idiot. If you run out of money you just wait until you get more money to continue building. There is usually no competition which could buy you up or drive you into backrupcy. The only challenge these games offer now and then is scenarios and a level structure. Meaning you have to solve a messed up situation, or you have fixed levels and you must reach the goal in time x or you meet the artificial timer of failure.
Games like Sim City, Cities Skylines and so on are in this group. One game I played about 2 years ago is Railway Empire. It had a campaign with missions (make X money in x months or you die) and a free mode, which was completely broken as the mechanics of the game were made for short level situations, and in the free mode you were just swimming in money after a short while.

On the other hand you have the Surival Games, Like Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Banished and so on.
Basically you are building and managing stuff. And if you do a bad job you will be killed be the ever increasing enemy threat which will attack whatever you build.


But besides of these two groups…the genre of economy sims seems to be dead.
And that's my question to you: Do you know any economy/management sim from the last 20 years which fulfills all thre points I mentioned before? Games without level structure, which you can play for dozens of hours and if you do a bad job you get bought or will just not win the game without ever having waves of enemies attacking you?

Hey Kordanor,

I would think you may like games such as the Anno series, Patrician series, Port royale series. Maybe you've played them already.

Pladio said:

Hey Kordanor,

I would think you may like games such as the Anno series, Patrician series, Port royale series. Maybe you've played them already.

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Never was a fan of Anno, couldn't get warm with the first game and the second and last I played was anno 2070, but that one also was based around mission design.
Anno in that regard compares more to Settlers I'd say. It has a very strong Economic Aspect, but the goal essentially lied in militiary, and the game structure was comparable to RTS with mission after mission, and ofc the "open game" cannot change much about that, it's just a mission without goal, much like a skirmish match in an RTS.

For Patrician I only briefly played in the first or second game. I cannot really say anymore why I didn't continue playing it. I got the 4th game for free by Kalypso because the screwed up another game (Legends of Pegasus) which ultimately I also refunded. I never looked into Patrician 4 though (released 2010 and only 57% positive ratings).

As far as I understand Port Royale is more or less the successor of the Patrician Series which moved the setting from Europe to the Caribbean. Also by Kalypso. Never really looked into it as the other Experiences I had with Kalypso sucked (Omerta, Legends of Pegasus) and also the beforementioned Railway Empurie s from them. While that game was decent, it still had this Kalypso-Lack-of-Polish with it, game mechanics easily breaking. Ofc they are also known for their Humorous Dictatorship Managing Series "Tropico", but that one also always came with the City Builder Issue I mentioned before. You have to really try hard to screw up. I never played it, but that's what I heared about it so far.
So...yeah, never played Port Royale and cannot judge it, but...it's not standing in the best light so to say.

Thanks for the suggestions though.

What about Offworld Trading Company? https://store.steampowered.com/app/271240/Offworld_Trading_Company/

Zloth said:

What about Offworld Trading Company? https://store.steampowered.com/app/271240/Offworld_Trading_Company/

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Haven't played it, but hat's more of an fast paced RTS, just that combat is replaced by resources and stock market. While it has a campaign it also has skirmishes and multiplayer matches.
Missions are very short, looks like the first map is done in 30 minutes. Apparently you carry over stuff from mission to mission. Maybe that way it receives a different character, but I can tell. Did you play that game and can tell more about it's campaign structure and importance from stuff you carry over?

You might give Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic a look.

Kordanor said:

Did you play that game and can tell more about it's campaign structure and importance from stuff you carry over?

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Nope, never played it myself. I get my economic fix from Egosoft's X games and Tropico. Tropico is definitely in your city builder category. The X games' economies are part of a bigger game - economy is a major part but definitely not the only part and is really not too difficult.

JFarrell71 said:

You might give Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic a look.

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Thanks, yeah I have seen that one, but ignored it so far as it looks like another builder and it is still in early access. But I'll keep an eye on it / look further into it.

Capitalism Lab (https://www.capitalismlab.com)

It's the moderm follow up of 2 games (Capitalism and Capitalism Plus) from the early 2000 you can find on GOG.
It's the same developer but he produces his game now to be free to do what he wants. Highly modable with huge potential.

Obviously not easy, no mission, no bullshit with stupid childlike stories to make you build this or that building.

Kos said:

Capitalism Lab (https://www.capitalismlab.com)

It's the moderm follow up of 2 games (Capitalism and Capitalism Plus) from the early 2000 you can find on GOG.
It's the same developer but he produces his game now to be free to do what he wants. Highly modable with huge potential.

Obviously not easy, no mission, no bullshit with stupid childlike stories to make you build this or that building.

Click to expand...

Cool thanks, looked into Capitalism 1 back then and had some fun with it. Will check out what he did with that formula.

2 games which are less sandbox but still in the management/business:

Sofware Inc may interest you. Still in Alpha and mechanisms tend to change a lot while the dev is working on balance.
It should be interesting when more polished.

Computer Tycoon is also a business game: you start in the 70/80 and try to build your own Apple, Microsoft or IBM depending on how you develop your company.

Kos said:

2 games which are less sandbox but still in the management/business:

Sofware Inc may interest you. Still in Alpha and mechanisms tend to change a lot while the dev is working on balance.
It should be interesting when more polished.

Computer Tycoon is also a business game: you start in the 70/80 and try to build your own Apple, Microsoft or IBM depending on how you develop your company.

Click to expand...

Thanks!
I'll stay away from everything early access. I think I saw Computer Tycoon before, but it very much looked like any other of these almost-phone-games like things. Have you played it? Any word about difficulty and how you get challenged there? Like, is it hard to survive against the competition?

heh phone games .. Ah you mean like Game Dev Tycoon and so on? No, they are not based on you trying to found the perfect loop/recipe to succeed.

They are supposed to really cater to business/management starved people but at the moment I did not found any of them to be that hard.
However in both cases the DEVs are trying to work on that.
More on my watch list than in my game list at the moment

Can I interest you in Gear City maybe? It takes Detroit, the game from the 90 but with more everywhere. Not finished yet but this one is really fully playable as such and can be quite challenging: The recession at the end of the 1920 is nice to survive to for example.

I played Detroit back then (which btw in Germany is called "Rüsselsheim" which is the City of the Opel Manufacturer) but I am not too much into the topic and not too thrilled about a new take on it (also its in EA as well).