November 7, 2023 - Day 310 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 330
Game: Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 27, 2019
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 17d
Playtime: 25m
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is an isometric real-time strategy city-builder, with a medieval setting.
I got a whole bunch of games on the 21st of October. I was talking with my son about how I'd skipped a couple of months of Humble Choice in the past few years, and he gave me most of the games I was missing (because he didn't want them).
Included in those games was Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt; this review could also be "A tale of two city-builders".
The graphics in Townsmen are quite cute, and it makes Townsmen look like it could be a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, that's the best part of this game, because the actual gameplay is incredibly frustrating.
As an aside, in-game grammar and spelling mistakes immediately break my concentration. One typo is an oversight. Multiple typos and grammar errors sets my teeth on edge. This was not a good start for Townsmen.
The biggest issue I had with Townsmen is that it's less a city-building sim, and more of a city-micromanagement sim. I want to build buildings. I don't want to have to go to each building independently and assign and unassign workers (particularly in early game).
Buildings also degrade over time, and can catch on fire if they degrade too much. How do you know? Apparently they start to change colour. So now I have to remember to look at each building individually to see if it's changed colour and might need repairs. To repair a building, click on it to bring up the building interface. Click on a drop-down menu, and choose "Repair Building". Actually, this building is normally that colour, and doesn't need repairs. Like I said, micromanagement.
The tutorial levels give tasks, and give optional tasks, and would intermittently stop everything to remind me to complete the task I was working on.
"You need more wood, build another sawmill. You need another worker to build the sawmill. Build a new townhouse. You need more wood for the townhouse."
So I'm going around pulling workers from other jobs to put them on different jobs so I can complete the jobs to complete the tasks, which you've just paused the entire game to remind me to complete.
Anno 1800 hooked me so deeply that it was a case of "two hours already?", where this had me checking the clock repeatedly.
It's not just that it suffers in comparison to Anno 1800, compared to all of the other citybuilders I've played this year, Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt is: