Ancient Cities

Why is every storage spot item specific? I don't want to draw a circle for every single item in the game! Buildings are item specific too. I played this game a few years ago and can say there has been no progress in over 2 years. Only changes have been for the worse.

Ancient Cities has one of the most unique and immersive settings I've seen in a city-builder/survival game. The world is beautiful, the prehistoric theme is incredibly refreshing, and there is so much to love here. The early game is genuinely enjoyable, and building up a small tribe feels challenging but extremely rewarding. Unfortunately, the game becomes nearly impossible to enjoy once your population reaches a certain size. The biggest issue is population growth. Early on, the balance feels fine. But once the tribe reaches a larger population, reproduction seems to go into overdrive. New babies begin appearing at a rate that is simply impossible to support. Housing, food production, and infrastructure can no longer keep pace, and the game stops being about growing your settlement and starts being about desperately trying to contain an endless population explosion. Instead of focusing on development, expansion, or long-term planning, I found myself spending all my time trying to manage an endless avalanche of new tribe members. I even experimented with deliberately keeping my tribe moderately unhappy, hungry, homeless, and overworked in an attempt to slow population growth. While this reduced births somewhat, the population continued to grow despite the tribe's worsening conditions. Eventually I ended up with a settlement full of tired, frustrated people who were technically available to work, but too exhausted and dissatisfied to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for housing and food. What makes this especially disappointing is that a quick search shows many other players have been reporting the same issue. From what I can tell, the developers have shown little interest in addressing it. That's a real shame, because the game's potential is enormous. I genuinely WANT to love it. The setting, visual design, and core ideas are excellent. The early game is some of the most enjoyable prehistoric survival gameplay I've experienced. But eventually I reached a point where the population mechanics overwhelmed every other aspect of the game. What started as a fascinating survival and settlement-builder became a constant battle against runaway population growth. After fighting the system for hours, I ultimately rage quit. Recommended? No (for now).

This is a game worth buying IF, the devs change some things. 1) people join your tribe, they have tech you don't. I have 8 crafters, the one that has the tech to make bows and harpoons, dies and 7 other people forget how to make bows and harpoons, that they have been making for more than ten years. 2) The person that has the tech to make mud houses dies, and 5 other people that have biult 8 mud houses suddenly forget how to make mud houses. 3) The birth rate in through the roof, ridiclous, no way to keep up with housing. The devs tell me that losing tech is just what happens, they say they have tweeked it enough, no chenge. If this was real life every person on this planet would still be sitting around a camp fire trying to remember how to make a flint axe. Ask about the brth rate, they won't even mention it, just ignore it. I have been told countless times the devs listen to the players, it seems only if you have a you tube channel, then they wil listen. So i say great game but buy at your own risk of being so frustrated you will rage quit.

The game doesn't deserve all the hate. I was the ultimate fan of Dawn of Man, and this game has very much the same feeling, and I am having a good time. The potential is massive, but the game is very much enjoyable already.

bare-bones

I initially heard about this game years ago, but was hesitant to pick it up due to mixed reception. It recently went on sale so I gave it a try, and I am hooked. The game has a lot of depth, and if you like manor lords, banished, etc you will likely like this game. That said, the learning curve is steep, and many of the game mechanics are unclear. In one playthrough I reached 100 members in my tribe, and buildings began to break down and my people mostly starved. This is likely due to the way I had my workgroups set up. Still a fun playthrough, but Its not clear exactly what needed to be addressed. To the developers, it would be a good idea to expand the tutorial, or create an optional longer tutorial mode that helps set up a stable village. At the least, workgroups need to be explained better to new players. If you are not persistent, then the early confusion may turn people off. Once you get through that steep learning curve, its a very fun city building and resource management game. I wish the development team luck!

fun game. you have to get food first then material. as well build houses and fire pits. once you get a lot of them then the game is a go!! only about 20 or so starts of mine did i learn this.

I rather like Ancient Cities for what its worth. It runs like ♥♥♥♥, it's not balanced very well, many of the potential developments are spent relatively early on, and if you get to a certain point your population grows into unsustainable measures, but yes, I rather liked it. The thing is you expect these things to be ironed out, you are promised ambitious things in the future, you expect ambitious things in the future, and blinded by these promises, you grow to like the game. Despite all its wrongs, despite the years of nothing, despite the rust corroding holes in this car of potential, you grow to like it. But no more. You know, since my purchasing of this game and now, I think its been some few years, my brother has died, my great uncle has died, I have graduated high school, I have entered college, I've watched the Sopranos twice, Game of Thrones 3 times, and Breaking Bad maybe 8, and yet the most substantial updates I return to are new huts and tents. Too many years, not enough has changed, the car is a pile of rust in a desert, and I'm still thirsting, with no water to my lips. Perhaps wait 2 years, see what is done by then. Perhaps a decade, but by that point I'll be an emaciated corpse, sweltered unto death by heat, thirst, and hunger, for this wheeled vessel, "Ancient Cities" has eroded into the ground itself, as will I.

I tried to like this game, I honestly did. Gameplay is boring, settlers are dumb, storage and building system are a real pain. I`m sorry but this just isn`t it.

I like this game more than I dislike it. But! I hate the lack of micromanagement. First scenario was when I had my people fishing. I wanted the first guy bringing fish back to the camp to do something else, so I decreased the amount of fishers by one hoping that the guy would change tasks. But no!... The game decided to pick someone way out in the ocean instead who wasn't finished. Which is why manual options need to be included with automatic systems. The second scenario to piss me off was since when I assigned a hunter task group for deer. Since when can a human run up to a deer and stab multiple times before it finally runs away? Sorry, but that is retarded. In reality, a hunter would either have to throw his spear and get lucky to get a kill shot or chase it down until the animal runs out of stamina. I will say the game is interesting and fun to learn but those two scenarios need to change before I could recommend buying this game at full price. I edited my review because I realized there was a clear tool to help prioritize which areas get cleared, but the annoying thing about that is my other tasks weren't getting accomplished. Which brings to my point that there needs to be more options for micromanagement. I should be able to select somebody and right click on a resource to harvest or an animal to hunt. I had another scenario where a couple of hares were getting close to my camp. So I assigned a hunter group of just one guy to deal with at least one of them. But this ****ing idiot wanted to go across the map to hunt one. More ironic was that the hare I wanted to hunt was considered "Very big" and close to camp. This is why you need manual controls. Because AI is sometimes ****ing retarded!!!!!!!! Also shouldn't the hunter pick up the rabbit and bring it closer to camp? He has to make to trips to collect one small pelt and one unit of meat? Really? I changed my mind, I cannot recommend this game at this time. I really hate the automated system for determining which jobs people take, and I cannot play any further because of it. Also rats started eating my food, and for some reason the two kids I had crafting in camp wouldn't scare them away. I deleted the crafting task they were assigned to, used the defense tool, and they had spears, but they did nothing. I hate to wait for an adult way out in the sea that was fishing to deal with it. Please include manual task management! Otherwise I wasted money on this game!