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Hello Game-types!  :gentleman:

Maybe you guys can help me find a game for to play?

I'm trying to find a game that goes in-depth about the colonizing of a planet. Not a multi-star-system abstracted empire like in GalCiv or Masters of Orion or related games, but something either more like Emperor of The Fading Suns, where every planet had its own civ-style map, or, even better, something closer to Dwarf Fortress or like, Dungeon Keeper, but about colonizing a planet. Economic and such. It could be set on either a single planet that you'd randomize for a new play session, or (like I said already) like Emperor of The Fading Suns. Cid Meier's Alpha Centauri was sort of an example, but I'd like something more focused on the economic management aspect. Even something as simple as a single-player sandbox version of Star Knights would be an example of economic interestingness.

Many thanks!

um, civilization? That's pretty much exactly what you are talking about.

Well, sort of. It's not nearly sci-fi-space-colonize-y enough. But that's not my real problem with it - Alpha Centauri is Civilization except IIN SPAACE - it's more that it focuses on war much more than on the economic aspect of colonizing and developing a planet. I want to manage resources and such! Complicated resource trees! Woo!

I think this (http://www.saintxi.com/) might be up your alley. It's indie, too!

Neat! No reason not to try it. Looks kinda small, but hey, could be fun! Thanks!
Any more?

Well, uh... Minecraft.  It's not sci-fi, but it carries that same "taming a mysterious, new world," theme, but in a more personal way.  Survival multiplayer is coming soon, if you're looking for interactions with other entities.
Probably not exactly what you wanted, but it's a great game regardless. :shrug2:

Alien Legacy (http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/37-strategy/19728-alien-legacy) was an awesome DOS-era game that mixed colony building on a new world with discovering the mysteries of the solar system being colonized.

Oh yes, Alien Legacy. I fondly remember that game. It was interesting, to be sure. Relevant to my interests. And Minecraft does seem like the sort of game I'd enjoy, yes. If there's any other survival games people would care to throw out there, I'd take those also! I've already played some of them - Deus, Stranded and Stranded 2 - but the genre seems pretty thin. But anything with economic focus on taming a frontier would be kewl.

Thanks!

I used to play a lot of Deadlock when I was younger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarth_(Deadlock)

My favorite part was that if you launched enough missiles in a single turn the planet would explode. That's it. The game would show a little cinema of the planet exploding, then you went back to the title screen. It was a fantastic tie-breaker.

Multiplayer online is pretty unbalanced, though, since basically you have to play Cyth or die.

-SirNiko

Oh my GAWD I haven't seen that game in years! I was just thinking about it earlier today. I played a trial version back in 1999 or so, and forgot the name, and couldn't for the life of me find it, and THERE IT IS! Heh. Now to find out if it's a good game or not :)

Thanks a whole lot! That was bothering me to no end!

There's http://www.instantkingdom.com/notrium/ (http://www.instantkingdom.com/notrium/) A survival game on a strange planet. :)

Outpost 2 was an interesting kind of RTS/colonization game.

M.U.L.E. might be interesting to you.

Here's a good version of it:
http://www.planetmule.com/

If Alpha Centauri is too war focused for him, I don't think Notrium is what he's looking for...

There's SimEarth (the first PC game I ever owned). It's not exactly an economics game, as I remember it, but you can mess around with terraforming planets for colonization.

I think I would like to play a game like this too, and am surprised I'm not seeing more of them around. I found a couple of dry-looking hard science fiction colonization games - Mars Simulation Project (http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?name=Mars%20Simulation%20Project) and Moonbase (http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=741). I was hoping someone would have made a sci-fi mod for Transport Tycoon or something, but haven't found anything.

Ooh, a Mars Simulation Project. Apparently it's still being updated, didn't think it would be but there we go. I'm going to try it, though dryness might be too dry, I dunno yet. But games of that nature seem like the sort of thing I mean more so than Notrium, which tries to be the sort of game I'm talking about to an extend but is, yes, too combat-focused.

MULE is less of an economic colonization sim and more of a board game, to the best of my ability to tell, though I could be wrong.

Outpost 2 is... An RTS? Huh. Seems... Weird. I'm not sure what to make of that yet. I'll report back on that one or something. Seems to be too scripted-scenario heavy to be an effective economic sim. But thanks for the input, wouldn't have thought to look there.

Edit: Looks like the Mars Simulator starts you off with a functioning multi-colony sprawl and just lets you watch it... be a colony. So I guess it's simulating a colony allright, I guess I wish I could have had a hand in its development though.

Isn't Spore kinda like that?

It kinda is. But spore kinda sucked, heh.

The last stage of the game (UFO) was all about colonization on other planets and such, and was probably the best part of the game. Although it was also pretty annoying because my home planet would constantly be under attack by pirates, forcing me to drop what I'm doing and go all the way back.  :-X

There wasn't a lot to manage in the colonization, either. Like, you'd... Adjust two variables and throw down some creatures and plants. Literally throw them. And that'd be it. Granted, it sort of worked for the game, but it's not really much about actually colonizing as it is about this abstracted... activity... thing.