Foundation

I've played a huge variety of city-building games over the years, from classic grid-based builders to complex economic and survival city sims, and I can honestly say that Foundation stands above the rest. What immediately sets it apart is the freedom. Instead of forcing you into rigid grids, Foundation lets your town grow naturally, creating villages that feel organic and alive. Watching roads form based on where your villagers actually walk is incredibly satisfying, and because every settlement develops differently, no two towns ever feel the same. The gameplay strikes the perfect balance between being relaxing and engaging. Managing resources, expanding your settlement, and keeping your villagers happy all feel meaningful without becoming overwhelming. It's the kind of game where you tell yourself, "I'll just place one more building," only to realise hours have flown by. What really keeps me coming back, though, is how fresh every playthrough feels. Unlike many city builders that become repetitive once you've mastered their mechanics, Foundation's organic building system and endless creative possibilities make each new settlement a unique experience. If you're a fan of city builders—whether you're a veteran of the genre or just getting started—I couldn't recommend Foundation more highly. After playing countless city-building games over the years, this isn't just one of my favourites; for me, it's simply the best.

If it were more intuitive, i'd probably like it. As it stands, you'll get messages about a workplace being unusable, but no info why. You'll see a message that some serf cannot use a path. Why? No indication. The modular buildings are also confusing. Once you start to figure them out, they become less so, but you have to figure out each kind individually. That is neither laid back or relaxing to me.

游戏大场景和性能优化堪称同类游戏拔尖，建筑的自定义和类似天际线的区域划定是核心亮点。 但是感觉游戏发展方向有点跑偏了，好像一直都在加强自定义装饰的部分，前期收集资源扩大领地，后面就改成中世纪建筑师暖暖了；另外宣传片里房子错落有致的状态游戏中实现不了，居民区是画圈的，只能NPC自己建房子，建的乱七八糟的还。 游戏目前挖了两个大坑开发商没填好： 1. 阶级，阶级对应不同工作岗位的最高效率，以及房屋居住和资源配置这些，目前粗浅来看没大问题 2. 仓储物流系统有点糟糕，资源生产单位生产出来的资源NPC不运送，需要仓库送货员去单位里拿，但是下游生产单位所需的加工资源需要下游生产单位的NPC去仓库或者直接去上游生产单位拿，和阶级以及大地图领土扩张结合之后，整体就变成一坨了，中文翻译里给的建议是“让仓库靠近资源所在地”，导致结果就是需要上下游堆在一起 就比如是衣服生产线，那么所有的上下游必须非常靠近并且使用同一个仓库 这样单独看其实没问题，但傻在地图很大，按照现在的房屋升级逻辑来说，开发者倾向于在地图的不同位置设置“小型聚落”，然后在聚落周围进行满足聚落所需的生产线，但是聚落太小人口上限不够支撑全部生产线，并且前面提到的物流逻辑很垃圾， 把几个小聚落变成大的那就相当于所有生产线都要铺一遍，这样的话阶级系统就没用了，如果全铺一遍就直接类似farthest frontier 那种小地图就好了，没必要做那么大，总之就是现在几个核心系统设计之间存在比较大的矛盾，导致玩起来非常奇怪 希望后续能优化

Even with 4 military companies on permanent patrol duty to two smalI residential plots, light fortified, with rustic castle watchtowers, only 4 houses upgrade to medium density so I can´t evolve further because villagers keep leaving for lack of housing. Some issues with the market tent also but those are mostly just anoying. Fun game if it was not bugged I supose. I will try to play it again sometime. Hope devs fix it.

Amazing game until the villagers waste every ounce of materials to downgrade houses just to rebuild them in a constant cycle. It's a game breaking mechanic, unfortunately. I want to recommend this game BEFORE you reach this cycle of illogical construction. However it has caused me to search for an alternative.

I really enjoy this game, especially with coffee. I'm not much of a review writer, but as I've put a few hours into this game now, I can honestly say that I still enjoy playing this game regularly, especially at the end of a long long day of work. It's a great way to unwind and defuse.

This game is extremely frustrating. There are a lot of things in the game that don't work as expected or as you're told. This makes doing any kind of logistical planning damn near impossible unless you somehow understand the underlying systems and how they're different than advertised. Why don't systems work as you're told? Who knows. Trading. You can mark an item to be sold once you reach a certain threshold. So basically keep 10 and sell any excess. Do you actually sell the excess when you have them marked? Not always. You can very easily go in the negative because you don't sell the items you expect to sell but at the same time you do buy the items you expect to buy. Why does this happen? Who knows. Taxes. You set the taxes and it tells you how much revenue you'll supposedly make every month. Do you actually make that amount every period? Nope. I'm supposed to be making 70 gold a month, but when I check the budget sheet, I'm actually making 15. Why? Who knows. Quests. Example. There's a quest to provide food diversity. It very clearly states that you have to find a second source of food for your villagers. Cool, I already have 3. Produce at least 1 refined food. Cool, I already have 1. Does the quest complete? Nope, it still says I haven't filled the refined food need for my serfs. Why? Who knows.

Regardless of what any review (hell, even this one) says, you WILL enjoy and appreciate this game under two circumstances: - You have a unique itch for a city building game with minimal restraints for creativity and originality with system building - You are willing to give yourself time to first learn the certain gameplay loops of the resource management system and you are willing to go step by step, not skipping a beat If you check both conditions, then buy it. This game scratched my unique itch that I was talking about. There are many city building sims with all kinda combinations of creativity, heavy resource management, and automation; but this is the sweet spot for me that it allows me to expand in my own terms. The game isn't pushing you to do anything, the goal is whatever you want it to be. You can build unique and memorable districts & streets, create customizable castles & manors (which is an underrated feature of the game), maximize trade routes with your fellow (yet invisible) neighboring towns, farm out resources in well designed districts, or just watch as your organic and unique city grows. The game still has a long way to go in terms of QoL updates and fixing stuff, but it runs very smoothly for me, and as far as I can say, right now the game has enough content to give you your money's worth.

Not what I expected unfortunately. I came into this hoping for a city builder where I could customize the fine details of a medieval city. What I received was a game where you're unable to directly place the most common and arguably most important buildings in the genre; the houses for your citizens. You instead have to rely on a zoning system which is worse than the likes of Cities:Skylines and Simcity 4. You are not able to decide which houses can be upgraded and are unable to customize these buildings, aside from the roof colour. The game revolves around upgrading and customising 3 main buildings (manor, castle, monastery) to unlock new buildings and technologies. I wanted to customise my entire city, not focus on the (n)th improvement to the manor hall. Quality of Life is quite terrible, I found myself having to micromanage job occupations for each individual workplace instead of these being filled automatically. For each new resource deposit (stone, iron, ...) you want you have to spend 20 in-game weeks prospecting with your bailiff, and you only get one of them, which is an issue considering how much other things this character can do. The game just costs too much for what it has to offer, and the most it has gone on sale for is 33%.