Cities: Skylines is an excellent city management game that combines depth, creative freedom, and realism. The game offers a very detailed building system, allowing you to design every aspect of the city, from infrastructure to services, including traffic and resource management. One of its strengths is the great freedom given to the player: you can build an efficient metropolis or experiment with creative solutions, learning from mistakes along the way. The simulation is well-balanced and gives the feeling of truly controlling a living city, with citizens reacting to your choices. Visually, the game is clear and pleasant, and support for mods and updates makes it long-lasting and always interesting. Overall, Cities: Skylines is a recommended title both for those who love complex management games and for those who want to relax by building the city of their dreams.

Pax Dei, its a game in early access. They do keep changing and listening to their players.

What I do like about Pax Dei, is the building & crafting.

CRAFTING

Crafting you can do if you have the materials. Most of those you need to gather, or have friends gather them for you. Also fighting animals or NPC's is part of getting materials.

Through finding materials you gain recipies. And if you are able to realize new recipies you get new ones as well. Or if you reach a new level in your crafting skill.

BUILDING

Building is also great. Probably my most favorite part of this game. With improving your carpentry skill you gain different building options, which gives more options. Also the challenge of how high you can build, proper structure is important. And if you are able to have multiple plots, you get more space.

However, I do prefer to share several spots over the world with my clansmen. As not all the resources are available in the zone you are located. By placing plots on multiple places allows you to gather what you needed.

Although there are wipes, issues, which is logical in early access, the way the developers communicate (a lot via discord) is great. They keep us involved. So I do hope they keep this up.

PVE vs PVP

There is one zone specific for PVP - lionese. I have not touch that zone, as I do not like PVP. Especially full loot PVP. However, for those who do, I hope they enjoy that. As a PVE player, I love the to relax with building and gathering and sometimes adventuring. If you go to dungeons, do it in groups. As it makes more fun.

MUSIC

I also enjoy the music. It is nice on the background. And helps me relax.

All in all, I do like playing this game

Sengoku Dynasty: Review

The goal of Sengoku Dynasty is to liberate all regions and manage four villages totaling up to 100 residents. Activities include crafting, building, fighting bandits, and completing quests. You can play solo or in co-op with up to 4 players.

Gathering & Crafting

Resource gathering is intuitive; basic materials are plentiful, while rare harvestables require tool upgrades. Tier-one tools are available immediately, but advanced schematics are locked behind missions or region liberation.

Building & Construction

Using a hammer, you can construct housing and production facilities. While you can customize aesthetics (e.g., swapping straw for wood roofs), the mechanical benefits of these choices are currently opaque. Building speed can be improved via the Way of the Craftsman skill tree.

Key Tips & Limitations:

Population Management: To avoid performance lag, limit villages to 25 residents. Spread your population across multiple locations.

Specialization: Dedicate each village to specific professions rather than general production.

Shared Services: Build all service structures (Ice, Food, Water, Wood, Armory, Tools, General Storage) in every village to ensure seamless material sharing.

Road Maintenance: Never stack roads (e.g., stone over sand). This forces the game to load both assets, tanking FPS. Always delete the old path first.

Hunting & Combat

Combat is functional and fair, though simple. To control a region, you must complete a Special Project and defeat a bandit boss.

Pro Tip: Place a fast-travel portal near boss arenas to avoid long "corpse runs" if you die.

Combat Score: 8/10

Raiding (Bushido Update)

Raids introduce village defense mechanics. While exciting, the system needs polish; bandits often spawn in illogical locations (like water or inside town walls) and tend to target the same villages repeatedly.

Raiding Score: 4/10

Questing & The Dynasty Cycle

Quests reward Dynasty XP, which is vital for progression.

The Dynasty Questline: You can marry and have a child. After a period of education, you switch control to the child, gaining a new profession and a head start.

Warning: Switching characters "resets" your progress. If you are close to maxing skills or achievements on your current character, delay finishing the Abbot’s final quest.

Questing Score: 7/10

Co-op & Technical Performance

Early/Mid-Game: Smooth and highly playable with up to 60 villagers. (9/10)

End-Game: Performance degrades at 60+ villagers. Issues include long load times, invisible assets, and "sync pauses" during autosaves or season changes that can freeze actions for up to 10 minutes. (5/10)

Management & AI

Village management is the game’s strongest suite. Assigning beds, jobs, and production quotas is deep and rewarding. However, villager AI occasionally snags on geometry, halting production.

Management Score: 9/10

AI Pathfinding Score: 6/10

Skill Trees

There are four distinct trees to master:

Dynasty: Village happiness/management (Capped at Level 20).

Crafting: Gathering, farming, and building.

Warrior: Combat and hunting efficiency.

Monk: Trading and cost reduction.

Final Conclusion

Sengoku Dynasty is a fantastic blend of survival and city-building for fans of feudal Japan. While the endgame currently struggles with technical hurdles and lag, the developers are actively improving the experience. It is a stellar journey from start to mid-game.

CONTRACTVILLE: A Comprehensive Review

After 55 hours in Contractville, I’ve had a chance to explore everything the game has to offer. The initial questline effectively opens up the various gameplay loops, and aside from a single bug with an NPC worker (fixed by a quick restart), my experience has been smooth. The game supports up to 4 players and offers a satisfying variety of activities.

Here is a breakdown of the main activities and tips for maximizing your profits:

Contracts: Build You can design building layouts and base floors, though the developers haven't added options for designing gardens or roofs yet—hopefully, that comes in the future.

Plot Management: On your own plot, you have total creative freedom. For missions, pay attention to the minimum requirements.

Furnishing: Aim for a "100" score on furniture placement to maximize XP, money, and fame.

Auctions: If you renovate to sell, the auction mechanic is fun, though making a solid profit takes time and effort.

Decoration Renovation missions are straightforward: remove the debris, sell the damaged items at the pawn shop, and buy the required furniture to style the rooms.

Demolish This was my favorite activity and arguably the most profitable.

Pro Tip: Pick the "Hard" quests and ignore the 30-minute timer. The extra reward for speed isn't worth the stress.

Recycling is Key: The real value is in the trash. Don't sell recycled trash directly. Instead, invest in the $20,000 office, install a Trash Compactor, and use solar/wind/generator power. Compact your Glass, Metal, Plastic, and Paper boxes, then sell them at the Advanced Factory for maximum profit.

Black Trash Bags: Save these for "Go Green" missions (see below).

Logistics & Cargo

Logistics: Simple point-to-point transport. For difficult missions, you'll want a vehicle with at least 64 cargo space to maximize earnings.

Cargo: You act as a mail carrier delivering parcels to specific spots. Tip: Use an open delivery truck. This allows you to read the labels on the boxes from a top-down view without having to pick them up constantly.

Taxi A quick and easy way to make money. Collect a passenger, drive them to their destination, and get paid.

Go Green These special missions award trophies for your office.

The Strategy: The "Clean Up" mission is best for farming resources. You usually need to deposit about 14 black trash bags to complete the objective. Bring the black bags you saved from other jobs to finish the quest, then spend your time mopping the floor and looting all the trash in the area to recycle back at your office.

Workforce Management You can upgrade your office three times, hiring a new worker with each upgrade.

Management Tip: Early 1-star workers are fine. Assign them to demolition sites, but only after you have gathered all the valuable trash yourself. I usually keep three missions open for workers and help them out after I've processed the recyclables.

DLC There are currently three furniture packs: Japanese, Medieval, and Future. They add themed furniture and a special quest, but unfortunately, they do not yet allow you to build houses in those structural styles.

Conclusion

Contractville is a relaxing blend of building, gathering, and logistics with plenty of variety. While the constant clicking to move items or occasional NPC quirks can be slightly frustrating, the gameplay loop is satisfyingly chill. It’s the kind of game where you easily forget what time it is.