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Games that have settlements you repopulate/rebuild?

No RPG elements? It probably goes here!
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Games that have settlements you repopulate/rebuild?

Post by rusty_shackleford »

I like when games have areas that progressively get repopulated/rebuilt. It feels very satisfying.

I am looking for recommendations for games where this is an important part of it
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Post by wndrbr »

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Post by Tweed »

Fallout 4

EDIT: That'll teach me to sit and think instead of going for the shitpost.
Last edited by Tweed on August 13th, 2025, 11:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by wndrbr »

KCD1's From the Ashes DLC. As a reward for playing a crucial role in an assault on a bandit camp, Henry acquires Pribyslavitz' deed and a title of bailiff. While serving as a bailiff, Henry must oversee the restoration of the village by investing his own funds (game's primary money sink), invite people to live in here, and solve the various conflicts between villagers.

Sadly this is not a huge part of the game.
Last edited by wndrbr on August 13th, 2025, 11:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

wndrbr wrote: August 13th, 2025, 11:34
KCD1's From the Ashes DLC. As a reward for playing a crucial role in an assault on a bandit camp, Henry acquires Pribyslavitz' deed and a title of bailiff. While serving as a bailiff, Henry must oversee the restoration of the village by investing his own funds (game's primary money sink), invite people to live in here, and solve the various conflicts between villagers.

Sadly this is not a huge part of the game.
Didn't get to do it last time I played KCD, the siege bugged out multiple times and I just gave up trying to get past that point of the game :(
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Post by wndrbr »

rusty_shackleford wrote: August 13th, 2025, 11:24
I am looking for recommendations for games where this is an important part of it
most of the games where you oversee some settlement that gets slowly populated by people are gardening comfyslop for women.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

idea for a game: weird west setting where you slowly rebuild a saloon town by rescuing & attracting people to it
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Post by Valter »

The entirety of Pathfinder Kingmaker involves rebuilding a region previously taken by bandits. Long form content and restoration, from little town to internationally recognized kingdom.

Edit: Actually, same about Wrath of The Righteous, though it's not the main goal, but a major part of it as you can erect buildings in the Crusader Stronghold base you take back from the demons. It's definitely a mechanical boon, but I'm not sure if the rebuilding efforts affect the story itself or add new NPCs, as your crusading army is already very large by the time you get there so it becomes immediately well populated.
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Post by Tadeusz »

NWN2 - you get a castle that you have to rebuild and attract people to.
Pillars or Eternity - well, it gets something like NWN2 but not so elaborate.
Frostpunk in a sense though you build a city anew there.
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Post by Kalarion »

Breath of Fire 3 too, you rebuild a fairy village, including tracking new births (important, since they're your workforce).
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Post by Xenich »

Not sure if this is what you are looking for and I haven't played it much to really give it an opinion, but it seems to cover what you are looking for.

Basic concept is that you manage a group that are banished and you rebuild the settlement which grows over time (typical city management game). It has a slight twist in that there are disasters that you have to prepare and manage as an addition to the typical city management. I think I read a while back when it came out that some people had issues with the "disasters" being a bit much and difficult to manage (though I think that is the key obstacle point of the game) so I don't know if it wasn't balanced well, or if the people playing it were expecting more of a typical limited consequence style of play.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/banished

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Post by Valter »

Dragon Age Origins' Awakening expansion focuses on rebuilding a stronghold you take back from the darkspawn. It's structurally intact so it's more about repopulating.
You can recruit new merchants, and improve some structures and even your troops' armor, as well as other aspects like trade route security. Might affect some endings iirc. It's a feature present throughout the entire expansion, but it's not a big place so you won't see lots of NPCs show up and liven the place, merely a few more functional ones.
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/562116

Dead State also

Hell, State of Decay too

Dead Rising as well
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

Animal Crossing :)
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Post by logincrash »

A couple of Assassin's Creed games have that, I think. 3 and Valhalla for sure, maybe others too.
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Post by BlueMemphis »

Main thing that comes to mind is various jrpgs, at one point having some kind of town rebuilding sidequest became a trend in them. BoG was already mentioned but even recently dragon quest IX has the entire finale being about rebuilding your hometown and i think they even made a spinoff game focusing exclusively on town rebuilding.

Im thinking some lifesim/builder games might fall into this too.
Last edited by BlueMemphis on August 20th, 2025, 19:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Val the Moofia Boss »

Suikoden: each game you a rebel general who then finds an abandoned place, claims it as a stronghold, and begins fixing it up over the course of the game and populating it with the NPCs you recruit. 1 is a mountain base with rooms carved into the rock. 2 is a traditional castle. 3 has a small French-esque manor. 4 is a ship. 5 is a huge palatial fortress that starts off submerged in the middle of a lake, and as the game progresses you lower the water level to make more of it accessible. Eiyuden Chronicle provides a humongous rundown castle.

Xenoblade Chronicles 1: there is an optional sidequest about rebuilding another human town.

Final Fantasy XIV: there have been four real time events that have unfolded over several months where a town or city is settled and built back up. Mor Dhona in A Realm Reborn, Idyllshire in Heavensward, Ishgard's Firmament district in Shadowbringers, and now the Moon base and other outposts on alien worlds in Dawntrail. However, if you weren't there when it happened, you missed it and can't see it from the beginning, only see the finished state on your server. The Doman Restoration in Stormblood, however, is phased on a per player basis, so you can actually rebuild that from start to finish, though it is not a spectacular questline or result and is really just a bonus for vendoring your stuff there each week. There are also other reptuations/Beast Tribes where you build up a small village, like the Dwarven village in ShB. There is also the Island Sanctuary, where upon saving the world in Endwalker you are gifted a small tropical island by Merlwyb and start building a plantation run by little clockwork mammets, using it as a haven for tax evasion.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as King: instead of playing as an adventurer going out into the world and fighting monsters, you instead play as a young king who runs around the city giving out orders to build up the city. Was simplistic. There was a Dark Lord version of this where you built up your dungeon with levels and traps trying stop heroes from reaching you, basically a lite tower defense game.

In Granblue Fantasy, there is a sidequest as a part of the guild system where you help a guy who inherited a rundown island from his father and try to restore it and build it back up. At the end this becomes your guild's island with a little Webkinz-esque isometric housing system.

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In the World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor expansion, you are finally recognized by your king/Warchief and appointed as the lead general of the Iron Horde campaign, and get to build a small fortified town on Draenor called the garrison, and populate it with NPCs the more quests you do. You can only really pick between a few different buildings, though.
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Post by WaterMage »

Crossroad keep in NWN2
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Post by logincrash »

You also rebuild the Skyhold castle in Dragon Age Inquisition.
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Post by Kriptini »

Soulash 2 has mechanics for building settlements, populating them, generational population changes, and conquering other settlements. It's in early access right now, but the game is 90% feature complete; there's just one more major update before the game releases into 1.0.

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Post by Lord of Riva »

rusty_shackleford wrote: August 13th, 2025, 11:24
I like when games have areas that progressively get repopulated/rebuilt. It feels very satisfying.

I am looking for recommendations for games where this is an important part of it
:cowboy:
Go play soulblazer it's like the whole game.
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Post by Lord of Riva »

Kalarion wrote: August 13th, 2025, 13:28
Breath of Fire 3 too, you rebuild a fairy village, including tracking new births (important, since they're your workforce).
I never played 3 to any great extent. Are you sure it's three? You have what you describe in BoF4 as well and the Fairy colony in 5 but that game is special anyways.
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

Dark Cloud is pretty good

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Post by Jordy »

Not sure if this fits but I just tried the Sintopia demo today. The concept of the game is to build a kind of factory in Hell to cleanse souls of their sins and send them back to the overworld to be born again. In the overworld, the people are called Humus and they settle around their own little town centre as well as build farms, saw mills, scouting towers and other things. What they build all depends on the attributes of the current ruler. I say 'current' because if you don't like his attributes you can kill him and a randomly chosen aspirant ruler will make his way to be coronated.

The Humus hump like bunnies at night and in the morning their offspring spawn from a portal. You can interupt their humping to prevent them repopulating too quickly and also kill as many Humus as you want to get their souls sent to Hell where you can cleanse their souls and earn various forms of currency. Currency can unlock things as well as pays for the upkeep of your Hell factory.

I'm not too far into it but it's amusing so far and I like that the Humus do their own thing, build and repopulate etc. If you have a ruler focused on exploring he will have more scouts who go and claim resources but are at risk of being killed by enemies and wild animals.

It's made by Team 17. I have no idea what their track record is since Worms but it does seem to have the familiar humor.
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Post by Oyster Sauce »

Return to the Land
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Post by DemoGraph »

Bastion
Kingdom
Dwarf Fortress allows you to resettle
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Post by UltraFan123 »

I think this qualifies, it's a medieval town builder simulator.

You can switch your perspective from bird's view to walking inside your towns as the lord.

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Post by Kalarion »

Lord of Riva wrote: August 13th, 2025, 18:33
Kalarion wrote: August 13th, 2025, 13:28
Breath of Fire 3 too, you rebuild a fairy village, including tracking new births (important, since they're your workforce).
I never played 3 to any great extent. Are you sure it's three? You have what you describe in BoF4 as well and the Fairy colony in 5 but that game is special anyways.
Then it's all 3 - 3, 4, 5. It probably kept making a return because it was very fun and (I assume) popular. I'm the opposite - I played 3 extensively and beat it several times, but only played a couple hours of 4.
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Post by Norfleet »

rusty_shackleford wrote: August 13th, 2025, 11:24
I like when games have areas that progressively get repopulated/rebuilt. It feels very satisfying.
What's the distinction between "repopulated/rebuild" and just "build"? If I colonize a piece of empty clay, and then build a ****** there, does that count? Or does there have to be the ruins of something there, that I then end up bulldozing because it was built by some clown who has no idea how to build things (which is probably why it failed)? Is this a flavor thing, or is there some important point of mechanical distinction?