Townsmen +4

This is a nice little building game. I’ve been playing it for years now. It’s complicated enough to keep you engaged but not so difficult that it’s frustrating or impossible to complete the tasks. Just the thing to while away a few hours.

The only issue I’ve had recently is that sometimes a quest won’t fulfill when you have the supplies. That might not be a problem in a sandbox game but in a timed quest or one that you need to fulfill to move on it’ll stop your game. For example I currently have a quest to sell 30 pigs. I have 500+ pigs in inventory and the quest won’t finish. I’ve restarted the game to no avail.

Ive been playing for several months now, off and on. It’s an enjoyable way to wind down at night.

I’m still frustrated by the game mechanics. I’m limited in how much I can sell, even with the trade guild building. Don’t bother building more than one, as you can only max 100 items of any six products (max) at a time. A second trade building taps that same storage, so you don’t double the amount you can sell.

The limits on sales means I’m shutting down production, or dumping stock on a regular basis. None of my production buildings can run at full labor capacity, because I run out of storage. Most of my workers are running around the storage buildings. Excess workers end up in security patrols or fire watches, only to end up in the tavern with the other off duty men most of the time.

Did you know the hard working ladies never go to the tavern? They spend their down time primping near water fountains and flower gardens. Yes, it is a sexist medieval society, but definitely not based on real medieval history.

And it would be nice to click on or off the various bad events, because sometimes it is a long wait between them, or the barbarian invaders come too frequently. Also would be nice to go past level 25, which I guess is the max level. I’ve unlocked everything, so there’s no incentive other than watching the folks scurry around. I guess it’s time to find a different game.

This game is right up my alley as I am a huge fan of the banished/anno/stronghold and builder games. I also understand the balance of offering the game at a low or free cost by including incentives etc to watch ads/participate in offers. This game is fun, but in the end the balance of fun to ads/offers is overwhelming.

In the free version you can expect the top 15% or so of your screen to be continual add banner. In addition to this, you will have to watch short ads every once in a while with the usual find the x close mechanic. These can be removed with a fairly reasonable one time fee ($2.99 if I recall correctly). None of that affects my opinion of the game in a negative manner.

Where this game fails is in the additional mechanics of prestige and Thaler. Think of Thaler as in game gold that can be earned through selling goods etc., and prestige as the pay to play mechanic where you either need to partake in offers or pay real money to get more. Note: they do have a mechanic where you can watch ads for a small amount of free prestige, but as of this review it is not working.

The pacing of the game is tied so aggressively to these two mechanics that it is unreasonable if not impossible to expect to play it without purchasing prestige. In a more highly polished and engaging game (or if the watch adds for prestige mechanic actually worked) this might be a bit more forgivable, but the balance is way off here.