Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic

While absolutely being the best city builder/logistics/micromanager game that I've ever had the pleasure of playing, a lot of the UI graphics are just unattractive AI slop. Unfortunately this conflicts the ethos of Soviet philosophy and you're left with a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach...

this game is very good and also the mods but the map size is sometimes not enught that alredy a big field is covering 3% of the map

Better than Cities Skylines 2, Cities Skylines 2 ruin the expectation of complex deep functionality, so this game is my full time primary game in city building category, and i believe i will play this game for long long time, and I play in realistic mode which is the best mode to experience the game otherwise this game is awful than city skylines 2 or equivalent, for me realistic mode with cheat mode on and lots of mods give me best experience i use cheat bcz realistic mode is so difficult in this game. Best game in realistic mode.

Best city builder ever.
So granular, so difficult, so awesome.

If Cities: Skylines is a sandbox where roads magically pop up like Sims fairies paved them overnight, then Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is a brutalist slap to the face from Mother Reality herself.

Here, you don’t just "draw" a road. No, comrade. You design it, fund it, schedule trucks to haul gravel, hire men to spread it, fuel the machines, build the asphalt plant, mine the gravel, manage the economy that pays the workers who operate the quarry that makes the damn gravel. Miss one step? Congratulations, you just bottlenecked your entire republic and your citizens are now freezing to death because the heating plant never got built. Oops.

This isn't a casual "build pretty cities and watch traffic flow" experience — this is urban survival at an industrial scale. Every system, every commodity, every warm body matters. It's city planning meets Soviet logistics simulator, and it is absolutely glorious, comrade.

Forget plopping down a water pump and calling it a day — Workers & Resources forces you to learn how a real city breathes, sweats, and bleeds. Every piece of progress feels earned, not given. Make a dumb decision? You won't feel it right away. It'll hit you six hours later when your food supply collapses because your farm was 1 km too far from your distribution office.

If you ever wanted a city builder that punishes laziness, rewards foresight, and makes you respect the miracle of modern civilization, this is it.

10/10 would watch my republic collapse into chaos over one missing gravel truck again.

This game is a rare gem that is deep and complex. it is the benchmark for all other city builders in my opinion.

The learning curve is steep but worth it.

The road tools are a little clunky and the population algorithm has its issues for sure but it does not stop this being one of the best city building games available.

Tricky to get into, but once your first Republic flourishes its very very rewarding.

Best city buldings game on steam right now. If you like cities skylines but want to have more Control this game is for you.

I'm a huge fan of Anno 1800 and Cities Skylines but the grid snapping system in this game is absolutely horrendous. I cant get anything to line up and the building placement hitbox is way too large where it doesn't make sense. Like you can definitely think you can place a road or a path between these two buildings but it cant because the building placement hitbox is too large but in all reality it totally could work and look great. Like I would love to place a statue or something to fill the void between road/building/path/etc but you cant and its rather frustrating. I know there is so much of this game to offer that I didn't get to experience but I just wont be able to get past the terrible grid snapping.

This game is a raw gem.

It has its value, it has its depth. But it doesn't have that polish.

At 30$ avoid, at =>50% discount, consider.

Reasoning:

A tale of cons and pros:
Gameplay, feels rewarding,

but until you learn that "x isssue" that you could hardly notice causes you major issues. Maybye its backed up trash, maybye sewage. Generally If you miss something, you will be bittery reminded of it, by reality.

Because of that game is save heavy. My typical playthru must have few spare saves in case of such disaster.
You will be stuck in loop where every step forward needs 2 little steps back.
This game also lack varierity, most of content must be supplied from steam workshop.

(this will make sovietworkers obese on your's hardrive, be ready for 4gb save files each)

Also there are some other gameplay issues,

1. !!! Our factories doesn't go hand in hand with tech level, why do I have obsolete 60's "manufactures" If in 2000's I can have very efficient factories!!! - This is my reason why I stopped playing, game lags too much in cold war times**.

2. Game lacks some extra export material, lacks ability for modders to add such. Just removes Ideas how could you make money/roleplay.

3. (realistic) Despite game being about central planning, Distribution offices are locked, i know there are 5 free. But those should be temporary and not 3 years in to the game-nament. and not even mentioning prices of permanent buildings

4. Factory connections... At this point just implement modders work, but make it so they can import things from magazine

5. (realistic) Road building feels very choppy

6. Game has build in economic death timer (electronic use), and as I mentioned we don't get better industry to combat money drain with production effiency*

7. Lacks of world events, rather than play on cold war themes (west embargos, economic crashes, paranoia) we get covid every 2-3years and earthquake every 5. Also curently market reports go into spam folder every season .Event lacks depth, reasons and by such fun.

(*and before I hear it mimic reality, ** and that cold war is supposed timeline of this game, I will still call it bad game design decision just to abandon long game players)

Summary:

This games offers rewarding but raw, and unforgiving (in some cases), socialism city simulator.
Where building industry, will be very rewarding. It reminds simcity greatness, or mimics factorio build loop.

Games is as unpolished as those AI arts they use, it is good enough but it lacks effort (or skills).

Not enough QoL, not enough buildings... Late game emptiness....

I want this gem polished.... so badly.

Well, My first time playing, it is a lot like some of the other things that I have played.
Still going through the "campaigns" or tutoral or what ever you want to call it.
Lost track of time like my other games is a great sign that i like it.

Tropico meets Satisfactory meets SimCity, with a dash of Railroad Tycoon. Just sublime! Careful, though... this is one of those games where, before you know it, you hear the birds chirping outside your window and wonder where all the time went! It's got a learning curve, especially the rail system, but very addictive once you get into it. One of the few modern games that truly trap me the way old games used to.

The game lacks polishing and can be frustrating at times but is fun.

I'm not really into politically motivated or ideology based video games, but I like the simplicity of the game compared to cities skyline. Overall I love being able to be precise while building and the detail of the game.
7/10

A stupendously deep game. As a power engineer, I can definitely tell that it has the best representation of a power system I've seen in a game so far. It's not overly detailed, but left me satisfied with just the right balance between fun and realism. By the way, this is just one aspect among many others.

Everything is so realistic and I love that about this. You really need to think about how you build things and where you build them. However, the one thing that really irks me about this game is public transport and people management - it takes all the realism and puts in in the bin. I actually don't want to play this game any more because citizens, their jobs and their movement is "dumb". PT takes them to where they want to go, an then "poof" they vanish - no return journeys... This for me is a deal breaker...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a true Soviet-era urban planner, this game delivers in style. Workers & Resources is not just a city-builder—it’s a full-on socialist simulator that is relaxing and slowly evolves into a beautiful, chaotic logistical masterpiece. On easier modes, it’s calming and thoughtful. On Realistic, it becomes a brutal test of your planning skills, where a single missed connection can collapse your whole republic. It’s not just fun—it’s educational in the coolest way possible.

Before playing, I’d look at cities and wonder: "Where do all these people work?" This game—and a few socialist economics books—opened my eyes. Cities aren’t just buildings; they’re machines, powered by thousands (sometimes millions) of people, materials, and decisions. Watching everything you've built finally click into place—buses syncing up, factories running smooth, houses lit and heated—feels amazing. You can just sit back and imagine yourself living in your own meticulously designed workers' paradise.

But… as much as I love it, I’ve got some real gripes.

People can only walk 450m. That’s it. And I’ve heard it’s hard-coded. Why? It limits your design freedom and makes layout awkward sometimes. Let us tweak it, or at least let modders have a crack at it. I’m not a programmer, but locking that feels weird.

Modding in general could use more love. There are amazing mods out there—like one-way bus/train stops or paintable buildings (seriously, painting your buildings is such a game-changer, it should just be part of the base game!). The more freedom modders have, the better this game gets.

AI-generated art in the game isn’t great—not because it looks bad, but because it’s AI. There are talented artists in the community who would be thrilled to make custom art. Let them! It would add heart and authenticity to a game already built on vision.

The learning curve? Yeah, it’s steep. At first, you're fumbling through budget sheets and fuel depots. But once you get it, and everything is automated, you feel like a god of infrastructure. Every train on time. Every worker housed. Every loaf of bread accounted for.

This isn’t just a game. It’s a passion project. And when it works—it really works.

this game is indeed about workers and resources yea so why you should buy this game : strategy, RED , commie blocks , alcohol factorys , A LOT OF VEHICLES , factory networks , some weird pipe stuff i dont understand , economy , build anything you want (sadly no 4 core npp) , researching and most important of all : PROPAGANDA

Almost perfect. just need to make more accuracy with microcontrol and managment and interface using.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☑ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

Dear God, don't pick up this game if you intend on having a social life or a job. To complete the campaign and tutorial was just around 50 hours.

The amount of simulation you want can be adjusted and can range from "Casual city builder" to "Stalin Himself". Every facet of a traditional Soviet economy and infrastructure can be simulated down to collecting garbage and having to clean up demolished buildings. Everything is interconnected and builds upon itself, from growing crops for alcohol and food, to processing uranium ore to make RBMK fuel rods for use in a reactor or sold to a foreign country. Every citizen will have a simulated day and needs and wants. Your country can quickly unravel if something fails to be provided.

Although, you will encounter slavjank in many places. Roads/pedestrian routes can be finicky to build in certain situations and have no sense in some aspects as to why it wouldn't work. A lot of the concepts or features aren't inherently understood and you have to actually PLAY the game to figure them out, or ask someone who has extensively played it.

Overall, well worth the buy if you think Sim City or City Skylines left you underwhelmed, and you're a massive fan of Transport Tycoon. But be prepared to deal with more complex features and logistical networks that will leave you absolutely befuddled as to how to make it all work.

Oh, and the music is so damned good, you'll want to have the Soundtrack Engineer's babies.

10/10

A great city builder/industry manager. Slow paced in years/progression but quick if things go sideways in the middle of a winter coupled with an epidemic. Manage your supply chain, growth, needs, and import/exports to excel.

Its UX beyond terrible. I have seen excel spreadsheets that both looked better and were easier to work with. But once you learn the quirks of this terrible interface you get to enjoy a pretty good city builder!

Great game, however workshop tools could me more intuitive and less buggy when it comes to importing and converting maps

I really, really wanted to like this. But, you know those people who think using big words makes them smart? This game plays like sitting in a long meeting with one of them. A very mattress on the floor and three gaming monitors vibe. I have never played a game that was more clearly by spreadsheet guys, for spreadsheet guys. Great concept ruined by a heavy focus on details and no big picture strategy. Completely unplayable by anyone outside the exact same narrow demographic that built the game.

Wow, 2,500 hours and still loving every second! This game is an absolute blast. Whenever things feel dull, switching to realistic mode makes all the difference. Major kudos to @Bballjo for keeping the experience exciting and for offering such fantastic tips and ideas!

Currently the best high-complexity city builder out there. It's finicky, has some unexplained mechanics, but is utterly fascinating in its complexity. This is the one I keep coming back to as its vision of urban and industrial planning with a focus on the logistics of building and maintaining a society and its physical infrastructure are a gorgeous look at a slice of mundane reality around us.

I think i’m playing it wrong but idk im still learning. did it take me 200 hours to break even while learning? yes. do I care? no. this is all i have ever wanted. now hopefully i stop pausing while planning out entire cities because it ruins my frame rate having 1000 (not an exaggeration) construction flags in the distance

City Skylines + Tropico + a pinch of Factorio = the best city builder I've ever played

It's a bit much for me, so I'm uninstalling it, but not because it's a bad game. There is a great game here for someone who is dedicated to learning all of the systems. You should buy this but only if you want to play a hardcore management game that will eat a lot of your time. Definitely not for casuals.

79 hours into my first game, crashes after a few seconds after loading. Save lost. Not worth your time, learning all the systems that cant function without consistent micro. Just to to have it lost. Never touched mods, on a high end PC. Mehhh, I'd rather watch paint dry than reinstall. Edit: Game is unplayable, don't waste your money.

3/5

It's fun enough, but it feels incredibly drab. I understand it's supposed to be the 'mother land', but honestly, it could use a bit more excitement. Playing on hard mode is also very taxing. While I love city builders, this particular one just isn't for me. Personally, I don't feel a great sense of glory or accomplishment even when you finally get everything working together. I dont want to down thumbs as its probably a great game for some one else. The learning curve is steep!

glad to have spend my time but going to back to skylines 2 with mods.

This is a very detailed simulation game and definitely now one of my favorite games. There is a steep learning curve and the tutorials are not great, but it I suppose that might be because the devs are too busy making a mighty republic.

This game is something else. As a fan of this genre I decided to play realistic mode. For the first time playing it I put it on easy and got 10M Rubles and 2M US $ which removed the pressure of the money. Put it on always sunny and no demolition + simple traffic. It has been a slow progression for me to understand how things work. Many many forum reads and YT videos watched to understand how some things are working. After 60 hours, I'm addicted to it.
The game can be made to be played like any other city builder, but playing realistic mode made this game to be so special. You get so much satisfaction when you solve each problem your republic is facing. It takes time, planning and adaptation. I love it.
Once I learn the in and outs, I can imagine how will it be to take on the challenges that I have disabled for my first save.

This is the best psychological horror game I have ever played

W&R is a spectacular city builder. Its exceeded my expectations.

Really like how minutely you can control things. It's really granular detail if you play in realistic mode which is something I personally really enjoy :-)

TL;DR - a very engaging mix of Transport Tycoon and Cities Skylines seen through the red lens of socrealizm. Highly recommended!

I picked this game up in Early Access simply because it had easily recognisable icons of my youth on the "cover" - such as the Ikarus bus or the Żuk van - and I thought this is going to be just a "communist" themed sim city.
Boy oh boy, was I in for a ride...

Workers & Resources is a hybrid created when Cities Skylines had a child with Transport Tycoon and that child then escaped the capitalist nightmare to live peacefully in a socialist utopia. It has best of both worlds with a sprinkling of deep simulation and a veritable cast of snowflakes.

Yes, every single one of your 50k citizens is simulated.

I first approached this game as a SimCity clone - and there's enough numbers, utilities and layers to keep you happy. Setting up production chains and utilities, making sure there's enough workers to power the industries etc. The difficulty is fully adjustable, up to and including a complete sandbox with infinite money, so that one can experiment to their heart's content.
Then I tried playing it like a good old TTD - its transport network and systems might not be as detailed to build or simulate (looking at you train-on-the-endstation), but there's a lot of other stuff happening in the background, adding depth to the tried and tested formula of logistical puzzle. It's like Transport Tycoon - but with a purpose!
And then...
...then I tried the realistic mode, for a complete mind blowing experience. Because it's not enough to just plan the city, click "buy" and see how it comes to fruition. No. Every single thing you put on the map has to be built from the ground up. Every brick, board, bucket of concrete and worker's pair of hands have to be delivered to the building site by a network of construction offices and distribution centres - a network which you, dear player, have to set up and maintain. With trucks and buses that need fuel and maintenance, over dirt roads which get muddy when it's raining.
Simply "building a city" is of course not enough. Your citizens have needs, so you set up the utilities and services, the shops, the schools, the pubs - each with their own little logistical chain attached, including the sewage and waste removal and utilisation. Connect all by roads and footpaths, perhaps bus connections, so that people can get to the university or a hospital on time.
But it's still not enough. In our socialist utopia there is no unemployment - hard work makes you happy - so you need to set up workplaces: industries, extraction, production etc., again each with a chain of vehicles, conveyors, warehouses, pipelines and storages attached. Then, if you're lucky, you'll survive long enough to export the goods you have produced in exchange for goods your citizens need, so that someday, in the far future, maybe, just maybe, your little republic becomes self-sufficient and achieves the absolute peak of socialist progress - a domestic car production!

All this makes Soviet Republic a delightful, multi-layered cake of city management - and the fact that it does represent a time and place which is tinted with a bit of nostalgia (at least for me) only makes it more appealing.

And, yes, it's perfectly normal to have a holy trinity of a coal mine, coal power plant and a steel mill 200 meters from the city centre and to place the heating plant right next to a primary school. I should know. I grew up in one of those...

WOW!!! The depth and breadth of detail to this game is remarkable. Once you finish the tutorial-type scenario, the detail really starts to open up, and even then, I think there are more aspects I haven't turned on that I've left locked. You can get VERY detailed in how you run your "republic." I'm just terribly impressed with it. I particularly enjoy the construction aspect to the game using construction offices that manage the different equipment and resources that build roads and buildings.

The max UI scaling is 115%. If you have a large display, this game is unplayable.

Unfortunately Steam only allows one thumb up. If it allowed two thumbs up I would use both... enthusiastically!

I love infrastructure, and that leads me to love city builders and logistics sims. But for some reason none have seemed to click for me the way this one does. WRSR is just.. great. It's the best city builder I have ever played. (I'm calling it a city builder, which it certainly is, but it's more than just that really)

The goal of the game is to build an industrialized mid-century Soviet republic. To do that you need functioning infrastructure. So you build a railway to efficiently export some goods from your newly built factories. That's working nicely and it's time for another factory to boost the economy. Can your rail network support all the materials needed for the new factory, as well as the traffic it's already handling? Also, a train likely can't pull up outside a construction site.. so then what? How does the material move off the train and to the site itself?

Similarly, it's easy to be distracted by the finished factory and forget just how many concrete trucks were needed to make it. How did those concrete trucks get in there without disrupting everything that was there first? A road might be built specifically for concrete trucks. What happens to that road after the project? Then once the factory is done, how does the workforce get in and the goods get out? These are all real world considerations, and it's a huge factor in a construction project. WRSR makes you think like that. It's pure bliss.

Factories aren't the only thing to build either. A lot of the infrastructure is very deep and satisfying to play with. Water is a good example. In other city builders, you drag a pipe and make sure everything is in range of the pipe. That's all well and good, but actually designing a pressure based water system is way more interesting. In WRSR you do the latter.

What's cool about this game is that it allows you to actually USE your infrastructure. Sure you'll have transport lines and different mechanics running automatically. But when it's time to scheme and push the economy forward, you'll be manually grabbing trucks and trains and ships sending them all over to gather what you need. This is a time when your infrastructure decisions either help you or hurt you. In other city builders, you click to build and then watch it all function. That's a good time for sure, but building and then USING the system yourself to realize your goals... that's way more interesting. In WRSR, you do the latter.

If you're looking to buy this game, just be aware of the learning curve. It's steep and there's a lot going on that the game doesn't make immediately evident. Thankfully the community is awesome. I've gotten answers on Reddit within the hour, sometimes within minutes. There's also a great wiki from the developer itself, which I'll link below. There's tons of really well written guides on Steam too. From what I can tell, the game is designed around a few core mechanics that might do different things on the surface, but function very much the same under the hood. (I'm still new, take that with a grain of salt)

I'm from the US, so I had to shed everything I knew about urban planning and how western cities function. It's been interesting to learn how the other half of the world did it (and the odd similarities between the two). I recommend reading a bit about microdistricts and Soviet urban planning. It's not absolutely necessary to start playing, but it will help make sense of what you're looking at, especially if it's as foreign a concept for you as it was for me.

In WRSR, you do things your way, and it's loose enough to think outside the box and find creative solutions. But with great freedom comes great responsibility. It will take you a few tries to really get off the ground, and aspects of the UI will be mysterious. But the game isn't hiding anything or trying to trick you, it just does a lot of cool stuff, and for that reason it's complex. But if you like infrastructure and appreciate how different elements of infrastructure all work together to make a place function.. you'll love this.

One tip I can offer without spoiling anything:
It sounds brutal, but the people in your country are nothing more than a resource. View them as such. Every task completed, every good manufactured, and every building built requires materials and manpower. The manpower resource just needs more specialized management than say... a pile of gravel. They have to be kept happy and healthy between shifts if they're to keep grinding away in your steel mills. All that is accomplished with efficient logistics to keep the town stocked and the people getting where you need them to be.

Buy this game and let it consume you.

The wiki:
https://wiki.hoodedhorse.com/Workers_Resources_Soviet_Republic/Workers_%26_Resources:_Soviet_Republic_Official_Wiki

The resource flowchart:
https://i.ibb.co/nRvPGYT/Soviet-Republic-Flowchart-v0-4-5039x7086.png

Also (I understood how to design a city after reading this):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdistrict

The game really shines when it's set to "Realistic". Every build takes time, resources, and assets to accomplish, strongly encouraging the forethought of a civil planner. Did you put a building in a poor location? Congrats, now you have to devote resources and time to demolishing it or just living with your mistake. Did you decide to upgrade the one road to an essential service? Time to endure the inefficiencies of a dirt road. The game scratches an itch that Cities Skylines can't quite satisfy.

What is Soviet Republic and is it right for you?

It lies in a bit of a weird place where beyond the appearance of a city builder, it really is much more of a country/macro economics simulation. Sure you may come up with satisfying and pretty city designs but it's not the focus here and it shows. You will be tasked with building up your economy, reduce your dependency on imports, balance your budgets, balance your external commerce, provide public services to your republic (electricity, water, sewage, waste, heating, fire prevention, security), provide fast moving consumer goods to your people, research civil/health/state engineering techs, and a bunch more. You will have to construct your republic from the ground up using an elaborate construction process chain as well that will tie into the other supply chains.

That seems like a lot? It is. It's very in-depth, complex without being overly complicated. Can be clunky and somewhat unintuitive, and can also be misexplained or simply not explained at all anywhere. The in game tooltips and tutorials are not up to snuff for this title. So it is a game you will have to learn and dedicate yourself to so as to better understand and appreciate.

And yet, despite all this, I would say this is a gem of a game. It reminded me of Caesar III and Pharaoh, if those still had iterations nowadays and were fleshed-out to the max. The walker system of old isn't there but there is a soviet-microdistrict type walking system that is very reminiscent of the constraints you had in those older titles. The industries are essentially doing the same thing as they were then, albeit with newer tech, more processes, more inputs and a better management of throughput. It's not factorio levels of complex chains, but it's certainly up there.

On the technical side of things, it's unfortunately not the prettiest game in the genre or using this technology, but it's serviceable. Moderately demanding in general, the game absolutely hates rendering non-built planned buildings and tanks because of that. May need to troubleshoot some crashing issues. I had random crashes a gogo until i disabled vsync and kept playing windowed mode. Just something to keep in mind i guess.

So to conclude, in my mind you will likely appreciate this title if you come at it expecting the style of management you found in the old impressions game, but with a whole other level of complexity and depth. Reciprocally, i would say that if you come at this expecting City skylines or Sim City, you will be sorely left wanting.

Beyond that, it's definitely a game that deserves more room in the spotlight.

Tropico for adults, this game is really what communisum was like for the average person economilty, I highly recommand.

The GOAT. Feels like everything you liked about transport games (railroad tycoon etc) combined with everything you liked about city builders (skylines, tropico etc). Steep learning curve though.

Terrain tools just kill the game. hills are just impossible. also trains could be implemented better. having crossings for car for example

You like city builders? You ain't never played one like this. I really do mean that, this game will take over your life and every other city builder will feel like they have holes in their design.

You can control EVERYTHING, in this game. What I mean by that is everything. The best part about it is you can choose what you want to control, and what you don't. And by god if it couldn't get better, you can also control this in game at any time. Don't feel like running sewage and water lines in your city, or you are having a struggle trying to grasp how heating your buildings works, just turn it off.

On top of every possible thing you can control, there is basically 2 modes to play the game. Normally were cash buys your works and the parts for buildings to basically construct themselves, or realistic, where ever single man hour, screw, bolt and plank needs to be brought to the work site. If you remember though, I said you can do everything, so you don't even have to choose between these modes if you want, because you can still do this, in the normal mode!

Please, if you are a city building enthusiast, bless your steam library with this gold.

I only have 2 gripes, the citizen walking range, and the grid system. There are ways around both, but it can get tedious. As for the workers, you city planning needs to be top notch to make sure they can get to their place of work with sidewalks.

this game is so hard but in the best way. except for the trains fuck the trains I mean they never make sense financially and then you end up just using trucks for exports but then all your border crossings are super busy

I have played most Strategy games of any note over the last 35 years - and this is a simply astounding game. The depth is quite mind blowing. The advisors available actually make learning it not too bad at all. A massive recommend. Also a brilliant theme, really different. A must purchase in my view.

At first it is a "Tropico" like game in the Eastern Block. But after a few hours this game is much more detailled and complex than a "Tropico" like game. It is a hybrid between transport tycoon (complex logistics) and Cities Skyline (city builder).

The game mechanics are great, but there are a few UX problems. Some menus and mechanics are rought and fidley to grasp. There is a certain lack of precision for building streets that is unnecessary.

The theme is good and everything feels "east block" without being to depressive or authorative. While there are propaganda elements (and secret police), the tone is kept light.

Great game.

Tutorial needs a complete overhaul. As it stands, each part of the tutorial is segmented into parts. However, you get to pick which part to do next. Which normally wouldn't be an issue, but in this case, the segments are laid out in a some kind of hierarchy, which would lead you to assume you need to do the top ones first, then the next row, then the next etc, all from left to right. Well, if you follow that method, you'll do the Emergency segment before the Education. The second thing you do in the emergency one, after building a hospital, is supply it with doctors, which you'll have none of because no one in your city is educated.
Outside of that, road snapping and especially curves is pretty rough, and buildings have built in roads that leads to them instead of snapping to roads like many other city builders, so you end up with some glaringly ugly city design because your buildings are sitting some 500 feet off the main roads.
I was interested in the immense logistics chains you'd have to set up, but I couldn't get to deep into it due to the tutorial. What I did see what incredibly bland though. Click a building to stock it with workers and vehicles etc. I guess I was more looking forward to moving things between parts of my city but never got there. Clicking a building and hitting the up arrow on different "stats" is pretty lackluster though. It's micromanagement for the sake of micromanagement.....but I guess thats the soviet union for you?

Couple all this with a gui that reminds me of games from the late 90s and you've got the general idea of the game.