Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic

Работягам привет, остальным капиталистычам соболезную.

Если готовы загрысться в детали постройки крепкой республики, (электрика, камуналка, снабжение, транспорт, предупрежднние-борьба с ЧС), то берите

Если вам чисто погонять гоблинов по экрану, то берите

В любом случае, если просчитаетесь со снабжением, гнать будут вас.

This is one of, if not, the best city builder strategy game ever created. On harder difficulties it very complex and challenging, but in a G.O.A.T. way

1st review at 24 h: very frustrating experience so far.
2nd review at 48 h: still frustrated, the game is complicated enough that it intrigues me to continue, but it does a really bad job at explaining things and showing information that I need, and a small issue can completely halt the game. I've spent hours trying to figure out why my power plant isn't providing enough electricity and why my construction office isn't working.

Just a wonderful game. I am a fan of city-building and economics simulator for a long time, from the first Sid Meyer´s Civilization and RailRoad Tycoon, from first Simcity...... I like Cities Skylines..... But in comparison of Workers and Resources, all the others are just for babies. The immersion, the details, the complexity..... Its absolutely stunning. You can play easier modes, and I remommend it, to learn how to do things, but the game shines at higher difficulties, vhen all the complexity come and throw You in the dead spiral of loans and red numbers, citizens fleeing the country......

I must admit, I dont play the hardest mode, Realistic, with no quick build- even a small mistake could cost You dearly and make a error in critical infrastructure. I play "true to my heart" my "invention", semi-realistic, I allow myself to quick-build smaller projects (footpaths, short section of roads to building, electric wiring) - but only for "valutas", for dollars, not for rubles. This is perfect difficulty to my liking.....

If You are like me, and like management and strategic thinking, go for it! I cannot recommend it enough......

Fun style, regular additions, updates and DLC. Hours of endless but progressive management, punishing options for any level of sandbox playthrough from you have everything available to you have barely enough to survive.

For a nation/city builder, it can be oddly rewarding and exciting when it isn't punishing. Racing the resource clock to keep the very lights on, while striving for independence in every sector of your supply, from water to just plain old gravel and wheat.

1960's through 1991 (you can keep going, but that's the end of the unlocking new things/vehicles) with and utterly bewildering amount of mods to make the game fresh for as long as you yearn for the mines.

If you can balance your supplies and growth, ther is no wrong way to play this game.

Until everyone starves to death....or crime gets out of hand....or an epidemic floods your hospitals and everyone dies real real fast...

10/10, Would serve the Soviet Republic again

Stop. Releasing. Map. DLCs.
Fix. Your. Grid. System.
Making roads and sidewalks is infinitely frustrating. Makes the game unplayable after a while — and you can see how many hours I've spent in this game so far, I know. Look at Cities: Skylines 1 or Planet _ games to see how to do node-based pathways. Releasing paid map DLC is a bit of a kick in the teeth given the workshop already allows FREE maps to users and the game is already at a $40 price-point. If you feel compelled to continue monetization without adding to the base game then add functionality/features with your DLC. Otherwise, two map DLCs is really the wrong direction, sorry.

An incredibly in-depth city builder, which has maps so big that it is more like a country builder. The game offers different difficulty settings to suit different play styles. From 'Very Easy' which is basically impossible to fail at, all the way to 'Realistic', where it takes hours just to get a single paved road.

This is, without a doubt, the most complicated game I have ever played. Even after my 65 hours, I am still using practice saves where I give myself infinite money to prepare for realistic mode. It's that hard.

You mange roads, railways, pathways, ships, planes, cable cars, conveyor belts, and pipelines that transport a huge variety of different resources.

You construct and manage every single building, every single vehicle, and every single resource, down to a single ton of fuel (yes fuel is measured in tons for some reason).
You manage complex networks of electricity, water and sewerage, heating, and waste collection (there are like 10 types of waste).

There are a few annoyances, like citizens not knowing how to change between bus/train routes, but overall the game is still incredible

If you are looking for an extremely in-depth and complicated city that will require an extreme time investment, this is for you.

Hands down the best city builder ever made.
Very complex game, deep mechanics. Very addicting and rewarding.
Amazing workshop and community.
I love it.

A very innovative and unique city builder, that despite some slight jank has great charm, 10/10

start on hardest difficulty try building economy go bankrupt and understand what mistakes you've made start a new game and do the same mistakes as you did as soviets planed economy intended

Excellent simulator of socialist city-planning and ruling. As someone from a post-socialist country, this feels like home.

Join us, Comrade, on the thankless task of creating the ideal society,

the performance/stability of the game is fine, had 0 crashes in 40 hours.
the game is quite complex already.

now to the downsides:
sorry to say, but this game is not 1.0 ready.
There's still so much work that needs to be done.

- there's stuff that's obviously wrong/bugged (like selling vehicles deducts money from your account)
- proper tooltips (what does the building do, how many workers will it need, does it need electricity/water/sewage connection)
- proper naming (sewage switch > sewage merger, water switch > water splitter etc.)
-automatic tree-regrowth
- proper infos (like fuel consumption of vehicles, flow indicator for pipes etc.)
- ability to turnoff building tooltip when trying to place it, the tooltip being there often times block vision on connectors.
all this this made the 40 hours quite a bad experience, because of having to go through an excessive amount of trial and error.

I was not into this at first because I'm used to the plop building down, things just happen style of game. After about 45 hours of playing I'll say this is the standard for what city builders need to be in the future.

One of the most captivating.... city builders? Nah, not going to lie, this game is more about logistics than city design. Like true soBiet the game gives zero effs about how good the city looks but how the city runs. The only thing that it is important is that necesseties are provided to the workers, those workers are working and what you produce is enough to pay off your debt to comrades behind the border (or capitalist pigs, but never took a loan in USD in my 1k hours).

Its hard to git gut in it due to a lot of things needed for your republic to pass the credit-debit ratio vibe check, but once you get going and finally master the logistics (and how NOT to build your railway network. remember kids - junctions should not be smaller than your typical train or you WILL get stuck) you can finally do what is important - build your city beautifully; you'll do it on your own once you no longer stuck in a loop 'Do thing - thing goes wrong - try repair thing - thing repaired not enough - rebuild the thing - check that it works - do thing'.

Also, great support for mods. Building my own T-64s and selling it to the population as they count as 'personal vehicles'. We truly live in a perpetual war with capitalism society my kamerad.

9/10, my only wish is that it did not tank once my republic reaches 40k workers.

Tried recreating my hometown, ended up drunk on a kitchen floor.
100/10 childhood memories, will try again.

One of the most original takes on the city building genre. An absolutely unique experience, gameplay and visual-wise. A bit rough to handle and get into. But rough like a communist concrete monument. 10/10 I recommend every lover of city builders to try at least realistic mode !

WHY IS GOOD IN BLUE AND BAD IN RED!!!!

WHY CAN'T I GIVE A RED THUMB UP!!!!


NO... NO BLUE....

While it's a decent game, it fell short of my expectations when it released with most of the jank of early access period left in. I love the economy simulation in the game, the ability to start with zero, you just have some money, you designate some land as roads and some more land as vehicle "depots", and everything starts there, you build up your building industry, move to cities and its services, more industry for export and satisfying internal needs, it's great!

However, as soon as you start doing more complex things, it all falls apart. If you need to extend an already working double-tracked railway with all the signals and jazz, you have to micromanage your track layers, because they just get lost while trying to get back to depot to refill materials. Oh, and don't even think to pre-place your signals on this new track, because track layers will try to honor them. If you want a metro and can only remember one thing, remember this: tunnels cannot branch. On the most realistic setting, this means your metro has to include a patch of overground rail to be able to bring trains in. And every train in your metro will have to pass that segment from now on. Not great. If you want to combine renewable energy and keep fuel guzzlers in reserve, just in case, you will likely have to build your electric network in a very specific way, and not because electricity works that way, but because the game rules that govern electricity are arcane. With the game now considered released, any hopes of getting any of that fixed are now lost. What a shame.

- I want to start on Soviet Workers and Resources Realistic! I have plenty of experience on City: Skylines, how hard can it be?
- Oh, my sweet summer child...
- What?
- Nothing, let's go.
- Ok... so, better to start at the centre of the map, right?
- You do you.
- ...What's that grim on your face? You know what? I'll stay close to the borders, since I want to sell them stuff.
- Good call.
- Right, so... where is the residential zone tool?
- There is none. You need to plan buildings individually.
- Really? Ok, no problem. So... here.
- ...
- ...
- ...
- Nothing is happening. Why nothing is happening?
- How do you think they will be built?
- What do y... right. So, I need *someone* to build them... right?
- Correct.
- Ok. So... here, construction - ah, and it's free! That wasn't that difficult!
- ...
- Again with the grim? What the... Still nothing?
- How do you think your construct depot will build the building?
- Riiight. So, I need...
- Trucks.
- Trucks! I had it, Jeez... Ok, let's go to the construct depot menu and... why are there two currencies?
- Well, you are between the Soviets and the West after all...
- Yeah, I know but!... ok, let's see... I have more Rubles, so it makes sense to spend this currency. Soon I will be swimming in it being this close to the border anyway.
- Uhum...
- ... Ok. So, to build it I will need a... well, that's complex.
- Remember building sites in real life.
- Ok, so a Dumper, to carry around sand and stuff. Ah... flat one to bring metal, an excavator and... Well, that's all the space. It should be enough.
- Never enough... never, never... Oh sorry, I'm just realizing how that "Greatest Show Man" music fits here so well.
- Ok, the vehicles are here.
- ...
- ... nothing? C'mon people!
- What people?
- People! Peo... right. No people.
- No people.
- But I'm building this so people can come here! How can I need people if I don't have people??
- Is your country the only place where there are people?
- Of course not but!... ok, so I get I need to import labor.
- Attaboy.
- My construct depot is full, but luckily I have another one for free. And... here, a bus.
- Nice.
- Ok, so the bus is here, but nothing is happening... again.
- How do you plan on building the building?
- With people and trucks!
- And...?
- Materials... but I have none.
- Right, and where can you get them?
- With my comrades...
- Yep. You *are* learning! You need to define what you want to get from the...
- EVERYTHING! Ok?? Get everything from them!
- Good call.
- Shut it. Ok. Ah! The trucks are finally moving! They are going to the border and picking up stuff!
- Good job.
- Thanks! And... wait, what's happening?
- ...
- Why did they stop??
- Do they have everything they need?
- Of course they do! I... what is this?
- ...
- Now they need another type of truck?
- Yep.
- Jeez... so, they need a covered truck now? What more do they need, a puppy?
- That'd be nice...
- Shut it! Ok, covered truck here, and already going to the border... Now it's back and... done! My first building is done!
- Good job!
- Thanks! Now, all I need to do is... ah, invite some people over! Easy peasy!
- Uhum...
- Ok, they are here! Now I can... what? Why do they have so many demands so soon? Why are they starving?? Kindergarden, what??? WHY ARE THEY LEAVING????
- :)
*stands up. Walks away.

I believe Soviet Workers & Resources is missing a tag on its description: "Soul's Like". The game is brutal. You need to think about each and every element of your country's life from how you will maintain your economy afloat to if you have enough gravel to build. Every decision has consequences, some - most - of them can destabilize your economy into oblivion.

And then there's winter.

One time my one city had just surpassed 3.000 ppl. It was October, Health was 80% and Happiness 85%. All was well. Beginning of November and everything is stable. Then, Happiness drops to 75%, health begins declining to 70%. Something is very wrong. I check the population. Steady, both small heaters working. People reaching the heaters - What's going on??. "Temperature too low". What?? Both heaters are working and... coal. I run to the storage and it's empty, save from a sporadic drip from one truck. I run to the route to see a line of trucks near the border with the road full of snow. I had created a new service depot and the snowplow trucks were not going all the way to the border. Worse still, there were a couple of trucks with 100% wear and tear. Before winter the service was working fine since I didn't need as much heat and consequentially, not as much coal, but now? Now I'm in trouble. Health falls further, then happiness, then people start leaving, so now the heating plants don't have enough people. In less than two months my city is deserted. All was fine in November, all is destroyed by the beginning of January.

I had to load that game back a couple of times to prevent total annihilation that year. The only other construction sim that forced me to do that was Ixion - and not nearly as many times.

That being said, I love the game and it kinda ruined me for most of the other construction sims.

10/10

The best city building game I have ever played.
Far better than Sim City.

fun and better than CS 2

Update: I nominated this game for the Game of the Year award for 2024. I truly believe it deserves this recognition and I hope it wins! 😊

A masterpiece, I have never played a similar game before... this "city builder" requieres your maximum efford to get things working.
It has plenty of mechanics with makes it super interesting, I personally loved the building/demolishing mechanics, in wich you have to manage materials requirements as also manpower.

this is possibly one of the best city builder's i've ever played. you can gather needed recources build your own cities even manufacture your own goods for people in your country. this game has everything all city builders should have but don't the level of details are amazing. though granted there is a few problems here and their but all games have some negatives this one people tend to leave the jobs far too fast when you have to shuffle them to their jobs but at least you can dump them on the jobs with multiple trips. I would highly recomend this game hands down.

What an exceptional game!

at first i was playing the campaign and i thought this isnt so hard

Then i figured out there is an expert mode, and oh boy what a treat.
You need to watch some youtube vids to know what the hell is going on but if you find the right guide it will take about 20 min to learn the basics

Best city building game i ever played, reminds me a little bit of tropico also but much more complex

I would like to see better animations for the people that walk around, they all kinda generic

So why a thumbs down?
Cuz i had like 25 crashes in 20 hours of gameplay

Very in-depth but with options. Lots of options. If one aspect is too difficult - get rid! The tutorial is a pain to complete but does give you the overview of what's what.

Looks a bit old school, but it's the best city builder I've ever played.

Really like the concept and some of the content, but the interface is very challenging and the transportation modes are frustrating (adding transit stops requires destroying roads and buildings... for a bus stop!). Hoping they sort out some of these things as this is a very promising game... but its not ready for broad use.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Verdict

5/10

It's lacking way too many QOL features, to where its a chore to play. those 9 hours i played were mostly spent trying to figure out wtf the issue was, and unlike a paradox game or dwarf fortress or rimworld, there is literrally no way to know. no menu records why people arent able to buy meat for example, theres no way to know why. at all. there arent even the features needed to figure out why. you just have to keep guessing and hope it might have been fixed. if i want to delete an old pipe, i have to randomly click around and hope i deleted it because it doesnt tell you where the pipes are even are. Its also really buggy, stats dissapear, menus glitch, statuses dont update, etc. its fun but needs way way more optimization to be enjoyable for me

This game is much more than just Cities: Skylines but Communist. You manage cities, mining towns, import and export, individual factories, powerplants, houses, universities, it's basically a micromanaging simulator. It can be difficult at times, and that's supposed to be the point of the game.

TL:DR: The Dark Souls of city-building.

Wow. Great stuff for those fans of OpenTTD, Transport Fever, and Cities Skylines.

The best in depth city builder out there. A bit hard to learn but once you get going on realistic settings imposible to stop.

This game is very good. One of the best city builders I have played recently. It is very hard though. I think I heard one reviewer describe it as "A command economy, so you better COMMAND it."

It's taken me some time to really start enjoying this city builder, at times it's felt way too much, impossible and dry, some months I didn't even play it.
However at about 40 hours of play it all started to fall into place, and I've got to say it's a remarkable game. If you've any interest in either the cold war, socialist states or city builders then I think you'll love this. Highly recommended.

This is a good city builder. Maybe even the best city builder. But its best features - layers and layers of production and distribution chains, and authentic Eastern European-ness* - are also its worst features. It really depends on what kind of player you are whether you'll love it or hate it.

Even if it looks similar on the surface, this game is almost the opposite of something like Cities: Skylines in many ways: it simulates a centrally planned economy, which in effect means you have to plan virtually every detail yourself. You don't just plop down a commercial or residential zone, you put down each and every building yourself (though you can copy-paste town layouts to a certain extent), and then have to make sure that all of its (and its workers or residents') requirements are met - and there are many requirements. You have to manage supply chains, buy vehicles and set up routines for them, and deal with assigning tasks for everything from fuel supply to snow removal. And the documentation for all of it is actually pretty limited - you have to look through forum posts and youtube videos to really get an understanding of what's happening. The learning curve is a cliff - but the rewards are great too. When something comes together like clockwork it can be immensely satisfying. Playing on Realistic mode is slow as you have to wait for construction materials and workers to make their way up the transportation chain, but this really is a game where you can put in hundreds or thousands of hours and feel like you're still learning and earning your communist glory. See that 70-ish hours I played so far? I feel like I'm just barely getting past absolute beginner phase with this game, and I'm a quick learner. This is a game for the long haul if you vibe with it.

As for the authentic Eastern European-ness* of this game - on the one hand, the game is oozing with atmosphere and its gameplay mechanics really do make it feel different from the Western city builders we're all used to, you really have to put yourself in the mind of a socialist economy planner, not a benevolent capitalist. Keeping your citizens happy and loyal isn't just a score thing, either - one of the greatest threats to a republic in this game is "brain drain": you have to educate your population, and then get them to actually stay (rather than flee to the decadent West), and that can be a real tricky task.

But it's also a very Eastern European* game in a very different way: there is a stereotype of games developed in that part of the world being incredibly ambitious but janky and obtuse, and WR:SR absolutely fits that to a T. Luckily, it's been out for years so most of the outright bugs have been fixed - but you'll still be scratching your head at the UI a lot of the time, and trying to figure out why something is not working can be a real ordeal (and it often won't be for weird reasons). Some of the game mechanics are also downright odd: vehicles don't have drivers (that count as part of the population/workforce, anyway) and commuting only works one way (i.e. workers only go from home to work, not back) and without transfers. The biggest skill by far in playing this game is just learning to diagnose problems - with the UI and notification system often not being a whole lot of help. You often literally have to click on buildings or find individual workers to even figure out that there is a problem going on in the first place, and because of the slow pace and the time it takes for problems to filter down the many production and distrubution chains - it's easy for even a catastrophic problem to develop without you knowing until it's too late. So you really have to play detective a lot here, the game will not hold your hand.

All that said - if you don't mind the learning cliff and the sheer amount of time this game inevitably takes up... this game is pretty brilliant. Absolutely not for everyone, but fantastic for the right person.

(* I was born in an actual Soviet republic, so I think I'm allowed to say that :P )

Come a long way and this game really scratches my micromanaging itch. City builder, society planner, and great economic feedback. Great data pushed back to you while you're playing but not overwhelming. Gets into the nitty gritty without needing an accounting degree.

Some polish still needed as far as UI navigation but overall would always recommend. Great game.

I've bought it a while ago and played a little, when it was still in early access and the game looked totally promising. About the gameplay, unfortunately, it's totally inaccessible. Finally I came back to it, started a new city, played for less than half an hour, literally had build nothing yet (just set up a few construction sites) and then the game crashed (froze, had to kill it). Not sure if I should try again?

Edit: Game keeps crashing when Alt-Tabbing between game and youtube (because you need some youtube tutorial, when you want to play this game). Totally disappointing.

Further Edit:
* Translation to my default language is worse.
* Build menu for storage and grain storage do have all the same items, there is no difference
* Ironically, you will find the end station for busses not within the menu of bus stations.
* And it keeps crashing as soon as you switch to another application (see above, I was searching for the bus end station, couldn't find it and therefore alt-tabbed to my browser, and yet it crashed again).

Not being an alpha or beta-version, this is unacceptable.

Another edit: It gets even better. To fix the crash, the developer tells to start the game in windowed mode. But the check box for windowed mode is grayed out - on purpose by the developer! Any internet meme cat would say now: wut iz dis?

Hands down one of the best city sims especially if you want a challenge which you can fail unlike some games where money will come in no matter what!

Played since early early access. This is the Railroad Tycoon 3 of City builders. The real-socialist setting makes perfect sense for this type of game. Some stereotypes like secret police and, probably not humorously meant, kitsch added on top, but that's fine. At its core this is an excellent agent-based simulation of all kinds of infrastructure and logistics systems at a sufficiently high level of complexity that can be adjusted depending on desired difficulty while true enough to physical laws.

The game is a bit of a battle between organic growth and pre-planning. How to focus and dimension cities and production chains whilst taking care of citizens, existing settlements, while adjusting to the possibilities of progressing technology.

Realistic mode is a double edged sword, it can be very slow until reaching self sufficiency (perhaps in-game decades) but rewarding in that it involves the player in every step through all layers of game systems. Once the economy gets sustainable, progress turns exponential as long as bottlenecks are taken care of (preferably early on). Here the construction can prove robust enough, or if the constellations align, turn into a spiral where citizen defections could lead to a domino of multiple systems. For some projects you just have to save and let the game run unsupervised. Faster game speeds and possibly slower in game date progression could help with that.

Earlier starts, like early 1900ies would be a welcome addition. But some mods provide that.

Tutorial 2 is a bit of a tedium, I suggest that you just jump into the game and explore instead.

The best city builder I have ever played. Any aspect that is not perfect in the base game is easily modded to preference. It is not an understatement to say that this is one of the most interesting and in-depth games ever made.

Beware the learning curve, though, and just try to have fun. Not every play through has to be hyper-realistic

This game seems incredibly fiddly. I got stuck in a the maintenance tutorial.

Its really deep. You start simple and then the game will get gradually more complex. You feel really great when you figure out how something works!!!

Very unique and special game - did not have as much fun with anything else in the past decade! Highly recommend giving it a go

Simply the best city-builder since a loooong time. Just add the walls, laws and make the capitalism an option with taxes and prices (yea I know, I said "an option") and it will be the best city builder ever, even counting the first SimCity's (If it's not already the case).

The realistic mode (slow construction of buildings based on your resources -imported or crafted locally- and your manpower -also imported or growned locally- instead of *pop* spawning the building from your wallet like other city-builders) is incredibly challenging and I love it.

Plus it's very well optimized, even running on a potato PC.

I would just like more road types and the ability to edit the pathways on them, to make beautiful crossroads with asymetrical lanes, etc. But it's already incredible and you did an amazing work.

(I love this game)

Great game, great value for the price. You may customize it as you want. From hardcore incredibly complex building strategy to relaxed sandboxy game and anything in between.
Only minus i can find: It's bit ugly.

Very good game, from easy to very hard to play. Building a city a second time is a must you learn from your mistakes

The most detailed city builder game I've ever seen. You can play any level of realism and detail from simple building and road management all the way down to managing the garbage trucks and trucking lines. The modding community also has a broad range of mods that really help make the game even more detailed.

If your reaction to every game ever has been ; "Not enough micro management", then you will like this game. It is a dangerously good game.

I have been playing video games since AoE and Half-life took me...
In realistic mode, this game is easily one of the best I've ever played.