Banished

Overview

The premise of Banished is that a small band of travelers have been exiled from their former home kingdom, and now, having only the meager supplies they could carry with them and whatever they are able to build and gather themselves in the wilderness, must found a new settlement to assure their survival.

The game was developed by a single developer (Luke Hodorowicz) and released on Steam on February 18, 2014.

Gameplay

Banished is a sandbox economic simulation and city builder. Players place buildings, assign jobs to citizens and manage the resources so the citizens can survive.

There is no military aspect to the game and no end game goal, aside from Steam achievements. The challenge comes from simply being able to survive and to see how big of a city you can manage.

There is no currency making barter trade essential. Players must build trade ports and wait for a merchant to arrive in order to trade for whatever food, building materials, livestock, or seeds the visiting trader may arrive with. This is essential to "unlock" food types initially unavailable to the player.

The Citizens

The people of Banished need food, shelter, and firewood and coats to keep warm.

If they are unhealthy, hungry, or cold they will be unproductive, potentially causing a domino effect if their job is essential to the economy. For example, if the wood cutter is sick, the town may not have enough firewood for the winter, causing others to become cold and unproductive as well.

Shelter is also important because if no vacant housing exist, mature children will continue to live with their parents and will not marry and procreate. This causes an aging population, which will eventually die off but may not leave enough time for new offspring to be born. Also, newborn children need to eat but do not produce goods until around 10 years. So it takes a careful balance between aggressive population growth and starvation.

There are 18 occupations in which townspeople can specialize.

Different maps have different layouts and quantities of natural resources to exploit. Resources, such as quarries, fish populations or forest, can be depleted or over-harvested.

System Requirements