The Best Base-building colony simulation Games

Update, : The Last Starship added at rank #33.
1

RimWorld (2018)

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98
Review score
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PC Windows Xbox One Android Mac OS Linux

RimWorld is a life simulator and management game set in a remote planet in the distant future. It features a unique character generation system to create complex personalities with flaws, drives and needs, as well as a story generator that creates unexpected scenarios for players to face.


Pros:
  • Unique character generation system
  • Story generator creates unpredictable scenarios
  • Tons of mods for everything
  • Includes interaction bubbles to show interactions as they happen
Cons:
  • Unintuitive UI
  • Busy work tasks can be tedious

  • colony
  • simulation
  • base-building
  • survival
  • farming
  • management
  • pirates
  • sci-fi

2

Oxygen Not Included (2019)

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96
Review score
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Linux Mac OS PC Windows

Oxygen Not Included is an innovative and unique colony-building game in which you control a crew of duplicants who start beneath the surface of a procedurally generated asteroid with nothing more than a ration box and cloning device. With its childlike art style and humour, Oxygen Not Included looks like less of a space simulator and more like The Sims in space, but don't let that fool you - it's brimming with complexity and depth.

Buy

Pros:
  • Child-friendly art style
  • Complexity and depth
  • Humor
  • Procedurally generated asteroid
  • Experimenting with contraptions
  • Retconning decisions
Cons:
  • Frame rate drops at the start of each cycle
  • AI occasionally getting confused

  • survival
  • simulation
  • colony
  • management
  • base-building
  • resource-management
  • space
  • sandbox
  • space-colony
  • sim-management
  • farming
  • resource
  • building

3

Autonauts (2019)

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95
Review score
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Nintendo Switch Xbox Series X Xbox One Playstation 5 Playstation 4 PC Windows

Autonauts is a charming simulation game that allows you to colonize uninhabited planets and build a civilization of robots to do your bidding. With a fun and unique automation programming system, colorful graphics, and no required programming knowledge, you can explore, gather resources, and create an animal husbandry world. The game offers limitless opportunities for automation and colonization, making it an experience you won't want to miss!


Pros:
  • Fun and challenging gameplay for management sim lovers
  • Unique automation programming system
  • Colorful and cute graphics
  • No required programming knowledge
  • Large world to explore and customize.
Cons:
  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited inventory space

  • programming
  • agriculture
  • visual
  • simulation
  • automation
  • resource-management
  • crafting
  • colony
  • attractive
  • base-building
  • farming
  • robots
  • art

4

Kingdom: Two Crowns (2018)

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93
Review score
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Nintendo Switch PC Windows Mac OS Playstation 4 Xbox One IOS iPhone Linux Android

In Kingdom Two Crowns, players must work in the brand-new solo or co-op campaign mode to build their kingdom and secure it from the threat of the Greed. Experience new technology, units, enemies, mounts, and secrets in the next evolution of the award-winning micro strategy franchise!


  • micro
  • medieval
  • pixel
  • strategy
  • cooperative
  • side-scrolling
  • colony
  • tower-defense
  • base-building
  • minimalist
  • scroller
  • discovery
  • simulation
  • gothic
  • arpg

5

Captain of Industry (2022)

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93
Review score
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early access PC Windows

Land your crew of survivors on an abandoned island and survive! Mine raw materials, grow food, build factories, manufacture products, research new tech, and trade with others. Become an industrial superpower! But this is no easy task, you will be put to the test to keep your settlement alive.

Buy

  • simulation
  • automation
  • colony
  • base-building
  • management
  • economy
  • city-building
  • agriculture
  • building
  • resource-management
  • construction
  • immersive
  • political
  • sims
  • crafting

6

Timberborn (2021)

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93
Review score
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Mac OS PC Windows

Timberborn is a unique city builder game where you manage a society of beavers in a post-apocalyptic world. With a focus on water and food resources, players must create dams and other structures to control rivers and survive droughts. The game offers a relaxed building experience with a novel water mechanic that refreshes the genre. It is a worthy purchase for fans of colony/survival simulators seeking a unique and refreshing challenge.


Pros:
  • Unique beaver cast of characters
  • High degree of control over society shape
  • Novel water mechanic
  • Verticality offers multi-layered societies
  • Challenging gameplay
Cons:
  • Perfomance issue on big town
  • Lack of late-game content
  • Early game only provides traditional needs
  • No storyline or scripted challenges

  • city-building
  • colony
  • survival
  • base-building
  • automation
  • post-apocalyptic
  • building
  • resource-management
  • simulation
  • management
  • agriculture
  • science
  • editor
  • level
  • voxel

7

Songs of Syx (2020)

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93
Review score
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PC Windows Mac OS Linux

Songs of Syx is a retro-style city-building game that lets you manage a single city with multiple races and cultures while conquering neighboring territories. With real-time combat and a massive world of different gods, creatures, and races, each playthrough is unique. Although it still has some rough edges, the game is promising and worth trying.


Pros:
  • Unique city-building simulation with complex gameplay
  • Ability to control thousands of troops in real-time combat
  • Encourages players to improve the lives of their subjects for tribute
  • Randomized content each playthrough makes it unique
  • Frequent updates to improve the gameplay
Cons:
  • City-building aspect requires better balancing
  • Map is too small for the maximum number of citizens

  • city-building
  • colony
  • grand-strategy
  • simulation
  • base-building
  • moddable
  • building
  • empire
  • fantasy

8

Ostriv (2020)

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92
Review score
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early access PC Windows

Ostriv is a city-building game that puts you in a role of a governor of an 18th century Ukrainian town to challenge your creative skills and management abilities.


  • colony
  • city-building
  • economy
  • building
  • resource-management
  • simulation
  • base-building
  • management
  • agriculture
  • historical
  • relaxing
  • medieval
  • build
  • replay-value
  • 3d

9

Founders' Fortune (2019)

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92
Review score
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Mac OS PC Windows

A fantasy village builder focusing on creative building, colonist psychology and base defense. Handle resources, farming, production, tools, diplomacy, families, trading, defense, and research, as well as the wishes, expectations, thoughts, and equipment of every villager.


  • colony
  • simulation
  • base-building
  • city-building
  • scrolls
  • building
  • damn

10

Empires of the Undergrowth (2017)

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92
Review score
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early access Linux Mac OS PC Windows

Set in the world of ants, Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy with extensive nest building and management features. Below ground, workers maintain nest operations while you control armies of ants in battle against rival colonies, armoured insects, hungry amphibians and other critters.


  • real-time
  • colony
  • strategy
  • god-game
  • simulation
  • science
  • management
  • base-building
  • city-building
  • resource-management
  • nature
  • building
  • economy
  • survival
  • war

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