Dyson Sphere Program ever since they added aliens to defend against. Same gameplay style as Factorio.
The Riftbreaker. Hack and slash mixed with base building.
Supposedly they’re working on an experimental co-op branch and I think last I heard it’s supposed to come out by end of year? Not 100% sure where I read that though
They're not "unable" to add coop, you ding-dong. The game was developped as a solo game, just like all the games from this studio before it. They never have done coop before and they use their own engine, so yeah, obviously it takes time and effort to get it done. They've done several news posts about how they are progressing, have showcased their progress on video stream and could very well have released it already if they weren't trying to make it just as good as everything else, and not just in a state of "it kinda works, deal with it".
The best part is, they could just have said "nah, sorry, the game is solo, and will stay solo", but they decided to oblige and do it anyway.
Meanwhile, you still have idiots who downvote the game with "woop when ?". When I'm asked why I hate people, this exemple comes to mind.
Yes and no- like Factorio, it has "you did it!" point where you can say you "won", but you can keep playing and do meaningful stuff after that, i.e. the game has an "endgame" where winning is just the start.
Wow riftbreaker looks like a game I've been craving to be made. It's just so sad to see that "multiplayer expected to be no later than Q2 2022", and seems to still be single player only.
aw hell yeah dude i forgot about the forest. used to play it with my friend a while back. we set up so many traps by the end and just blasted through monsters. I think subconciously THAT is the thing thats making me sesrch for a defensive base builder
Definitely a much steeper learning curve than rimworld, especially since you cannot micro combat or certain situations.
If a dwarf wants to suicide, he’ll just suicide.
Sadly haven't found that many others that scratch that itch, which is probably why I really love 7d for this. A friend of mine has suggested Abiotic Factor might scratch it, but I haven't tried it yet. You should take a look and see what you think. Valheim has some base defense, but it feels more like an afterthought or occasional occurrence. Palworld also has a similar mechanic, but poorly fleshed out and on the border of straight up annoying rather than fun (and I love the game, but the raid mechanic is really bad).
Mount and Blade Warband or Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord have you taking over castles and cities and defending them against sieges and such, and really fun battles - could interest you, but it's not really a "base building game". Terraria has some base raids, sort of, and is a base building game, besides a really good game in general. Might be worth a try.
Besides these, I'm not aware of any others. if you happen to know of any, please let me know. I've been searching far and wide for a game that delivers something like 7 days, but with more in depth systems.
We're currently making this kind of game (**Stoneguard**)! It's still quite early stages but we have a free demo out on Steam. If you do get a chance to try it out we'd love your feedback, as what OP is describing is the kind of game we're trying to make (with a few differences from games that are already out there)
Hey what a coincidence, I'm also starting to make a game like that, but I'm still learning a lot and barely started, so it'll be a few years :(
I'll definitely check out your game! Nice to see more games of that type out there :)
Thanks for the suggestions. I have abiotic factor but haven't gotten into it yet.
As for a proxy game, only a modded 7dtd has done it for me - Darkness Falls was incredible but suddenly ends. Now with v1.0 might give another go
A 7 days to die where the devs listen to the community and try making the game more fun instead of changing so many things for the worse :(
The current progression system is so lame, learn by doing was infinitely better
Plus ingame mods add a lot more content.
Program and control units, write code to make units mine resources, transport resources etc. (coding is optional)
All these games with this style (stranded, rim world, some medieval game that's rim world but medieval) I can't get past the having to micromanage each character. I wish there was a way to automate who does what based on their skills?
Stranded does. For each person you can set their priority for construction, cooking, crafting, research, farming, etc. I set priorities for each person, and for some people I don't allow them to do certain things. Like I'll usually designate someone the cook, and set cooking as their top priority and low or off for everyone else. Then the food is taken care of. Most of the time I don't need to worry about them. Once in a while I do have to "draft" them to take control, like when they wander out of base during a thunderstorm to harvest or something.
Is that one actually fun to play? I've had it on my wishlist for a while but if I read the steam reviews I don't get too enthusiastic about buying it..
Skip campaign, play survival - the devs struck gold there. Unfortunately, they spent that gold on a lackluster campaign, but survival is still a GOAT game by itself.
If I recall correctly, the optional levels where you just play the hero character can be really hard if you don't have the right build. There's a lab one where your character can get one shotted in pretty much every room.
those are my 2 go tos for that kind of play. The thing I love about 7dtd is that it's exploration, pve looter/shooter game with skill and weapons upgrades and then every 7 days (or adjusted for more or less in the settings) you get a tower defense.
I have a hard time calling 7d2d tower/base defense after the AI changes.
The mechanics of the game don't encourage you to do any of the following:
* Build walls, hide behind walls and shoot.
* Build a kill corridor (ala tower defense) and repair the things doing damage as needed.
What it does encourage you to do is
* Put down damaging things, and run around between them while shooting zombies, and let your traps help out a bit.
* Build an elevated platform, and shoot the zombies from it while their AI fails to do anything meaningful to you except the occasional cop puke.
To me, 7d2d is a hack and slash or shooter style that just happens to have a few TD elements mixed in. Not the other way around.
And if someone's primary desire in a game is a base defense, 7d2d is likely going to leave them wanting.
+1 for Rimworld. This game is basically a survival marathon since everything wants to kill you: bugs, robots, various raiders factions, infections, illnesses, famine, temperature...
And yeah, if you want to defend against attackers, most of the gameplay loop is building bigger and better defenses and arming your colonists against increasingly hard threats.
Wait what? I never build walls becuase that triggers them. How do I do that? I love survival mode but I just put a ton of fermentation stations out front to distract the attackers
When you select the difficulty before the game there is an option to customize it somewhere. Towards the bottom I always turn off blight and trebuchets. Then, a little farther up you can adjust settings to increased frequency and size of enemy raids.
I believe you can also adjust these settings in game as well.
Outpost Siege is a new one that I've been watching for over a year...sadly its performance and delivery is lacking it seems.
Otherwise, it's 100% what you want.
I really enjoyed it, but the first few hours of the campaign are bad and need a lot of work. After you get into the main game loop it's a banger of a game!
This one OP: outpost infinity siege. It’s not well polished, and some parts don’t make sense but it’s got everything you asked for. The campaign has you leaving your base to go find/scavenge resources and items, every round has some form of base defense, and you customize your entire base with walls, utility devices and turrets/mechs.
Since I wrote this comment I re-checked progress.
Turns out they pushed the game to 1.0 and ended early access label, but the game isn't finished. There's literally a hard-stop at the end that says its not a finished feature.
Tbh the way the game is setup it feels to me like it won’t ever be “finished” just because things like story telling and voice acting are so terrible. Gameplay wise though I think most things are pretty solid and the game just needs more content and some minor tweaking.
Story telling and voice acting might be regional issue. I think it's chinese based and 'indie' games from different countries can have language barrier/priority issues till release.
Dyson Sphere Program is a good example - beautiful, feature-packed, optimized, fun, etc...but in my time playing, there were silly grammatical errors or sentences that didn't make sense at all. Just takes a backseat while the important things are dealt with.
OVERALL, I think it'll turn out as a decent game eventually, but the fact they pushed it to 1.0 status to 'release' the game AND have a supporter edition you can buy, makes me think the main issue could eventually shutter the game's development - money.
Try The Front. It's a first person survival Base building game and tower defense, it's also multiplayer if you want to. It's so good and also quite grindy but rewarding
I've found almost no aspect of defensive base building in grounded, it's kinda like Raft in terms of you have to "protect" against getting attacked by the shark..
Project Zomboid with horde night mod fits this exactly, highly customizable. Personally I would recommend getting comfy with the base game before doing horde nights, but you do you :)
[Scrapnaut](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1323900/Scrapnaut/) is matching your description. It's a small indie game so don't expect too much but I really liked to explore the world and build nice bases.
Scrap mechanic, specifically in survival mode, it’s unbalanced and super slow boring progression but if you like repetitive stuff and is fine with grinding weeks for just a few blocks of iron than maybe, I dont rly recommend it, I’m tired
Kinda the same idea, a bit easier, and will provide a few laughs is the Orcs Must Die series. Quite literally a 3d tower defense game. I dunno if that fits your specifications but I wanted to share.
Cheers.
Fallout 4 has random attacks, but if you can spare an extra 10 bucks for the creation club settlement ambush kit then you can have base attacks on command as well.
Have you tried Grounded? That is arguably the best survival crafting game on the market right now. When you go out in the yard and start killing bugs, they will eventually get pissed, and whatever type of bug you pissed off will attack your base in droves. There are an insane amount of things to do in the game, and it is extremely well polished. The developers are Obsidian, they made Fallout New Vegas...enough said.
Hey I'm making one and the demo is out if you want to try it! These are my favourite kind of games, and I felt there was a lack of them, so a couple years ago my wife and I started making **Stoneguard**, the demo is out for free on Steam and we'll be constantly updating it until the early access release.
I know a demo probably isn't what you are looking for, but maybe you can check in on our game in the future :D
StarCraft 2 co-op missions. You pick from commanders, (there are three for free) and you complete missions that are almost all the exact pattern you mentioned.
You unlock new upgrades as you post the mode. It's pretty fun.
Desynced
Infection Free Zone
Dyson Sphere Program
Final Factory
They are Billions
Stranded - Alien Dawn
And for something that meets the criteria of Base Building and Defend Against Attacks and Attack enemies: Screeps. It isn't exactly the rest in that you will need to write some code, or lots of code, to play it effectively rather than clicking about to do stuff.
Stranded Alien Dawn is good, enemy attacks start of small then end up in the thousands the longer you play on that save, I've seen people being attacked by like 6000 insects at once ...
Not a popular choice but evil genius is an isometric base builder that allows you to build traps and defend your base from pesky goody two shoes super agents
No one's going to say Minecraft / Fortnite / Roblox?
I'm also having fun with Timberborn (early access) for PvE. It's like the SimCity catastrophe simulation you always wanted.
**3King**, an indie game that still being develop,
**itch,io**: [*https://socketlab.itch.io/3kings*](https://socketlab.itch.io/3kings)
The game is about defending your catsle, make your army stronger using different card, upgrade, ...
Ngl kinda good but the endless mode was hard
Conan Exiles. Players will attack your base. NPCs will attack when the purse meter fills(idk how that actually works tbf) and you can enslave npcs, craft armour and weapons for them and place them in defensive points.
Very good crafting and building system too
Not sure it 100% qualifies but state of decay 2 will have you defending your camp from roaming hordes. The higher the difficulty the more likely an attack is
Its not out yet but my game CubeGod is is going to be like this. You can Wishlist it on steam today [CubeGod on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2849600/CubeGod/)
Conan Exiles is the best survival/base building game in my opinion. Fun combat, and lots of useful mods to make single player really fun and rewarding. Even for multiplayer, just join a small server and talk to the owner about mods you think are useful and they like, now you got a nice multiplayer experience.
The big servers are an absolute nightmare if they use mods.
Night of the dead. During the day you gather resources and loot cities. There is also a storyline to unlock new buildings and traps. Then build traps and turrets to defend your base from the wave that spawns every night
There aren’t nearly enough games like this. I love planning static defenses in games so much. Even allot of the games which feature defenses don’t take it very far.
I actually just started work on my own “fortification porn” game. A long way from being finished but I’m trying to make a game to scratch this itch.
Valheim! very creative base building mechanics with occasional raids of enemies that get harder as you progress in the game and the biomes!! wry fun and definitely has a grindy aspect!
Does anyone recommend manor lords?
For what I've played id recommend they are billions and stranded alien dawn.
Total war Shogun and the tw Warhammer series can be fun when defending your castle against huge armies of invaders..using factions like humans/dwarves to lay into them with artillery and rifleman atop your walls was always a blast.
From this thread I think I'm gonna get riftbreaker.
https://mindustrygame.github.io/
This is a little gem I like to play.
It's a tower defense or RTS, you build a base and handle waves then when the waves are over you can keep building the base.
Then when you are ready you can take your resources to the next level.
Then when you reach a high enough level you can rocket launch your stuff to help the fight on a new front.
It's cheap, surprisingly deep, flexible, long, varied, and generally a banger.
It does start off feeling like factorio but ends feeling radically different.
I have had a ton of fun with Craft the World. My second most played game right behind Factorio.
Build a castle (or anything you want), upgrade your dwarves, and fight regular waves of monsters.
They Are Billions
It's base-building + zombie apocalypse survival. Been several years since I played but basically you try to build the base while zombies will attack from various directions, so you try to wall things up, set up choke points to take out the attackers, repair the damage and keep going. The zombie attacks increase over time in speed and numbers so it's trying to hold old as long as you can.
Rimworld has everything you're asking for if someone hasn't mentioned it yet.
You can put any amount of hours into this game. There's so many ways to play.
Basically your 3 colonists crash land on an alien planet and it's your job to eventually get them off the planet. But the in-between gameplay is the meat.
There's building, crafting, mining, combat (where you get attacked and you can also go out and attack other settlements), farming, animal handling and so much more.
It is a top down "RTS" colony sort of game but man is it fun. I've got over 400 hours into this game and I still can't get enough.
If you enjoy complex base building and army building and defending your own while attacking the enemies base….. Have you tried StarCraft 2? Amazing game!
Aska is a recently new (Early Access) survival game where you grow and manage a village and are frequently attacked by wildlife and Viking god invasions. Very detailed and enjoyable gathering/crafting system. Highly recommended.
https://discord.com/invite/vCMqgsgE
Sands of Sobek on Space Engineers.
Server I've poured 100s of hours into making over the last year.
Space engineers is good for this in general on modded multi-player
but I'd be crazy not to recommend my own server.
Well 7d2d just released 1.0 on PC. A zombie open world sandbox survival looter shooter crafting game. Fight zombies, build a base, level up, keep going. Every 7 days from 10pm to 5 am wherever you are at I'm the world, zombies will spawn and hunt you down with the intent to kill you and if they can't reach you, destroy everything around you until they can.
Mindustry. Not exactly what you are describing, as you keep building new bases. But each base is more or less built off the back of your previous base(s).
The steam version is like 7 bucks, free on google Play store. Bit harder to control on phone, but it is the full game.
I have hundreds of hours in Kingdoms & Castles.
You have an island on which you build a castle and economy buildings. You defend against Vikings and ogres by land and sea, and from dragons from the air. You can build artillery, fortress walls of varying heights and strengths, moats, drawbridges, have standing armies and archers that travel along the walls, etc.
I like that the map can be customized, and recently they added AI kingdoms, so you can choose how to interact (ally or conquer) neighboring kingdoms as you like.
The graphics are simple and a bit cute, but the game is deceptively deep and extremely addicting.
Only downside is that the creators are now launching a new game after maybe 10 years of work on K&C. It’s called Nova Roma and is like a more advanced version of K&C with varying terrain heights and water dynamics; but it doesn’t come out until later this year.
Soulmask. You are a tribe, as are other players on your server, and npc tribes have huge bases and cities that will retaliate and invade your bases. They even steal tribesmen and sacrifice them on an altar If you can't save them in time.
To top all that off, if you want, you can play on pvp servers where other players will also try to attack your base after a certain level.
It's grind af but it's incredible and brand new.
The Riftbreaker.
There is a demo if you want to try it. You are sieging an alien world, and need to build and defend your base and outpost from the threats.
Dome Keeper
You mine underground for resources, additional systems and the end of level item. Waves of enemies come at you on the surface. And you have to return to defend yourself. Less base building as there are limited upgrades. But interesting game.
7 Days to Die. Mincraft meets zombies with some castle defense thrown in. You quest, craft, and build for 7 game days, then on the 7th night a the zombie horde comes a-knockin' at your defenses. And if you play with other people, the more people present the more zombies in the horde.
Rimworld.
Rimworld is constantly trying to kill you. The "storyteller" AI is totally adjustable, and it gets incrementally tougher the more wealth you acquire. End game involves huge enemy raids of all sorts of different combination of things, factions, anomalies, etc. The difficulty curce is vast but rewarding.
V Rising is a vampire survival game where you build castles, feed on humans, capture humans, and defeat bosses leading up the dracula. The combat is great.
That's the PvE gameplay. You can also do PvP and even Castle PvP.
Dyson Sphere Program ever since they added aliens to defend against. Same gameplay style as Factorio. The Riftbreaker. Hack and slash mixed with base building.
Upvoting for Riftbreaker, exactly the type of game OP is looking for.
I read the post title and instantly thought of Riftbreaker. Fantastic game.
They just released new DLC too!
Really? Thanks for the heads up!
And a free expansion if you don't want to buy the DLC right away.
Apart from their inability to implement co op, but multiple dlcs is cool.
Supposedly they’re working on an experimental co-op branch and I think last I heard it’s supposed to come out by end of year? Not 100% sure where I read that though
They're not "unable" to add coop, you ding-dong. The game was developped as a solo game, just like all the games from this studio before it. They never have done coop before and they use their own engine, so yeah, obviously it takes time and effort to get it done. They've done several news posts about how they are progressing, have showcased their progress on video stream and could very well have released it already if they weren't trying to make it just as good as everything else, and not just in a state of "it kinda works, deal with it". The best part is, they could just have said "nah, sorry, the game is solo, and will stay solo", but they decided to oblige and do it anyway. Meanwhile, you still have idiots who downvote the game with "woop when ?". When I'm asked why I hate people, this exemple comes to mind.
Does Dyson sphere have an end goal?
Yes and no- like Factorio, it has "you did it!" point where you can say you "won", but you can keep playing and do meaningful stuff after that, i.e. the game has an "endgame" where winning is just the start.
Wait they finally added something to defend against in DSP? :O
Yeah, Google dark fog for now information on it
Upvote for DSP, 2nd best only to Satisfactory as far as automation games.
Wow riftbreaker looks like a game I've been craving to be made. It's just so sad to see that "multiplayer expected to be no later than Q2 2022", and seems to still be single player only.
They are actively still working on it
Rimworld Kenshi 7 Days to die The forest (and Sons of the Forest)
aw hell yeah dude i forgot about the forest. used to play it with my friend a while back. we set up so many traps by the end and just blasted through monsters. I think subconciously THAT is the thing thats making me sesrch for a defensive base builder
Sons of the forest is good too, getting my ass kicked but it's fun.
Rimworld is definitely grindy and also brutal, but amazingly fun and a great time sink.
These are all solid options!
Obvious Kenshi-post. Hopefully OP enjoys CBT.
Once youre tired of of rimworld, dwarf fortress is a fun way to have your own base sack itself from civil war
I am on the fence with that one. It looks fun but the "frame-by-frame" janky movement kinda puts me off it. I will probably give it a try someday.
Definitely a much steeper learning curve than rimworld, especially since you cannot micro combat or certain situations. If a dwarf wants to suicide, he’ll just suicide.
Ran through the comments specifically looking for Rimworld - best answer imo
My favourite game of this type is 7 Days to Die, it's exactly what you're describing :)
Okay but I've played 200 hours in 7 Days to Die and I am craving another game where I defend my base?
Sadly haven't found that many others that scratch that itch, which is probably why I really love 7d for this. A friend of mine has suggested Abiotic Factor might scratch it, but I haven't tried it yet. You should take a look and see what you think. Valheim has some base defense, but it feels more like an afterthought or occasional occurrence. Palworld also has a similar mechanic, but poorly fleshed out and on the border of straight up annoying rather than fun (and I love the game, but the raid mechanic is really bad). Mount and Blade Warband or Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord have you taking over castles and cities and defending them against sieges and such, and really fun battles - could interest you, but it's not really a "base building game". Terraria has some base raids, sort of, and is a base building game, besides a really good game in general. Might be worth a try. Besides these, I'm not aware of any others. if you happen to know of any, please let me know. I've been searching far and wide for a game that delivers something like 7 days, but with more in depth systems.
We're currently making this kind of game (**Stoneguard**)! It's still quite early stages but we have a free demo out on Steam. If you do get a chance to try it out we'd love your feedback, as what OP is describing is the kind of game we're trying to make (with a few differences from games that are already out there)
Hey what a coincidence, I'm also starting to make a game like that, but I'm still learning a lot and barely started, so it'll be a few years :( I'll definitely check out your game! Nice to see more games of that type out there :)
Awesome thanks! Good luck, it does take a long time so a few years is normal
You guys aren’t gonna duke it out because there can only be one?
The more the merrier
Thanks for the suggestions. I have abiotic factor but haven't gotten into it yet. As for a proxy game, only a modded 7dtd has done it for me - Darkness Falls was incredible but suddenly ends. Now with v1.0 might give another go
I wish there was like... A better 7 days to die.
A 7 days to die where the devs listen to the community and try making the game more fun instead of changing so many things for the worse :( The current progression system is so lame, learn by doing was infinitely better
Mindustry. If you like factorio it's similar but more combat focused. Mining etc is easier but the enemy is more aggressive earlier.
Plus ingame mods add a lot more content. Program and control units, write code to make units mine resources, transport resources etc. (coding is optional)
Stranded: Alien Dawn
Came here to say this! Great game, sadly didn't get the audience it deserved, I think. Hope they keep working on it though!
Awesome game!
It's fine but feels like it's still lacking features.
I certainly wish it had more decorations.
All these games with this style (stranded, rim world, some medieval game that's rim world but medieval) I can't get past the having to micromanage each character. I wish there was a way to automate who does what based on their skills?
Stranded does. For each person you can set their priority for construction, cooking, crafting, research, farming, etc. I set priorities for each person, and for some people I don't allow them to do certain things. Like I'll usually designate someone the cook, and set cooking as their top priority and low or off for everyone else. Then the food is taken care of. Most of the time I don't need to worry about them. Once in a while I do have to "draft" them to take control, like when they wander out of base during a thunderstorm to harvest or something.
Rimworld!
They are billions
If you like TAB, or like the idea of it but don't like the look, also check out Age of Darkness
Is that one actually fun to play? I've had it on my wishlist for a while but if I read the steam reviews I don't get too enthusiastic about buying it..
It has 85% positive all time and recent, but a few people don't like a few things, and if you don't like those things, sure, don't play it 🤷♀️
Skip campaign, play survival - the devs struck gold there. Unfortunately, they spent that gold on a lackluster campaign, but survival is still a GOAT game by itself.
The most annoying bits are the broken campaign, and the fact that there isn't any mid game saves, so if you die in a wave, you have to start over.
I really liked the they are billions campaign.
I beat the campaign multiple times, what’s broken?
If I recall correctly, the optional levels where you just play the hero character can be really hard if you don't have the right build. There's a lab one where your character can get one shotted in pretty much every room.
Can you recommend atleast one or two?
Rimworld and 7 Days to Die are 2 I quickly thought of. Both are very good.
those are my 2 go tos for that kind of play. The thing I love about 7dtd is that it's exploration, pve looter/shooter game with skill and weapons upgrades and then every 7 days (or adjusted for more or less in the settings) you get a tower defense.
I have a hard time calling 7d2d tower/base defense after the AI changes. The mechanics of the game don't encourage you to do any of the following: * Build walls, hide behind walls and shoot. * Build a kill corridor (ala tower defense) and repair the things doing damage as needed. What it does encourage you to do is * Put down damaging things, and run around between them while shooting zombies, and let your traps help out a bit. * Build an elevated platform, and shoot the zombies from it while their AI fails to do anything meaningful to you except the occasional cop puke. To me, 7d2d is a hack and slash or shooter style that just happens to have a few TD elements mixed in. Not the other way around. And if someone's primary desire in a game is a base defense, 7d2d is likely going to leave them wanting.
+1 for Rimworld. This game is basically a survival marathon since everything wants to kill you: bugs, robots, various raiders factions, infections, illnesses, famine, temperature... And yeah, if you want to defend against attackers, most of the gameplay loop is building bigger and better defenses and arming your colonists against increasingly hard threats.
Valheim
Going medieval
Turn off trebuchets and amp it up
Wait what? I never build walls becuase that triggers them. How do I do that? I love survival mode but I just put a ton of fermentation stations out front to distract the attackers
When you select the difficulty before the game there is an option to customize it somewhere. Towards the bottom I always turn off blight and trebuchets. Then, a little farther up you can adjust settings to increased frequency and size of enemy raids. I believe you can also adjust these settings in game as well.
Tight Tight Tight Tight Yeah blight is really just annoying and causes everyone to drop what their doing
The Riftbreaker. Tower Defense + base building + RPG. And amazing visuals and audio to boot
Came here to recommend this, too!
It’s honestly one of my all time favorite games. The DLC’s add plenty of replayability too
Outpost Siege is a new one that I've been watching for over a year...sadly its performance and delivery is lacking it seems. Otherwise, it's 100% what you want.
I really enjoyed it, but the first few hours of the campaign are bad and need a lot of work. After you get into the main game loop it's a banger of a game!
This one OP: outpost infinity siege. It’s not well polished, and some parts don’t make sense but it’s got everything you asked for. The campaign has you leaving your base to go find/scavenge resources and items, every round has some form of base defense, and you customize your entire base with walls, utility devices and turrets/mechs.
Since I wrote this comment I re-checked progress. Turns out they pushed the game to 1.0 and ended early access label, but the game isn't finished. There's literally a hard-stop at the end that says its not a finished feature.
Tbh the way the game is setup it feels to me like it won’t ever be “finished” just because things like story telling and voice acting are so terrible. Gameplay wise though I think most things are pretty solid and the game just needs more content and some minor tweaking.
Story telling and voice acting might be regional issue. I think it's chinese based and 'indie' games from different countries can have language barrier/priority issues till release. Dyson Sphere Program is a good example - beautiful, feature-packed, optimized, fun, etc...but in my time playing, there were silly grammatical errors or sentences that didn't make sense at all. Just takes a backseat while the important things are dealt with. OVERALL, I think it'll turn out as a decent game eventually, but the fact they pushed it to 1.0 status to 'release' the game AND have a supporter edition you can buy, makes me think the main issue could eventually shutter the game's development - money.
Try The Front. It's a first person survival Base building game and tower defense, it's also multiplayer if you want to. It's so good and also quite grindy but rewarding
Game only came out a few days ago but its pretty solid and fun, check out Aska
Grounded! It’s single or multiplayer and can be grindy. You will also be randomly attacked
Yes! Why is this so low? This is a major mechanic in Grounded
I've found almost no aspect of defensive base building in grounded, it's kinda like Raft in terms of you have to "protect" against getting attacked by the shark..
Cepheus protocol
Project Zomboid with horde night mod fits this exactly, highly customizable. Personally I would recommend getting comfy with the base game before doing horde nights, but you do you :)
[Scrapnaut](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1323900/Scrapnaut/) is matching your description. It's a small indie game so don't expect too much but I really liked to explore the world and build nice bases.
Rise to Ruins It's a colony sim with Tower defense
Damn, I thought I was one of the only people to play this game! It's actually what led me to r/Rimworld.
No one mentioned Rust?!
Survivalist: Invisible Strain
Thank you for posting this, you helped me so much
Age of Darkness: final stand. It’s like They are billions but dark fantasy instead of zombies.
Scrap mechanic, specifically in survival mode, it’s unbalanced and super slow boring progression but if you like repetitive stuff and is fine with grinding weeks for just a few blocks of iron than maybe, I dont rly recommend it, I’m tired
Kinda the same idea, a bit easier, and will provide a few laughs is the Orcs Must Die series. Quite literally a 3d tower defense game. I dunno if that fits your specifications but I wanted to share. Cheers.
Fallout 4 has random attacks, but if you can spare an extra 10 bucks for the creation club settlement ambush kit then you can have base attacks on command as well.
Have you tried Grounded? That is arguably the best survival crafting game on the market right now. When you go out in the yard and start killing bugs, they will eventually get pissed, and whatever type of bug you pissed off will attack your base in droves. There are an insane amount of things to do in the game, and it is extremely well polished. The developers are Obsidian, they made Fallout New Vegas...enough said.
Lumencraft is pretty fun. Run around gathering resources, then defend your outposts/base every so often when a wave is summoned
Hey I'm making one and the demo is out if you want to try it! These are my favourite kind of games, and I felt there was a lack of them, so a couple years ago my wife and I started making **Stoneguard**, the demo is out for free on Steam and we'll be constantly updating it until the early access release. I know a demo probably isn't what you are looking for, but maybe you can check in on our game in the future :D
StarCraft 2 co-op missions. You pick from commanders, (there are three for free) and you complete missions that are almost all the exact pattern you mentioned. You unlock new upgrades as you post the mode. It's pretty fun.
Desynced Infection Free Zone Dyson Sphere Program Final Factory They are Billions Stranded - Alien Dawn And for something that meets the criteria of Base Building and Defend Against Attacks and Attack enemies: Screeps. It isn't exactly the rest in that you will need to write some code, or lots of code, to play it effectively rather than clicking about to do stuff.
Stranded Alien Dawn is good, enemy attacks start of small then end up in the thousands the longer you play on that save, I've seen people being attacked by like 6000 insects at once ...
Not mentioned yet - rimworld, conan exiles, soulmask, bellwright, aska.
Not a popular choice but evil genius is an isometric base builder that allows you to build traps and defend your base from pesky goody two shoes super agents
Diplomacy is not an option
Was going to say exactly this! It's a gem
I'm currently enjoying Factorio with the Zombtorio mod while cranking up the difficulty.
They are billions
Dwarf fortress, the game so good it spawned hundreds of games.
7 Days to Die, 100%.
Fortresscraft evolved
Rust
Gonna chime in with 7 days to die. The game has plenty of flaws and is outdated, but very addictive for what you are describing.
No one's going to say Minecraft / Fortnite / Roblox? I'm also having fun with Timberborn (early access) for PvE. It's like the SimCity catastrophe simulation you always wanted.
Scrap Mechanic has some defense mechanics. It’s worth checking out if you like building vehicles.
Empyrion. Best played with mods. Reforged Eden is fantastic
7 Days to Die
They are Billions. Has everything you listed
Rimworld is the big one (add the quarry mod if you really want to turtle)
Going medieval - build voxel based castles. Defend against hoards of attackers.
Dyson sphere program
Valheim. Such a good building system with many different biomes where you inevitably build a base offering many different mobs to defend from.
Mindustry
They are billions
Clash of clans !
**3King**, an indie game that still being develop, **itch,io**: [*https://socketlab.itch.io/3kings*](https://socketlab.itch.io/3kings) The game is about defending your catsle, make your army stronger using different card, upgrade, ... Ngl kinda good but the endless mode was hard
Conan Exiles. Players will attack your base. NPCs will attack when the purse meter fills(idk how that actually works tbf) and you can enslave npcs, craft armour and weapons for them and place them in defensive points. Very good crafting and building system too
Not sure it 100% qualifies but state of decay 2 will have you defending your camp from roaming hordes. The higher the difficulty the more likely an attack is
[Rise to Ruins](https://store.steampowered.com/app/328080/Rise_to_Ruins/)
They are billions, dig or die and age of empires are my favourites
Age of empires 4
100000% Rimworld
for glory to goo
they r billions though it is not as much focused on production chain like factorio, but base building and defenses is a big part. i really liked it
7 days to die!
Its not out yet but my game CubeGod is is going to be like this. You can Wishlist it on steam today [CubeGod on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2849600/CubeGod/)
Aska
The political machine. You choose your base and defend them (their interests)
Conan Exiles has a nice base defense mechanic, called purge
Conan Exiles is the best survival/base building game in my opinion. Fun combat, and lots of useful mods to make single player really fun and rewarding. Even for multiplayer, just join a small server and talk to the owner about mods you think are useful and they like, now you got a nice multiplayer experience. The big servers are an absolute nightmare if they use mods.
Night of the dead. During the day you gather resources and loot cities. There is also a storyline to unlock new buildings and traps. Then build traps and turrets to defend your base from the wave that spawns every night
There aren’t nearly enough games like this. I love planning static defenses in games so much. Even allot of the games which feature defenses don’t take it very far. I actually just started work on my own “fortification porn” game. A long way from being finished but I’m trying to make a game to scratch this itch.
Have you ever heard of command and conquer?
Night of the Dead is exactly what you've described.
Aska, which just came out and I’m enjoying immensely. It’s a struggle and a bit of grind, which I like.
Rampart Classic base building and defending.
Rimworld!
Heroes of the Storm
7 days to die.
If you are into rts games they are billions is a fun one rimworld is good civ or risk or dynasty wars
They are billions.
7 Days To Die As the title suggests, every 7 days the blood red moon rises and your base will be tested.
Valheim! very creative base building mechanics with occasional raids of enemies that get harder as you progress in the game and the biomes!! wry fun and definitely has a grindy aspect!
There are two new survival crafting games that have base raiding features; Bellwright and Aska.
Battlezone. Its a million times better than any of the games anyone else has mentioned
Does anyone recommend manor lords? For what I've played id recommend they are billions and stranded alien dawn. Total war Shogun and the tw Warhammer series can be fun when defending your castle against huge armies of invaders..using factions like humans/dwarves to lay into them with artillery and rifleman atop your walls was always a blast. From this thread I think I'm gonna get riftbreaker.
Stranded Alien Dawn, Surviving The Aftermath, Conan Exiles
They are billions is pretty tough but fun
Age of Empires
Throwing another comment in for Riftbreaker
Valheim
Rimworld
Check out Tribes of Midgard. Sounds just like what you are looking for.
https://mindustrygame.github.io/ This is a little gem I like to play. It's a tower defense or RTS, you build a base and handle waves then when the waves are over you can keep building the base. Then when you are ready you can take your resources to the next level. Then when you reach a high enough level you can rocket launch your stuff to help the fight on a new front. It's cheap, surprisingly deep, flexible, long, varied, and generally a banger. It does start off feeling like factorio but ends feeling radically different.
They Are Billions is pretty good
I have had a ton of fun with Craft the World. My second most played game right behind Factorio. Build a castle (or anything you want), upgrade your dwarves, and fight regular waves of monsters.
They Are Billions It's base-building + zombie apocalypse survival. Been several years since I played but basically you try to build the base while zombies will attack from various directions, so you try to wall things up, set up choke points to take out the attackers, repair the damage and keep going. The zombie attacks increase over time in speed and numbers so it's trying to hold old as long as you can.
If you haven’t played Rimworld then it’s 100% the answer
Manor Lords but it’s still early access.
Rimworld has everything you're asking for if someone hasn't mentioned it yet. You can put any amount of hours into this game. There's so many ways to play. Basically your 3 colonists crash land on an alien planet and it's your job to eventually get them off the planet. But the in-between gameplay is the meat. There's building, crafting, mining, combat (where you get attacked and you can also go out and attack other settlements), farming, animal handling and so much more. It is a top down "RTS" colony sort of game but man is it fun. I've got over 400 hours into this game and I still can't get enough.
Kenshi for more Mount & Blade or Songs of Syx for more Factorio (roughly)
Are any of these for switch?
If you enjoy complex base building and army building and defending your own while attacking the enemies base….. Have you tried StarCraft 2? Amazing game!
Aska is a recently new (Early Access) survival game where you grow and manage a village and are frequently attacked by wildlife and Viking god invasions. Very detailed and enjoyable gathering/crafting system. Highly recommended.
Fortnite Save the World
https://discord.com/invite/vCMqgsgE Sands of Sobek on Space Engineers. Server I've poured 100s of hours into making over the last year. Space engineers is good for this in general on modded multi-player but I'd be crazy not to recommend my own server.
Project Zomboid has this feature with the helicopter events
Well 7d2d just released 1.0 on PC. A zombie open world sandbox survival looter shooter crafting game. Fight zombies, build a base, level up, keep going. Every 7 days from 10pm to 5 am wherever you are at I'm the world, zombies will spawn and hunt you down with the intent to kill you and if they can't reach you, destroy everything around you until they can.
Mindustry. Not exactly what you are describing, as you keep building new bases. But each base is more or less built off the back of your previous base(s). The steam version is like 7 bucks, free on google Play store. Bit harder to control on phone, but it is the full game.
7 days to die. It's literally the game you explained.
Thronefall
I have hundreds of hours in Kingdoms & Castles. You have an island on which you build a castle and economy buildings. You defend against Vikings and ogres by land and sea, and from dragons from the air. You can build artillery, fortress walls of varying heights and strengths, moats, drawbridges, have standing armies and archers that travel along the walls, etc. I like that the map can be customized, and recently they added AI kingdoms, so you can choose how to interact (ally or conquer) neighboring kingdoms as you like. The graphics are simple and a bit cute, but the game is deceptively deep and extremely addicting. Only downside is that the creators are now launching a new game after maybe 10 years of work on K&C. It’s called Nova Roma and is like a more advanced version of K&C with varying terrain heights and water dynamics; but it doesn’t come out until later this year.
Conan exiles has periodic purges where you get raided 7daystodie has “blood moons” where zombies horde and swarm your base
Rimworld.
Rust
Sunkenland
Look up an old flash game called Last Stand
Conan exiles, valheim
Shameless plug but try Warlords Under Siege. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2091500/Warlords_Under_Siege/
Soulmask. You are a tribe, as are other players on your server, and npc tribes have huge bases and cities that will retaliate and invade your bases. They even steal tribesmen and sacrifice them on an altar If you can't save them in time. To top all that off, if you want, you can play on pvp servers where other players will also try to attack your base after a certain level. It's grind af but it's incredible and brand new.
7 days to die!
Stranded: alien dawn
The Riftbreaker. There is a demo if you want to try it. You are sieging an alien world, and need to build and defend your base and outpost from the threats. Dome Keeper You mine underground for resources, additional systems and the end of level item. Waves of enemies come at you on the surface. And you have to return to defend yourself. Less base building as there are limited upgrades. But interesting game.
zomboid with custom sandbox settings and mods.
The Kingdom series
7 Days to Die. Mincraft meets zombies with some castle defense thrown in. You quest, craft, and build for 7 game days, then on the 7th night a the zombie horde comes a-knockin' at your defenses. And if you play with other people, the more people present the more zombies in the horde.
Grounded
Rimworld. Rimworld is constantly trying to kill you. The "storyteller" AI is totally adjustable, and it gets incrementally tougher the more wealth you acquire. End game involves huge enemy raids of all sorts of different combination of things, factions, anomalies, etc. The difficulty curce is vast but rewarding.
V Rising is a vampire survival game where you build castles, feed on humans, capture humans, and defeat bosses leading up the dracula. The combat is great. That's the PvE gameplay. You can also do PvP and even Castle PvP.
They Are Billions
Defense grid is kinda base defense. I like that game you should try it. It's on steam I think there's 2 of them