As far as city builders go this one requires a lot of micromanagement. You have an endless struggle with having enough food, tools, weather, and war. This game is also in early access you can say that again.

Sometimes it’s fun just to see what games are out there under early access. Sometimes they are getting close to release. Others like this one seem like they will be a few years out. Many things did not appear to be working.

The trailer for the game made this one look somewhat interesting. It’s not exactly complex. It’s just a bit of a shame I could not even get roads to work. They would just be yellow boxes and then not be placed down. Making my town harder to organize and rather ugly looking in the end.

The biggest thing this game has going for it is if you are micromanaging things. One moment you have a massive food harvest coming in and then the next everyone is starving and freezing to death.

It was almost like I went from one horror to the next. As soon as I got food everyone's tools were broken. By the time I had tools being created again an army would come and kill off my people. Forced me to pull people who were working in the mines or smelting and put them in more critical roles such as managing the many farms and animal pastors I had going.

Things started easy enough. I put down a couple of basic homes, and a pen for some farm animals, and started to try and fulfill the basics of the game. Getting things like wood, bronze, and food.

My plan over the long run was to start adding in more society-rewarding things to increase the town's happiness like a church, tavern, and even a school. The happier the town becomes the more resilient it is to have to work harder, winter, and things going sideways.

Early on happiness was such a huge issue I did not dare raise taxes, remove breaks people took while out working, or even have a lower work age for the children. Many of these things would have solved or at least made things a bit easier for me in the early days.

Some mistakes on my part led to quite hardships I would have to endure long term. For instance, I looked at the cost of putting down a two-person house compared to a five-person house. It seemed like a no-brain I should just build the bigger homes.

It turns out while the long term it is great to have bigger homes. The game only allows one family per house. So, while my town was struggling to keep up with the basics. The town started to become overrun by almost more children than adults at one point.

Thankfully since they did not work, they also did not need tools or other things. I can only assume they ate food. As I could harvest 200 units of food and not a couple of nightfall later in the game it would yet again be gone.

By the time my first winter arrived, I lost a large part of my town. Many die from the cold. The ones that did not die from the cold left due to being unhappy. Winter would start to become quite a nightmare for me.

I did not even have herbs let alone a healer making potions. Those who survived became rather ill. With no way of curing them, I would then lose even a few more. Yet another two people of the town I'd have to take away from food production to get into making or crafting herbs. At least this was one of the few items once I had a stockpile started, they always kept up with demand after.

The game warns you that during the colder months, certain things like growing food become slower. What the game lacks is the exact details of the growing seasons. The lack of detail is a huge issue in quite a few parts of the game.

Such information would naturally allow one to pull farmers out of the fields when it was time. Without worrying about shorting yourself. Then put into making wood for people to burn in their homes for the wintertime. Along with putting more people into producing winter clothing.

In the end, I decided to make multiples of most production buildings. Even if those buildings would end up sitting empty for quite some time. I ended up coming up with my seasons of work as I would call it. Where people in my town would get rotated around in a way to try and get ready for upcoming production shortfalls. Along with having a stockpile for dealing with things like winter.

Ideally, I'd love to just have more people in my town. Food was such an endless struggle all the time. Along with people starting fires to cause trouble as the population grew. It seemed like micromanaging things was the best solution instead of training to grow the population large enough to solve long-term shortfalls.

Anytime I would feel like I was making a decent stride of balance. I’d get an alert that an army was coming. Sometimes they would just cull a couple of people from my town. Other times the graveyard would be mostly full by the time the attacking for finished.

While there were options to create a military. They also required weapons to be made and enough taxes to be collected. Tax money was always short. Anyone not working on getting food or wood was a burden on the town.

After many seasons of hardship. My town slowly built a wall around itself. It even had a rather tiny military to defend itself with. I even managed to have every type of food growing in the fields and every animal you could have as well.

Final Thoughts

Was there a time I felt like I had finally made it? Of course not. Anytime one issue would be solved another one was created. Even after I had many of the more advanced buildings up. Then a new issue would arise like suddenly everyone was dying of old age. Leaving the perfect balance I had set off tilt yet again. As society crumbled with not enough of a workforce to keep it all going.

Between quite a few bugs there clearly needs to be some rebalancing. Along with me just being fine only made the smaller homes that produced less happiness in the town and warmth for the people living in them. After a while, I just grew tired of this and uninstalled it.

There were only so many times. As night fell everyone would use a torch and head back to their homes that I could enjoy. Another day of maddens down. It was like watching ants heading back home for the evening.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Bastide.

Disclosure. This review was written while the game was in early access.

Disclosure. A review copy of the game was received for free.