Ballads of Moorfield

I would like to recommend Ballads of Hongye bacause it is beautiful and deep city-building simulator, but it definitely needs some polishing of UI and rebalancing of some mechanics. Developers are constantly releasing updates that makes game better.

Ballads of Hongye is absolutely the best City-Building game I have ever played. It has nice dialogues, beautiful places where you can build your cities, season changes and soundtracks. You are limited only by your own creativity.

I'm here primarily for Serene Mode and the atmosphere, so I will not speak for the other modes. The graphics are beautiful and the atmosphere of the city, especially as it evolves from village to city is very relaxing and fun. I think I'll be here for a while just for the atmosphere. I do recommend this for anyone who wants a nice, calming, and beautiful city builder to work on from time to time.

If you hope to play on Steam Deck, you might want to wait, and hopefully the developers will improve it in one of their many patches. It takes a solid 5-10 minutes just to launch on my Steam Deck for some reason, the default resolution is 1200p (well above the Deck's native 800p), and the performance is a bit jarring because of this, even on low settings (though it still runs well enough to play, for the most part).

Sad, most of the negative review simply dont understand this genre this aims to be.
Rarely saw so many enthusiastic devs with so many patches after release. Not to mention the cheap price of it.

Customs maps with more space to build one mega city would be a great addition in the future though.

Gorgeous and rather well translated. Great to see games like this coming out. Time pressure city builder, kind of like a more aesthetic Frostpunk. Does what Dyson Sphere Program did for Factorio-esque games for time pressure city builder games.

I have been closely following the production of this game since its very early days. I joined several tests and saw how it evolved and how the developers poured their love over the months. Most of the negative comments here(and most of them, ironically, isn't from players who even played it an hour or more to objectively judge this game and what it offers) are related to how the game plays, but take it with a grain of salt because developers actually pulled off something unique here, especially if you are bored from straightforward and player oriented gameplay of other "traditional" city builders.

You won't find many handholding in this game except for basic tutorials and several guidances, but rather then a drawback, this is a positive in regards to what this game is trying to do. You are a mayor, who is in control of the city, but also not in control of many other things. And as the main character Ding Hong learns the ropes of leadership in the game, you as the player is also learning how everything works and connects in the game.

Considering that 14 people developed this game under a year, this game can easily be considered a masterpiece simply because how it looks and how your cities evolve over time. You start with a bunch of farms and houses in a small village, and grow into one of the enormous, richest, industrious counties in the country, and this transformation is so clearly documented from the cities you can build after you progress. That cyberpunk looking towns are very real, and it is a great feeling to witness this and know that these are all stemmed from your efforts and actions in the game.

Sure there are some annoying things in the game, but compared to what they were, they are much more smoother and much less annoying, and they add to the "being a leader of a big county" charm rather than becoming gameplay hinderances. I played the launch edition for 3 hours since its released and %100 percent suggest this game is %100 percent worths your 10 bucks.

Note: I refused to take the CD-key proposed to me because of my beta test participation when the game is launched, and purchased the grand edition instead, because I think these developers earned every penny by never turning a blind eye to their community.

I luckily joined the beta before the release . Got an early access of it. My first impression of the game is that it has excellent visuals and I love the little details. And its price is very nice, def buying it.

I love historical themed city building games. The genre is something I've been playing now for many years. So I'm always looking for new games that will give me the same satisfaction as I remember from the old ones.

Frankly speaking the game is really difficult and not very well done in terms of the introduction of game mechanics, many systems I need to figure out for myself. But if you're the type of person who is used to researching games on your own, then you'll reap a very great sense of satisfaction after a successful challenge

Overall the game has a lot of things that drive me crazy, but it is indeed a unique city building game and the quality of the game exceeds my expectations compared to its price tag I think. I'd also like to see more new ways to play in the city building game category, so based on that I think BoH did a pretty good job."

I am amazed by this game! It's different from all the business simulation games I've played before. I will recommend this game to my friends. The graphics are unique, the music is beautiful and the characters are very interesting.

Great game. The only downside is that there aren't anything else to do except repeating the game when you finish it, but it is perfectly fine except it gets a bit boring. Still worths to pick up, play and fool around. Animations and design is one of the best for this genre imo. Ding Hong's journal was also interesting, and seeing a storyline tied to a city builder was definately a good attempt.
I think the only missing thing from this game is a sandbox mode. You made a stellar looking game, but pls give us a sandbox mode devs.

This is certainly an interesting game. If you like challenge based city builders with little freedom this is for you. To be fair I didnt get that far into the game but it just felt kind of pointless and on rails. I didnt enjoy it. I love city builders and management games.

There are two options on how to play, challenge and a peaceful option without the timer. I chose the peaceful option. I never really felt like I was in control. I was handheld to achieve the first few levels as it was a starting tutorial I think. But simply placing down one building would advance a level and then there would be a review screen where my advisors would review my performance and every time they just kept providing the same grade and comment. Even when all i had to do was put down a fire station and did it immediately.

It also seems to be a very technically demanding game of your system. My system is by no means powerful but can run things like manor lords demo and farthest frontier with no difficulty. But it seemed to struggle with this game which seemed odd as my system wasnt bein asked to display very much in these initial levels. You will probably need quite a powerful system to make the game look like the videos in the store.

If your looking for a beautiful and relaxing city builder this isnt it. I had to roll back a lot of the settings for my system and the game wasnt at all relaxing. Asked for a refund.

"Ballads of Hongye is an amazingly fun and intense game. Some people may decide to describe it as being ""zen"" , but I disagree with that! It only gives an illusion of being peaceful, and as soon as you sit back and decide to relax, it stabs you in the back. The game is stressful, it is hard! It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry. You will build up a large, bustling, seemingly successful town, but there might a disaster or two and if you didn't build proper security measures, boom, you are out of luck and failed. But when you plan, build and succeed, it is the most satisfactory feeling ever in a city-builder.

This was the city builder I was waiting for, and with its bad, I love it!"

A great simulation game!
Awesome graphics, nice sound tracks, interesting gameplay. A little bit difficult..... failed for couple times already, but i love challenges.
The tip is try more different game saves, then you can win lol! Never give up & Good luck!

Pros:
- Good atmosphere
- Great music
- Only one loading screen while entering the game, world is seamless and you can scroll around all the map.
- Adviser system is interesting, and interactions are quite fun. They can sue you if you behave bad to them.
- Disaster and disaster management in itself is a minigame and a fun one. You cannot design your city randomly because of it. You have to think what can happen and if it happens what will happen.
- War system is not perfect, but it is quite interesting and fun to play.
- Challenges are quite interesting and memorable, except the first 2.
- Talent system aka tech tree is decent, you get unlocks and beneficial upgrades and it is also serves as a resource sink for your rapidly developing city.

Bad:
- A bit hectic and hard to learn, this might be a negative for some people.
-While lands are on the same region, they are not really connected in terms of gameplay.
- Roads are not unlocked from start(but this is mostly personal gimmick)
Neutral:
- Riding system is a bit hard to control.

Neutral:
- There is a story, but i didn't follow where it's really going, and it's a bit tedious to follow it. But if you fancy adventure games you might like it.

This is not your average city builder. There is no sandbox mode and it's not a chill and relaxing game. That doesn't mean that it isn't good though. Let me explain.

The game currently only has game modes focused on completing timed challenges in small towns. So expect to pause the game a lot while you think about what buildings to build. And then fail and restart (and maybe do better). Once you complete a challenge, you move on to a different village with a different challenge. The available buildings are randomized every time you start or restart a challenge which can make things more challenging but keeps it from becoming too repetitive. Once you've unlocked some (all?) areas, they will supposedly be merged and you will have a big area to build at your leisure (sandbox mode?) - that's what the game tells you but I can't confirm that as I haven't gotten that far yet.

The fact that there is no sandbox mode available from the start and that the game is quite stressful due to the timed challenges makes this tough to recommend. I did enjoy my time though and for only 10$ you do get a beautiful looking puzzle / city builder game with an amazing soundtrack. And maybe the devs will add a sandbox mode? Yes? Please?

I bought this game because I want to play the city building game with kind of ancient or a little fantasy theme. When I played this, I thought it would be like the other city building which is planing the city layout or manage the resources whatever you want. But instead of that, It forces player to do the (tutorial?) quest for like an hour every time you go on the new game.

There are 2 mode in this game which is challenge mode and peaceful mode but there no big difference between these two. Both modes have a quest to do but you can just placing the building in any spot to finish the quest. You don't even have to build the road to connect all the buildings (because you need to unlock the ability to build the road??). I kept doing the quest for almost an hour and that was so annoying. I mean, even ANNO series in story mode let the player build the city in the way you want.

Lastly, This game have a good building animation and good aesthetic about the ancient chinese theme but I'd not recommended this until it has the sandbox mode.

Couldn't do it, just couldn't keep it.

Such a lovely aesthetic but like others have said, it's not a sandbox city builder, nor is it even slightly relaxing with advisers barking at you with call to action call to action followed by you're D grades for each section because I'd rather spend more time browsing the town.

The the 'relaxed' mode had me designing these huge blueprint buildings in my second town which just felt like I was building a wheat field in one mission, and then building a couple of wonders in the second mission.

Pacing is all just wrong, oh and finding things in the menus. I'll come back and check on what they've done with this.

Persistence and Motivation.

To enjoy this game you must have persistence and motivation (for at least an hour). This city builder may be more challenging and different than others you may have played. But you must be able to persist through the first hour of the game. You'll be a complete beginner heading into this game and you will fail at least once when you play this game. You must be willing to learn from the failure and overcome the challenges and you shall be rewarded immensely.

You'll evolve with this game- learning from your mistakes, changing your strategies, preparing more carefully, and building a bustling city (or county according to the game) while facing natural disasters and fulfilling the needs of your people.

The game will also evolve with you. No, really, it's still changing. Ever since it's release, this game has been updated on a daily basis. Not just optimizations and bugs but also key components of the gameplay as well. If you're still iffy about getting this game, then watch the development. Don't be discouraged by the negative reviews on this game and decide for yourself.

There are 157 hugs in the trailer, including one static hug, the trailer's awesome, Chinese style is so beautiful, hug developers.
As a simulation class of the game is a bit of a failure, looking forward to the developer update

Stunning look,terrible balance,city builders' core design should(mostly) be about resource management and scaling further,if one's to calculate the infrastructures' value they'd realise it's a struggle to make ends even meet,pair that with low starting budget and regular wage check you get a game that's so difficult you have to pause at start,make your own spreadsheet to perfectly calculate everything and pray that there's no disaster happen in your *full year* gameplay loop,I played anno series and against the storm,never once did I have to count my numbers so tightly. The production chain and market competition debuff serve as advanced system to add flavor as game progresses on BUT your need specfic blueprint to make chain happen which takes RNG at round start and research while market competition always happen and cut half the income away. I didn't want to be one of these salty negative review saying game's too hard,I wanted to prove this game is good just takes skills,but right now? I rather count my taxes,at least it's relevant to me.

The game graphics look very, very good. That’s what caught my attention about Ballads of Hongye. And that’s where the excitement ends for me.
First of all, the game takes ages to load although my system meets the game specs. But here is my biggest issue with the game. Some text are absurdly small. Too small to read. And that makes the game, for me at least, unplayable. And then there is the eye strain that goes with playing games with such small text.
The developers just seem oblivious to the fact that there are players that have problems with eyesight. They just assume all player have eagle eyes. And then there is the total disregard for complaints about this. I have posted this issue in the discussion and have received no response from the developers.
I will request a refund. What a disappointment!

If players misunderstand the game, it means there is a problem with the presentation/marketing
It makes me quite disappointed and like the others say the addition of sandbox mode is necessary for a city-building game, especially when it's an eye-catching game like this.
Refunded until Sandbox mode is added

People seem to forget that this game is cheaper than a Mcdonalds meal combo!!!!

Game looks great and it's not a cash grab. Don't know anything about the developers but wow. The game looks too good for the price. it's engaging and gets tricky. Most people complaining are not reading and not paying attention. The challenge mode has a timer, yes.... but if you follow the requested actions accordingly it's a pass ( not an easy curve if you have not played this kind of games). Game also includes a Peaceful mode with no timer. keep in mind that you will fail nonetheless if you don't manage your resources well. I would recommend even if the game was 25$

CONCLUSION:

-Aesthetically pleasing even when compared with most AAA games.(running it on ultra settings 4k resolution using a NVIDIA RTX 2080 super.

-Price is ridiculously cheap for the content included (Lots of items from decorative to functional, Lots)

-Soundtrack and atmosphere is spot on.

-Illustrated characters and interface( Cartoonish) bring a fresh and refreshing feel to this genre visually.

NOTHING IS PERFECT BUT THIS GAME IS VERY CLOSE TO IT, CONSIDERING PRICE AND CONTENT.

what you will get in this game :
litteral hongzhi simulator, very good mechanics, nice graphic, d**k inspector, and sometimes an fps drop
what you will enjoy :
the background music and a quite intense experience especially when your village is on fire
ps:
many people complain about the fps drop, rtx series card is the solution for me. pls read the req before playing

Dark Souls of city builders unironically.
Looks easy and simple at first, just click and thing happens and numbers go, but then come the disasters and good luck surviving long term with that and with taxes and bureaucrats asking for more money and it gets stressful.
Update after a bunch of patches, yeah it's good. Bit more forgiving now, but it's a great game and I love it.

I went into this game blind and after 6 hours have begun to really like their take on city building. The graphics are really nice, the music is good and I have been laughing at the humour. To top it all off the developer appears very active and has released two patches since release. In the most recent patch they unlocked dirt roads from the beginning which is something I wanted.

As others noted this is a stressful game. Populace, their demands, money, advisers, disasters and random events require attention from the player. The seasons also feature heavily in this game and affect the daily requirements or production values for a building. Like Anno it is possible to build industrial chains which will provide boosts and buildings can be built on free areas of the map. Unlike Anno (or wider city builders such as Cities: Skylines) it is not possible to just sit back and build things over time without stress.

Part of the fun of this game is advisers, blueprints and available buildings for a specific city. Through the technological tree it is possible to carry at least three cards from the last city. This adds an additional challenge as it may not be possible to just have a one size fits all production which can be copied and pasted between all the cities. Thus I think a sandbox mode will take the major charm out of the game.

If you are wondering 6 hours is enough to: get to the second city, fail twice and just begin to understand the importance of advisers and how the economy functions along with chains. For about the price of a McDonalds meal this is an awesome game.

Credit where credit's due, this is a surprisingly good city builder.

I was super skeptical based on the price when it released...only $12 AUD...wtf! That's like...either a crappy mobile game full of hidden monetizations or just some thrown together piece of pretty junk.

But despite my reservations, I took a punt on this and honestly, I cant understand how it's so cheap. I think theyre doing themselves a disservice by selling it for that price as it alludes to problems/low quality or something, and that simply isnt the case. As a minimum I'd be going around the $20 mark - which is still cheap.

The first thing that you notice are the graphics - theyre stunning. There's 100 or so building options and they're all beautifully designed and animated. Even constructing each building has their own custom animations - and theyre fully destroyable from things like the weather.

Again, I cant undertstand how there's so much detail in the design and it's selling for 12 bucks.

The game itself is a different take on city building - it's challenge based. You have a limited amount of time to meet a certain ends - that's usually grow the population to X amount, or gain X amount of resource while maintaining satisfaction etc.

They're not too difficult to achieve, BUT - keeping them that way is the problem as the game is riddled with disasters - from storms to floods to plague, fire, you name it. On top of that, every time these disasters hit, the towns are covered with graves etc which need to be cleared.

It reminds me a bit of Against the Storm - an also recently released city builder with rogue-like elements of randomness. With Hongye though, you're tasked with mitigating disaster by selecting advisors - advisors who come with certain stats which can boost various elements of the economy and have activatable skills which can temporarily boost things like production.

The game also has an unexpected sense of humour throughout - an example:

I was badly needing money to beat a challenge, faced with a deficit (ie losing money) at the end of the month which would in turn fail the challenge.

I went and lowered the salaries of my 5 advisors which had some of them complaining that they were making less than some of their rivals.

One prick however took me to court! Lol - a full fledged court scene played out, where not only did i lose, but had to pay him a lump sum of damages on top of making up his wage loss! So ended up 5x worse than pre-adjusting his wage!

The game is full of stuff like this.

Honestly - if you have a partial interest, pick it up and give it a try. For that price, it's a freakin steal.

There's been 2 post-release patches so far which have really improved some of my main issues. Firstly you can now build roads from the start - roads play a big part in helping the layout of these sprawling towns.

Anyway kudos to the developers on this one - and perhaps re-assess your pricing, its possibly doing you more harm than good.

In my Opinion a very nice twist to the usual Sandbox City Builder, which I personally do not like that much.
As I prefer more objective based gameplay, like in regular RTS games. But this one hit the spot for me!
Could become the "Dark Souls" of City Builders ;D Time to "git gud".
Also need to mention,the dev's are really active,there is updates with bugfixes and minor QoL changes almost daily.

If you are interested to learn more about the gameplay check out my video on YT ;D :
https://youtu.be/yDUU4OwOrwg

Also lets be honest , the game is super fairly priced.

Remember this ONLY a personal first impression... and playing on the so called free mode with no time restrictions.
I would also like to mension that this was at the very top of my wanted list for a long time, so i´m actually devastated by how this game turned out.

I´m so disapointed and for the same reasons as others. I was not expecting to be led around by my nose like a pig to slaugter right from the start!

Thats the feeling I got even at the intro. I´m always up for a challenge and was willing to put up with quite a lot in order to enjoy the obvious beauty of it´s visuals. Yes, it looks to be an endearing experience wrapped around the lives of a frienly community and naturally not too much stress, yet it came accross as the opposite;
You start having too much information thrown at you before even knowing how the game will feel. I was given the impression I had to choose either one advisor or 5 out of the list? On settling for one at a very expensive cost he disapears to rest after giving you a very odd plan of buildings and services to cater for, so no say in this and no guidence. Just more diologe windows. The distrust and stigma around the advisors is one of distaest and you feel your in the middle of a battle for fame and fortune.
The start area was tiny and cramped, yet after four clicks you have placed the required quest buildings and are then ridiculed by all the Advisors for achieving what they asked for. Even the old 78 year old advisor I used was not happy about me completing "his" plan?! It is as if the game wants or expects you to "only" play in one way.

I´m sorry, but it would mean completely re designing this games mechanics or menues in order for me to play. It´s a money back item after only a few minuites.

I don´t think that I have ever felt so frustrated by a game before.

Devs, most of us just want to enter into a game in a relaxed mood, if you want to have exitment and stress in a game, then do not have burning buildings directly after the first 3 buildings are up and simply wait a little longer.
I loved the graphics, who would not, it´s endearing and simply beautiful, yet I am also a "Less is More" kind of person and the tiny placeholders did not seem to melt or belong to the scenery.

If you like overly difficult city management games that drops you in the deep end with little to no information then this is the game for you. the user experience is terrible and could very much do with some on screen prompts or better descriptions of buildings and how they work. for example the barracks, i'm on the north desert challenge and the war tutorial is so vague that the level seems impossible to beat because of the vague description of war. it's so trash for this loosely translated text. If i could rename this game, I would rename it pop up simulator on the account that you get none stop pop ups. It's also very unrealistic that you will ever achieve an S+ on even the first stage since the treasurer always complains.

I think maybe people who have only played an hour or less of this game should refrain from leaving a kneejerk negative review, since they haven't actually experienced the gameplay to its fullest at that point. I don't normally do reviews but I'm leaving a positive one here because I think the mixed reviews are unfair to the developer.

I'm liking it a lot so far! The hectic atmosphere may be initially kind of confusing but I believe it can be finetuned to reflect the content of the actual gameplay better. I enjoy the resource management and beautiful artwork and so far I don't find it "too difficult."

Excited to see how this game develops, don't let the ratings discourage you! It looks like people who stuck around are the ones giving the accurate reviews in this case.

I read the comments before I tried this out and figured a city builder with some goals to meet could be cool. I did not realize that the goals completely over run the game and you have no options to build your cities the way you want them at all. And from my understanding of the developers responses to other comments they have no plan to add a free build option. There is a peaceful mode, but it's the same goals as the story mode without a timer, so still no freedom to build how you wish. They also have this grading system after every level completed and I'm not sure it's even possible to get good grades, maybe it just comes later in the game. As you can see it did not hold my interest long. A good game is like a good book it should grab and hold your attention right from the start and unfortunately this just didn't do that for me.

Please remind that Ballads of Hongye gameplay mechanic is similar to classic Impressions Games (Caesar, Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor) so it's different from present city builder genre such as Banished, Settlement Survival, Manor Lord, etc.

In this genre of city builder game, you can't assign villager to do a job or gather any resources directly but you look after whole city by placing building and infrastructure instead. The income and expense of resources come in statistics; for example, you gain x food per month when building a farm while building a house/adding villager requires x food, water, clothes each months as maintenance.

Overall, it's a good classic city builder with stunning graphics and challenging gameplay but might not suit for anyone who have been looking for Banished-like city builder.

First Impression

Design: What a fresh looking buildings design. Really delivered what was promised and expected from watching the trailers.

Gameplay: With all the new look, it took me awhile to adjust what is what. But wait until the second city mission, where it's challenging to figure out things while your advisors nagging and it seems Zeus's Far East cousin is angry with me for no apparent reason because lightning is crushing half my buildings while the other half having different problems. Brings my memory back to 1990s - 2000s city management games where problems and drunk Egyptian Gods are your source of entertainment.

After 8 Hours playing challenge mode and conquered East Plain. This game is tough. I only manage to do this after many tries. I bet this game is going to give more challenge and that what makes me come back and play again fail after fail.

This game is pretty punishing, one step wrong may lead to failure. The game does not hold your hand, which can be a bad thing to some people, it is very fun to me. It give you all the tools and you need to figure out how they work out together. I am surprised that I am constantly discovering and learning thing i can do better everytime i fail. The excitement of beating the quest finally is really satisfying. Definitely recommend this beautiful game if you like challenging city building/resource management game.

Don't go into the game expecting the most regular city builder game.. For what it's it feels like it can be quite a lot of fun, and more challenging than most city builders. The devs have also been pushing out daily updates during the 3 days since release to fix bugs & complaints people have had. For 10€ I'd say it's seems really worth it, but I would recommend people to look at how the gameplay is setup so that they go into it with the correct expectations.

I totally recommend this game. The economy mechanics are unique compared to the other city builders and once you learn them (after a several hours of gameplay) you can start to appreciate it. I bought it cause I saw a lot of negative reviews and I thought it cannot be that bad. At the beginning I saw the points in them but I think this is because the game falls short on good explanations and advise how to counter the problems, for example:
1) Disasters - at the early stages these are so annoying to the point it makes you abandon the game. However, as you progress in technologies and development these are countered effectively and they resemble what ANNO's experience is.
2) Sandbox - the game in fact has it, despite a lot of reviews and forum threads claiming the other way. What is confusing here is that you can progress only by opening areas and fulfilling challenges. Probably you will need to restart a map several times as the challenges are demanding. You cannot progress without getting the game mechanics. Once you complete the challenges (which last from several minutes to 15 min) the game turns into sandbox citibuilder with a lot of optimization options to boost your economy.

Summary:
What I really like about this game is the economy mechanics and the visuals.
What I don't like is the camera movement and the small building areas.

Really great city-builder and resource management. Dozens upon dozens of buildings... a hundred? More? There is plenty of mystery, you'll be unlocking buildings and completing resource chains for days.

It's also quite difficult in places... newly unlocking a map will have you 'starting over' with a random assortment of unlocked buildings... hope you get lucky and gain a chain or some high-end commerce buildings right off the bat. I've only finished the 3rd level, and that one took 30-40 minutes, a restart (cos I overbuilt and ran out of cash), and then my township was rocked by successive disasters for years... two of which events completely wiped my entire population.

If you can handle the complexity, with little hand-holding it's great fun... and the official Discord server exists which is a great place for knowledge-sharing. I realised how much I liked the Ballads pretty early and so I upgraded to the 'grand pack' which flattened the difficulty curve substantially... but totally not necessary as each map you start over.

It also looks pretty unique... and each building has 3-4 tiers of upgrades, with extras from the research tree, plus a building skins function I've not unlocked yet. I hope that I can produce some great vids in the near future!

Thank you Borgo!

I have recorded a video review, link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CK4Ef3GRn8

⛩️👍👍👍

Really wonderful city builder:

- great graphics
- nice artwork
- beautiful scenery
- seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) with influence on building incomes
- logical and good balanced supply chains
- interesting game mechanics
- huge varity of buildings (even combinations of them out of designers building plans)
- random but fair limitations of buildings per map
- some special buildings on every map
- up to 5 consultants usable for every town which have different abilities and gain experience over time
- random and repeating events in the town with mini games
- some natural disasters to react on
- giant tech tree
- funny and interesting speech bubble dialogs of villagers or consultants

You always have your hometown Hongye, where you go back between the other town challenges or even while playing them. There you can upgrade via tech tree or gather additonal ressources or just make it more good looking.

I just play the relaxing mode but the game gives you enough to do even there until late game. There simply is no bore out at the end of a map. 🤩

The game promisses a lot of long time playing value. Compared to the absurd low price it's so much value... never saw that on a strategy game.

It takes a while to get all of the game mechanics but it's so worth it!

once you build a sprawling city, the game gives you disasterous events always. like it its mad at you or something. i dont know if i like the game or not.... i guess not? and the graphics isnt as good as it is advertised. do not buy this game.

Let me start by saying that I really want to like Ballads of Hongye. The design is absolutely stunning, the theme is relatively unique for this genre, and there are some very interesting design choices. I want to note that with some base changes this could be one amazing city builder.
The problem is in it's current state it doesn't act like a city builder. The game doesn't really allow for any creativity or great choice of how you want to build while still reaching the goals/challenges. You essentially are required to use specific optimal paths or the city fails. I'm not saying trying to balance resources in a city builder is a bad thing, but essentially requiring Min/Maxing in certain R&G routes really detracts from any creativity or adjacency for the player. Immersion in the beauty is destroyed as your racing against dwindling values to scroll through building menus to find the exact production line to raise that gold cap or keep people from starving. In it's current state it feels more like a game where I'm building what the game wants rather than what I do.
I really do want this game to succeed as I think with some potential changes it could be amazing and worth way more than its current price tag. That being said where it currently sits it's just not fun.

I amended my earlier review. I really enjoy city builder game. The first few day the game was launched, the relax mode was frustrating and difficult to pass the objective. but after some fixes and balancing, now i enjoy this game. Look forward for more improvements. eg. Tumuli shouldnt be able to grow on existing building. Maybe mines can be at specific location where the resource are.

I really like this game. It does not deserve the "mixed" rating it currently has and for the price it is sold it is a steal.
However you do have to be aware, that the game will not be pulling any punches.
It is hard.
Which is probably where a lot of the negative feedback comes in from.
If your expectation is a peaceful citybuilder where you can relax, sip some coffee and just watch your city bustle - it is not the game for you.
If you go in with the mindset "Lets just build one of everything and see what happens" you will loose.

The game is completely fair tough. It gives you a fighting chance. And if you like optimizing, like a challenge and are not afraid to loose and try again with a better plan - then the game is hugely rewarding and I cannot recommend it enough.

At first it seems like your typical city builder, but there's actually so much to balance and pay attention to. Even in relaxed mode, it still requires a lot of thought and problem solving. Very interesting and unique game. 100% recommend.

I can't play it because after entering the game and getting through the video at the beginning of the game, it just has a screen with a white mountain landscape and nothing happens after that. I kept waiting and it was the same, no dialogue or anything happened next. I think it's probably the error:
"Failed to load DLL:
bin64\kg_movieadaptorx64.dll"
I couldn't find a way to solve this error on the internet so I hope the developer can help me so I can enjoy this game. Thank you.

So i was browsing steam for the next city builder game to play when i came across this.

Let me tell you its absolutely stunning. Vast variety of buildings which can be upgraded and chained together for greater production and gold.

Different seasons have different impact on your buildings and production which feels realistic.

Talent tree to spend resources on in order to become either stronger, unlock new buildings , mitigate crime, famine, or plague and so much more.

Lets not forget the advisors who play a major role in running your city as they provide skills that benefit you. You could recruit more ot poach from another city.

This game suprised me in many ways , while i found it a bit difficult in the beginning, its absolutely fantastic.

I still have one last region to conquer in which i encountered a lot of resistance..

If you like city builder games give this a go , personally i love it.

Should you wanna watch some gameplay below is my gameplay series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD5EZSwr-ec&list=PLIhWkZM76kX2UhJ9YSWHe…

Holy cow, don't listen to the complaints on this one.

Yes it's hard, save before attempting new lands and learn the mechanics as you go.
Most are explained but a few should have been clearer but are easily understood with minimum experimentation.

If you don't quit withing the first .5hrs like a lot of the negative reviews there's a an incredibly detailed game with interesting mechanics to uncover. Your empire expands as you complete each mission. You can work on each mission as a stand alone test or sit back an manage your empire as you please. Each has their own advantages and you'll need both to upgrade your resources and expand territory.

Have a go and you'll be rewarded with one of the most interesting city sims in years.

There are 3 things that i like from this game.
First, the most striking appeal of this game are the amazing details of everything really. Your city is always bustling as it feels alive with the townspeople go around doing their things, buildings cramped with every smallest property imaginable placed by the devs and give it a crowded rural look.
As you place more and more buildings, it will look even more crowded as your population steadily increase and you expand more and more, just like how a busy city should look, everything and everyone is working around the clock to keep the city afloat.
Your playground is even more striking as the terrain is just gorgeous to look at, often times when i took a pause from managing everything i just move my camera around and see just how well my city blends with the scenery.

Second, the challenge that this game intended the player to overcome. This is possibly the first cliff that every player will have to overcome to enjoy the game, i say it's a cliff because the game will give you only the most basic of the game mechanics, and then throws you from the cliff and see whether or not you manage to grab onto something or not.
The game is hard, punishing and often unfair, be prepared to save-scum and be confused as you will realize that this is different from a common city builder.
However this is why i like it, it's different but not necessarily to just make it stand out. It is intended to bring you a fast paced experience in managing things at the very start, although this may have been the game's Achilles heel because most people who is playing a city builder wants a more relaxed experience, you will most likely fail at the middle of your story progress and then you are forced to restart everything as you realize the longer you wait, more fees will have to be paid until your city cant keep up anymore.
If you can gather your will to have a second play-through, you already know the ropes, you can avoid the mistake of getting stuck by continuously developing your city without progressing through the story and conquer the next area to unlock more of the game's features. I'm not saying that being stagnant is impossible here, you just have to progress through the story a bit further if you want to play a relaxed game.

Third, the advisor system. Not a tutorial thing, but people that gives you abilities, buffs, extra stats that improves your city's output. I think this is what the game is most focused about, you will be given several of them for starters and then you can recruit them from... I dunno a job bulletin or something, and if your neighbor have a better one, you can just bid for them. No matter how loyal, everyone has a price.
For the challenges, every area you conquer you can appoint 5 advisors that will aid you in improving your city, these advisors will give you a limited set of building designs that can be chained with other buildings to give it extra output.
The designs they give rarely, if ever, complete an entire chain, and to get more building designs of the same chain you have to complete the challenges required to conquer an area. However after you conquer the area, only two of the designs can be picked from the designs you chose before, and you can keep these and build them at already conquered area.
This RNG system requires you to think ahead and properly plan on how you will get through the four seasons, as each buildings cannot produce the same amount of resource for every season, and the challenges will pressure you to choose carefully before the challenge start.
Advisors can help these buildings output from their abilities and stats, their stats increase when they level up while their abilities stays the same. They are extremely helpful and is basically required to progress, often times their abilities are life saving.
However, as you progress longer and longer into the game, you will slowly crumble in horror as your bills are mounting and your advisor constantly knock on your door asking for a raise while you are in the middle of saving China. With each advisor slowly pocketing the hard earned money from the peasants and you are left with frantically upgrading your buildings to meet the demands, you are starting to have ideas painting the flag red with a hammer and sickle...
So yes those are the 3 things i like from this game, all of it are solely my opinion and if you decide to try it out, just be prepared for a beating.

My criticisms are the visual feedback is still lacking, in a fast paced game i want to know everything at a glance.
Upgraded buildings should have different designs from the previous one.
Camera speed when fully zoomed out should be faster.
Better ledger design, often times i can't figure out my precise net outcome unless i use a calculator.
A better building tab so i can figure out which one is ruined and which one need upgrading etc.
Better tutorial, explain at the beginning how building chains work, how building cards are obtained, how the season system work.
More alternatives on keeping the advisors happy and committed, maybe by having a home will make them less blood sucking by continuously asking for a raise, having a higher position satisfies them, or age can affect their commitment.
Earlier pause warning for refugees nearing mass death, and refugees should only settle in Season Vale.
Building competition is lacking, often times spamming a single building still offset the loss caused by competition.
All challenge's objectives info should be available to see before starting it.

in the main menu when i start the games it crash,is brow up my graphic card have to restart my hold pc .. try it many time still the same ... window 11 / i9 10900k / rtx3090 ... not working for this games ??

Give this game a chance ! It as the potential to be an absolute masterpiece.

The art is stunning, the sound design is on point.
Some game design choices might be unconventionnal but I personnaly find this a good thing.
You can relax and watch your city, respond instinctively to the needs of your inhabitants, and see your choices unfold toward a sucess or a failure and retry in case of the second outcome !
You can also try to min max everything with your excel spreadshit (or paper and calculator) and have the satisfaction of a city running like a well oiled machine.

It is not an historical city simulation game, it is not an ancient industry simulation game, it is a pretty unique game.

Of course some things need to be refined but we NEED innovation in the genre and innovating is taking risks !

For the price of this game I would say the risk you take by giving it a try is quite low !

That's why I recommnend to give the game a try (you might feel lost at first but I relaunched a campaign after finishing the third challenge and I'm really enjoying this second run where I can see the difference of what I have learned shape the city)

I do not make reviews often but the "mixed" review just makes me sad so that's why I hope this will help other people decide to give this game a shot !

I played that game around 7 hours. It makes a lot of fun. The look is beautyful and its really komplex. It is really cheap for this performance. All Buildings looks so nice an is so detailed. The Game is worth it to buy.

这群游戏是非常有趣的概念，可是必须优化一些设定
1 比如在规划城市希望可以收纳全部建筑物，以方便重新安排，对于玩家是非常有用。
2 希望有个U I 告诉玩家已有或未解锁的建筑物。
3 某士的话请减少他们要求的提薪资，因为不到一年从一般就去不满，对于一些玩家很困扰。
4 画面请优化 至少在1060以上能到达50-60 FPS
5 挑战任务的话请减少困难!
6 希望可以看到其他玩家的城
7 如果还有的话我会再次评论。

Amai wat een prachtige Fantasy Oosterse citybuilder ! En het is niet al te moeilijk om te spelen, dankzij de Serene mode. Wat ikzelf erg leuk vind is dat de gebouwen zo verschillend zijn en talrijk !
En je kan gerust uitbreiden zodat je eerste stad al redelijk groot is.
Maar ik denk dat het wel heel wat moeilijker gaat worden als je meerdere steden moet beheren !
Gelukkig is er de pauze knop om verder met je camera alle gebouwen te bekijken (brand, blikseminslag, wateroverlast, epidemie, etc...

Na bijna 4 uur gespeeld te hebben kan ik deze citybuilder zeker warm aanbevelen.
Let wel dat je een stevige PC nodig hebt. Mijn niet meer zo stevige i3-9100F met 16 GB RAM en een GTX1660 Gamer X met 6GB GDDR5 kan redelijk vlot in de High settings spelen met mijn 1 stad.
Meerdere steden zullen een verlaging tot Medium setting vereisen !

Enfin, dat zijn latere zorgen ;)