[seszett]

> It is quite trivial then to get a fortress up and running and produce far more food, drinks, and goods than you ever need and grow your wealth rapidly. And then when the enemy comes knocking it's quite trivial to pull up your drawbridges and line the entry halls with traps and generally grind them into a smooth red paste.

I'd say that the point of this kind of open-ended simulation game without a clear goal is not to "win" since there is nothing to win, but to create your own challenges.

I've played a lot of these games and from Civilization II to Dwarf Fortress, just winning by using the game weaknesses has always been very uninteresting, but building a world-class city-state on an island or an above-ground wooden fortress without digging, for example, are challenges that you can create for yourself and that make these games interesting to play.

Since they are single-player, I find just "mastering the game" to maximise end-game score to be quite pointless, but that's just how I feel of course.

[towaway15463]

A sandbox by itself is uninteresting but a sandbox plus imagination is unlimited fun.