Becastled

I came for the cute peasants and stayed for the catapults. Becastled mixes city-building comfort with tower-defense tension: you grow a kingdom by day and desperately swat moon-beasts by night. Think Settlers meets a chill RTS—lovely on the surface, a bit wobbly underneath.

The loop is simple and satisfying: during the day you place farms, workshops, taverns and walls, manage roads and resources and try to keep happiness up. Terrain matters — rivers, hills and forests can become natural moats or traps when seasons change. At night the siege horns blow and gameplay switches into defense mode: man ballistas, garrison towers, and micro your troops to blunt waves of Moon Beasts that range from battering rams to dragons. There's an economy-tech loop (Sunstone, iron, charcoal) that feeds your army upgrades and siege weapons. I enjoyed the tactile pleasure of slotting towers and watching archers pepper enemies, and the art and soundtrack sell the cozy-but-grim mood very well. That said, unit pathing and AI can be painfully unreliable: archers fall off walls, soldiers get stuck on ramps, and late-game mass-movement becomes micro hell. The campaign/mission variety feels thin — once you understand the systems a map can run its course quickly. Devs are active and the game improved a lot since early access, but several QoL items (faster speed, clearer tech UI, smoother routing) would lift it from a charming prototype to a must-play.

Becastled is a lovable little siege-builder with solid bones and a cozy vibe, but current bugs and thin late-game content hold it back from greatness. Pick it up if you want a chill yet tactical escape and can tolerate some rough edges — otherwise wait for more patches or a sale.