All Games > Strategy Games > We Need No Kings

We Need No Kings

Just as Adam Smith intended. Co-operate, compete or ruthlessly exploit your fellow villagers in this free-market simulation colony builder. Use magic to freeze your villagers to sell more coal or donate to your countryman so he can build a new bakery? Tariffs or Universal Basic Income? Or even both?

All Reviews:

1 user reviews - Need more user reviews to generate a score

Release Date:

Apr 30, 2025

Developer:

Forbidden Oak Games Limited

Publisher:

Forbidden Oak Games Limited

	Interface	Full Audio	Subtitles
English	✔		✔

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Early Access will let us listen to community feedback and suggestions. We will be able to add in more of what the players like and change what they don't. The game is a flexible simulation, so many different possible directions for more content exist. Community proposed ideas which seem fun, ranging from real world economic systems which could be interesting to try out (Incan corvee labour instead of taxes?) to the implications of magic (how do fire mages make a living when they're not saving the world?) will be put in the game to see how they play out. Another use of Early Access might be to interact with modders, and provide them with the tools they need to make their own economic visions a reality.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan for six months of Early Access. This will give us time to complete the features we want to get in, while still leaving enough time for community participation and involvement in the design process.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“We intend to add two new biomes, with their own resources and challenges. Both are intended to be more impactful towards the endgame, giving experienced players more content to enjoy, but would also allow alternative (more challenging) start locations. Along with this, we plan to expand existing gameplay systems with more content. More economic policies are planned so the village can be more varied. More ship types could also allow new types of travelling industry and add more challenges to overcome. To add gameplay variety, we plan to add major world-wide events which affect gameplay, such as apocalpyses, which would change up the economic situation (what WOULD happen if the world were plunged into multi-year winters periodically?) dramatically.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game is playable from beginning to end. Three biomes are implemented with their own resources and unique challenges, along with a variety of industries for you to try you hand at and economic policies for you to tinker with. Different magical plants exist to alter your gameplay choices in each run, and trade ships can be made to sail between the AI controlled villages and those you establish.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We don't intend to change the pricing after Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We intend to communicate via discord and the Steam Discussion Forums.”

Buy WeNeedNoKings

$24.99

Add to Cart

See all discussions

Report bugs and leave feedback for this game on the discussion boards

About This Game

Living World

NPCs lead their own lives, and other villages develop on their own, all based on NPC trading. Prices vary wildly based on supply and demand, which you can shape by helping NPCs build industries, by selling items where they are needed, by changing the ecosystem to give them new opportunities, or turning your citizens to religion or weird new ways of being.

A Nation of Islands

Sail between many villages, to buy up items for trade, or to help build up different communities in turn. If you can give them the help they need they can flourish into productive hubs which can help other islands in turn. Islands can have all manner of magical properties, some useful and some not. Some islands may free citizens of the need to eat or sleep, while others experience constant rotting where food decays rapidly. Others are simply extremely cold or filled with hostile life forms.

Experiment With Economics

Try out fantasy versions of real-life economic principles. What would a fantasy world look like if an AI (Alchemical Intelligence) took all the jobs? Are Tariffs the way forwards if your economy is based on selling antlers taken from caterpillars? Would universal basic income work on a freezing island where they eat giant beetles? Encourage your villagers to take initiative to develop new eyeball-tree based industries (and not rely on government hand-outs) or subsidise building materials by taxing luxury items? Try your economic ideas in the safety of a Scottish fantasy world before you run for President of a real world country.

NPC Driven Free Market

NPCs lead their own lives, trying to earn a living by picking up professions or harvesting nearby islands. Traders in ships will sail between islands, trying to make a profit. Help individuals fund their businesses so your villages have access to their products, or compete against them to keep your lucrative monopoly.

Exploit them for their own good

With great wealth you can do a lot of good. Festivals to make people happy, charity to help the poor, investment in citizens buildings or simply building beautiful parks and gardens. It's entirely reasonable therefore to plant freezing trees to sell them more cola to keep warm; or to send them off to an island where you are the only supplier of food; or for you to keep causing beetle attacks so you can sell arrows and medicine to the survivors or any other way you can help them spend more at your shop.