The Rally Point: Songs Of Syx works at every scale by encouraging natural growth
It's difficult not to start out by namedropping Dwarf Fortress. Songs Of Syx will compare to probably every colony sim you've played, in fact, but it feels like a fundamentally different game conceptually.
The usual parts are there. Chop some trees, chip some stones, and chep some crops to get your pioneers' basic needs met, then get to expanding. But Syx isn't interested in testing you or manufacturing drama. It's not about surviving, not about building a happy little colony. It's about how growth changes not just the scale, but the nature of a settlement. Despite similarities with its influences, it defines itself with a different dynamic, a whole different ethos to its peers. And it's one that even playing it my own awkward way hasn't broken.