Planetfall???
 

The game I'm looking for, I don't know the name of (it would seem). I'm not looking for the text-based game....

I'm looking for a game from the 80's, maybe early 90's. The idea is you crash land on a planet and have to try to survive (quite difficult at the beginning, as I recall). The gameplay is similar to simcity/civilization. Primarily you're building your city and trying to survive (another thought is that it's a rather hostile environment--unbreathable air, etc. I think the "early difficulty" i was mentioning, is that one of the resources you have to start providing for yourself is oxygen, but you have to research/build a bit before you can produce it.) Until I started googling, I thought for sure the name of it was Planetfall. But either that's not the name of it, or it is but was never published as such. Any ideas? I haven't played "moonbase"/"lunarbase" but it looks like it might be similar.

Could it be Outpost or it's sequel?

That's a great guess, I was mighty hopeful. After seeing some clips on youtube, that is definitely not it. My game's perspective is top-down (not iso), and i can't even imagine it having a cinematic intro like that. (The in-game graphics somewhat similar to SimCity Classic.) But thanks for the guess, I'm now describing it as an earlier "Outpost". :)

I'm into that genre and I'm pretty surprised by the description of the intro story. I don't recall a game going with that.

Do you have more details/info on the game itself?

Any similarities to this one?
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dominium

Nope, less "Command and Conquer." No multiplayer or even alien opponents (i believe, i think it was just the hazardous environment).

I'm sorry, guys I've been trying to come up with more tidbits, but it 15+ years ago, and I played it so very little. (I think because it found it so difficult.) I'll post tomorrow if I can come up with any more details.

Then maybe Lunar Command.

Or maybe Moonbase.

It's not so "Oil Barron" looking. Like i said in the opening, it is similar to those games, in concept, but visually, it is quiet different {best I can do for a description of that would be to say that it's not so "windows-ie". Lose the grey background/scrollbars and switch the buildings for simcity-like rectangles). So, her's the running list of "close ones":

Moonbase/Lunar Command (more dos, less windows)
Outpost (but not isometric)
Alpha Centauri (not so new, and no multi- player/cpu).

Alright, I'm out of ideas.

The only game I know referenced even remotely to a planet fall is Alpha Centauri. But you already ruled that out and it is such a new game I would not have considered it seriously anyways.

Good luck finding this game. It might not be PC in origin too. :)

Thanks for your time and consideration. It's true it might not be PC in origin... though I did play it on either a windows/dos or OS/2 operating system (I recall it error-ing out quite a bit too so it may have been a poor port.) I hadn't seriously consider that though... I'm going to have to widen my search (I've been going through a lot of game site's entire game lists) to include other platforms.