City Simulation Games ?

[MindALot]

I really like city/economic simulation games, and wanted to know if you knew of any relatively recent ones that I might have missed.

The games I've tried


Sim City 4
Cities XL (orig, 2011, 2012)
The Sims 3 / Medieval
Towns - hoping this turns into more.. but seems to have stalled
dwarf fortress - not quite the same, and I couldn't stay interested in it
Cities in Motion - tried the demo.. wasn't really impressed, but might give Cities in Motion 2 a try when it arrives this year
Anno 2070 - was interesting, but not much of a simulation
Hinterland - not quite the depth I'm looking for
Stronghold 3 - disappoint
Tropico 4
Settlers 7 - seems to be more of an RTS than a simulation game now (maybe it always was and I just didn't realize it)

[Grif]

Economic simulations?

Have you tried any of the myriad Transport Tycoon/Railroad Tycoon games? By their very nature, they're economic simulators.

Though if you kinda tapped out Sim City 4, there isn't much alternatives out there...

[Vauron]

You might want to look into CivCity: Rome.

Edit: Missed the relatively recent qualifier.

[MindALot]

I have played railroad tycoon 3.. I think I purchased railroads and quickly put it aside.

Haven't done to much with any of the other transport tycoons, although I looked at the airport tycoon.

I probably would pick up a remake of rolercoaster tycoon if they made it.

As for CivCity: Rome .. I haven't seen it before. Its about 7 years old now .. not sure if it is a bit late to give it a try or not.

Thanks for the feedback !

[Aotrs Commander]

OpenTTD should be worth a look. It's an open-source version of Transport Tycoon, still incrementally being improved by a very active community. Some of the mods (or NewGRFs to use the correct terminology) add significant complexity to the game if desired (e.g. couple of hundred or more vehicles or all types, more complex and varied industries, that sort of thing.)

At the price (nowt, 'cos it's open source), it's worth a glance.



I would recommend any of Sierra's city builders (Caesar III, Pharoah (both somewhat superceeded by the later Caesar IV and Children of the Nile), Zeus (probably the best I've played so far, but it does have a strong mythological aspect to it) and Emporer Rise of the New Kingdom (China-based) - though I haven't played that one myself yet (but it's on it's way as we speak).

They're all oldish games (though Medieval Manor is due out this year, theoreticlly), early 2000s-ish - but that means they're cheap! I picked up Zeus plus expansion, Phaoroah plus expansion and Emperor the other day (the former two just for the expansions) for the princely sum of £13 total for Amazon yesterday, as a matter of fact; or you can get the former pair from GOG for about $10/£6 (which is about what I paid for Zeus, I just thought for the same price I may as well have the hard-copy!)

(They are by the same crowd as Hinterlands, but it's worth noting that the latter appears to be the weakest game they've released, in a departure from the other games and not one I bothered to pick up,...)