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Comment by XaspR8d | Hacker News Reader

I don't get the feeling that SimCity suggests that car-centric solutions are the "right" answers. My interpretation always was that it shows you how ideal mass transit solutions were but why economic pressure could keep them from working. Ultimately it seemed like the message was that pure capitalism was biased towards solutions that just barely met the citizens' needs.

The lack of parking lots was always an obvious bias, though a reasonable game design choice considering the visual appeal. I remember when SimCity 4 modders started making more buildings with "correct" parking lots (and other scaling aspects), it was so contrastive with the built-ins that people often either rejected it, or worked to acquire enough custom buildings that they could turn off all the default ones, which required a pretty staggering number of assets.

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Mass transit enthusiasts would probably love OpenTTD. Instead of managing a city, you manage a transit company that operates ships, planes, trucks, buses, and most of all trains.

Cities grow as you serve them with more mass transit, which maybe is more optimistic than real life, but on the other hand the game also teaches you that tearing up half the city to install a massive train yard is very expensive and will make local politicians furious with you, requiring you to bribe them with cash (or reforestation campaigns..) if you want to continue construction in their city.

Unfortunately it's missing subways, but the trams provided by community extensions are a pretty decent substitute.

I'd love it if OpenTTD had just a smidge more complex of a city simulation, so that towns weren't just concentrically-expanding colonies. But yes, it's much better at bringing that transport logistics puzzle to the forefront, which is probably why I've bothered to keep it around, unlike the various SimCities.

It also teaches you that long routes are magically always more profitable. :P

While OpenTTD is a fun for a time, I think the Rail Road Tycoon (Esp 2 and 3) are more detailed games, with a simulated stock market and financial system, where one realizes that though through a well planned rail network and well maintained rolling stock, you could stay afloat and expand some, greater personnel wealth is more often and more easily obtained through creative ploys in the financial markets.

OpenTTD's economics is fundamentally flawed, it's trivial to have billions of dollars before long, meaning you never have to worry about money again (although local authorities will still hassle you for too much demolition.) It would be nice to see the economic system revamped completely, but I don't think it's a high priority for anybody. I think most of the fun in the game is in the finer logistics of optimal rail networks, particularly junctions and switching, not so much the money management.

There is also https://www.simutrans.com/en/ , which is also available on Steam for free.

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