City simulation is a genre of simulation games that simulates aspects of a settlement, usually a modern human city. The original city simulator was Simcity but since then many others have come to exist in the world of computer games, including popular empire building games which just fall into the class.

City simulation itself is generally referred to as the creation of virtual cities on computers via a gameplay. City simulators are well known as games with no overall target and are quite popular to a broad age group. They invlove the player in the position of the mayor or a high position who has the power to create things such as roads and zone areas for development. Empire simulation on the other ahnd generally involves the player fighting with other colonies for power.

The thing which makes city simulators so enjoyable, according to fans, is that there is no actual goal in the game. Rather the player chooses the goal. Whether to make a city, metropolis, village etc. Usually the player plays the mayor and has rather unlimited powers.

City simulators also appear, on a smaller scale, in other simulation games, most commonly RTS and transport games.

Typical features of city simulators

City simulators typically include:

• An endless game span, or a largely open-ended gaming campaign.
• A financial model.
• The ability to plan a city using a set of possible buildings.
• A method of progressing from a small village to a large, prosperous metropolis.

History of city simulators

The first popular city simulator came in 1989 with Will Wright's SimCity; the typical computer game of the era featured destruction of settlements.

Examples of city simulators

(Note: this list contains only standalone city simulators; games of other genres featuring a city simulation model are not counted)

• The SimCity series of city simulators
• Impressions Games' City Building Series including Caesar III, Rise of the Middle Kingdom and Pharaoh
• Tilted Mill's Children of the Nile
• OpenCity, another free 3D city simualtor