Sim City 4 is the best version of the Sim City games, and is 75% off on GOG right now, $5 / £4.
Cities Skylines 1 is the best modern city builder, 3D and a lot of fun plus well designed. But only really worth it when it’s on sale; lots of DLC and overpriced as a package when not on sale. Avoid Cities Skylines 2 - it’s just not fun and hasn’t been fixed - maybe they will one day fix but I doubt it 2.5 years in…
At least with places like Denver and other western cities it’s pretty straightforward how it happened - everything built along the river. Access to the river was key.
Being a boom/bust city means that a much later boom they adjusted.
Then even older cities (think Boston) grew before any opportunity at planning could happen.
Denver was two cities - Aurora and Denver. One was built to align with the river, the other with compass points and then they grew big enough to smush into each other and neither was willing to concede to the other.
Also Denver’s namesake, a Kansas politician, never even visited. It was a failed attempt to lure him here.
Downtown Denver:

This is the part in Sim City where I restart.
Aw, now I miss Sim City 2000
Sim City 4 is the best version of the Sim City games, and is 75% off on GOG right now, $5 / £4.
Cities Skylines 1 is the best modern city builder, 3D and a lot of fun plus well designed. But only really worth it when it’s on sale; lots of DLC and overpriced as a package when not on sale. Avoid Cities Skylines 2 - it’s just not fun and hasn’t been fixed - maybe they will one day fix but I doubt it 2.5 years in…
Pssst…just pirate it with all DLC.
Imagine what Cities Skylines could have been without Paradox’s super monetization plan
Lol I was just thinking “this sounds like Stellaris” then you say it’s Paradox
Cities and Skylines isn’t too far off from that sim city 2000 vibe, if you need a fix
The GoG version of SimCity 2000 runs fine in wine. The originals, not so much.
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=504
I’ll check that out! Thanks for the rec!
Just avoid cities skylines 2. It’s just a cash grab
At least with places like Denver and other western cities it’s pretty straightforward how it happened - everything built along the river. Access to the river was key.
Being a boom/bust city means that a much later boom they adjusted.
Then even older cities (think Boston) grew before any opportunity at planning could happen.
Denver was two cities - Aurora and Denver. One was built to align with the river, the other with compass points and then they grew big enough to smush into each other and neither was willing to concede to the other.
Also Denver’s namesake, a Kansas politician, never even visited. It was a failed attempt to lure him here.