Construction and management simulation

Construction and management simulation games (or CMSs) are a type of simulation game which task players to build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources. Strategy games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their game economy, as players must manage resources while expanding their project. But pure CMS games differ from strategy games in that "the player's goal is not to defeat an enemy, but to build something within the context of an ongoing process." Games in this category are sometimes also called "management games".

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Theme Park is a construction and management simulation from 1994.

SimCity represents an early example of success in the genre. Other games in the genre range from city-building games like Caesar, pure economic simulation games like Hollywood Mogul, and or true CMSs like Theme Park. Sometimes strategy games like Civilization and The Settlers incorporate aspects of CMSs into their gameplay.

Gameplay

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Managing and building a city in Caesar III.

CMSs are based in a setting where an economy can be built and managed, usually some kind of community, institution, or empire. Players usually have two types of tools at their disposal: tools for building and tools for managing.

Players must manage resources as the game economy grows. "An economy is a system in which resources are produced, consumed, and exchanged". Resources are drawn from a source, such as money from a bank, or gold from a mine. Some CMSs allow players to convert resources from one type to another, such as fermenting sugar into rum. These resources are then drained by either construction ("building or buying new things to serve some purpose") or maintenance ("Ongoing spending required to prevent loss or decay").

The main challenge of a CMS is obtaining the resources required to complete construction. "Construction mechanisms in CMSs tend to be one of two types: buy or design-and-build". Random disasters can also create new construction challenges.

Many CMSs have no victory condition, although players can always lose by bankrupting themselves of resources. CMSs are usually single player games.

History

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SimCity on the Atari ST.

SimCity represents an early example of success in the genre.

Graphics

CMSs can be quite popular even without the latest 3D graphics.

Sub-genres

Several more specific genres have developed over time.

Government simulation games

Main article: Government simulation game

Economic simulation games

Main article: Economic simulation game

Economic simulation games are a subset of CMSs that simulate a business or some other economy. These games typically involve more management than construction. Rather than investing in physical buildings, construction can be abstract, such as purchasing stocks.

In economic simulations, players seldom interact directly with units in the game (such as citizens, subjects, or vehicles), but rather manipulate underlying conditions or foundations of the game world, which the units then react to. Thus, all effects on the populace are indirect, similar to God games.

The closest example of a 'pure' economic simulation may be Capitalism, the goal of which is to build an industrial and financial empire. Another highly ambitious business simulator is Transport Tycoon.

City-building games

Main article: City-building game

City-building game is a subgenre of CMS where players act as a city-planner or leader. Players normally looking at the city from a point-of-view high in the sky, to grow and manage a simulated city. Players are only allowed to control building placement and city management features such as salaries and work priorities, while actual building is done by game citizens who are non-playable characters.

Evolution of the subgenre

The city building game genre was established in 1989 with SimCity, which emphasized continuous building versus competing to win and "blowing stuff up". Players followed personal preferences in design and growth. Indicators of success were maintaining positive budget balance and citizen satisfaction. Subsequent SimCity titles soon followed when high sales of the game demonstrated its popularity.

The first sim game, Utopia (1982) covered many of these same elements, but the primitive screen resolutions of its era meant that it displayed two islands because the detail necessary to show cities was not possible. Unlike the thousands of individual spaces possible a few years later in SimCity, each island held approximately 16 "buildable" spaces for schools, factories, etc. The players' score was based on the well-being of their people.

A second boost in genre popularity came in 1993 with the publishing of Caesar, which modeled cities in ancient Rome, replacing electricity and mass transit with aqueducts and roads. Subsequent titles in the City Building Series followed, all modeling cities in past civilizations.

Also in 1993 the Dungeons & Dragons PC game Stronghold appeared, which was advertised as "SimCity meets D&D in 3D." Elves, humans and dwarves each built neighborhoods with unique architecture within the player's town. The title also had elements of real-time strategy games when enemies attacked the city, and the line between city-building and RTS games has often been blurred with this kind of hybrid title. True 3D graphics were not yet possible in 1993, and the advertised 3D was actually a clever use of 2D graphics with mathematically-generated terrain and overlaid bitmaps and sprites.