&gt; It&#x27;s hard to play a game that approximates reality enough that instruction manuals aren&#x27;t provided, but differs just slightly enough to foil expectations.<p>Agreed.  For instance, it takes a while to find out that the &quot;right&quot; way to build a successful city <i>in SimCity</i> (and not necessarily in reality) is to never build a single tile of roadway, and instead construct an exclusively rail-based grid.<p>On the other hand, some of its city planning lessons work very well: for instance, interleave residential and commercial every other 9x9 block (3x3 set of 3x3 zones, with a non-RCI zone in the middle), rather than separating residential and commercial, to avoid creating huge commutes.  (Meanwhile, keep industrial far away from everything so it doesn&#x27;t bother anyone.)