I always thought city builders are a weird mix of sort of free market / authoritarian beliefs:
In most city builder games involve some planning, incentives provided, and people just show up, do their thing, growth is endless, build a business, and there you go.
On the other hand in most city builders the player makes all the decisions and can act at will with no regard to his local citizens ;)
Can you imagine a real mayor simulator, where you'd have to get elected and answer to the city council and constituents? I expect most would find that boring, but it might be a fun (or at least educational) experience for some.
One of the biggest problems with playing as the USA in Hearts of Iron is that you need to actually convince your Democracy / citizens that its worthwhile to go to war. And unless you click the "Crisis of Democracy" button (aka: turn yourself into a dictatorship), you don't actually have full control over the policies of your country.
Which is why its more fun to play as Germany / Hitler (where the button was already pressed before the game started). But playing as the USA (where you have to build support and convert the peacetime economy into a military economy in time for the war) is a big challenge... a "hard mode" for those who have already mastered the military portions of the game.
I think HOI problem (more familiar with 4) is that it feels much more half baked. US Congress is mostly click a few event popups, click a few policy stuff in a menu and see the congress members just flip. It's more shoehorning it into the HOI system.
I think you could make the process fun, but in paradox style games where you need to generalise a system to fit everywhere in the world, it can fall flat.
I feel like most events in HOI in general are just... popup windows.
You need a very active imagination to piece together those popups into a cohesive story. HOI is a pretty abstract game, but a lot of simulation stuff is going on under the interface.
The map is realtime, so you can see your troops movement. But otherwise, its got a very "newspaper" like feel to events. If something happens, its reported as a popup window.
Tropico has one of the funniest "speech generators" ever.
* Praise a faction (ex: Religious, Academic, Military)
* Chastise a faction
* Praise a superpower
* Acknowledge an issue.
* Make a promise
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For example:
* Praise the Military
* Blame the Religious
* Praise the USA
* Acknowledge housing is a problem.
* Promise better housing.
Then the voice actor comes out and says the lines associated with your selection. Paraphrasing:
My people of Tropico! I wish to congratulate the Military for their outstanding service. But the Religious among us are holding us back from progress. The USA has given us a great amount of aid and we thank them for it. Our growth has caused a lack of housing in some areas. If you elect me again, I promise to fix our housing problem.
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EDIT: The speech has a big effect on the election.
Every faction has a rival faction. Praising the Military pisses off the liberals. Blaming the Religious encourages the Academics. Praising the USA pisses off your communists, but pleases your capitalists.
Acknowledging a problem lowers a citizen's "needs penalty" in the election. (If everyone's housing score is low, then acknowledging the problem reduces their penalty with regards to the election/vote).
Promising to fix a problem is even stronger than acknowledging a problem, but has repercussions in the next election. You need to have had substantial progress in 10 years otherwise the people will remember.
I realize you're joking, but it should be noted that Tropico is constantly breaking the immersion on purpose.
The only score that's saved in your high-score list is the size of your Swiss Bank account. A citizen's car is always located in the nearest parking garage. When you need your first college educated citizen (College Professors must be college-educated), the easiest way to get one is to command your Pirates to "rescue" a bunch of college-educated folk from international waters.
Then again, maybe the size of Swiss Bank accounts is really all that matters for most island-nation leaders and the best measurement of success :-) I do think that the game's sense of humor is among the best attributes... seeing what parts of the game the designers decided to be "realistic" vs "cartoony" is almost the fun of it all.
Last night, I was musing over the notion of a zoning board of appeals, where some percentage of your decisions are overridden or just plain tied up for years, and the city ends up looking like a patchwork.
In most city builder games involve some planning, incentives provided, and people just show up, do their thing, growth is endless, build a business, and there you go.
On the other hand in most city builders the player makes all the decisions and can act at will with no regard to his local citizens ;)