If you manage to pull of the holy grail of fully simulating a real town, I bet it could sell as sort-of a screensaver, with very little or no playing mechanisms

If you manage to pull of the holy grail of fully simulating a real town, I bet it could sell as sort-of a screensaver, with very little or no playing mechanisms and just watching the world. Maybe allow players to build a scenario, then switch it on and watch it run. Traffic is one real-life operation done from a position of somewhat centralized planning, so maybe allow players to build bus routes or subways. Or just sell it to city planners. They are used to joylessly watching everything go awry.