Sometimes I like to play as culture or science focused civilizations. Playing civilization focused on conquest feels a bit like a chore sometimes.
I was also a big fan of Sim City too. However, there's another game called
Cities: Skylines which is much better than Sim City though. A Finnish software developing company built it out of an actual traffic simulator that professionals use for city planning. It's very immersive, and is geared more towards being a complex city building simulator. The graphics are very good; they're photo realistic. There's also an insane amount of detail; you can rename streets, create districts, look a the needs of individual businesses. As time goes on, more services are needed. You have to balance congestion on the roads. For example, the city my have a garbage problem, so you create trash pick up services; but then you have to consider the impact it will have on traffic. You can enact different laws and tax rates in different areas. Change funding even according to the time the day; police could be more active at night, than in the day time. There's a tremendous amount of content.
You can even click on individual citizens, and find out where they work, where they live, their age, their name, their education, etc. They even have a lifespan.
There's actually been a lot more content added to the game through DLC. Plus, there's tons mods that can even replace cars and business signs, into real world version.
I hope that eventually some company could develop a game similar to Civilization, that could be this complex. Maybe not as detailed as clicking on individual citizens, though. I guess it was be more of a simulator than a strategy game though. Nevertheless, I like that kind of sandbox game design.