OpenTTD has corruption and bribery.

https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Local%20authority#bribe-t...

Well, I recognize this is a joke. I would enjoy having a simulation where you inherit and hold poorly maintained subway system like the Boston MBTA and have to bring it back to health with all the challenges these systems face

Isn't the principal problem with the MBTA that it's been underfunded for decades and has a maintenance backlog of about a gazillion dollars? I realize it's getting better on the rolling stock front, but it sounds like the track is still a challenge despite some real efforts to address some of the problems.

I do kind of miss riding it though. For the last couple years I was living there, I got to ride the Ashmont-Mattapan trolleys as part of my commute. That was a treat. One of the last weeks before we moved to Vermont, my wife rode down to Ashmont with me and rode the trolley to Mattapan, then back to Ashmont to take the Red Line back to her office.

Under Eng it has apparently turned around in the last year or so.

I rode it a lot from 2011 to 2019, and still do though less frequently. I don't presonally feel things were ever as bac as point like to claim they were, and I'm not really sure what's been "improved" so much.

The biggest changes are that you can pay with tap to pay everywhere, which is nice, and the trains drive a lot more cautiously, which irritates me because they feel considerably slower now.

I can live with slow but consistent versus faster sometimes and late or even unavailable at other times. For a while there the Green Line only made sense for students who valued saving a few bucks at the expense of an unknown amount of time.

yeah its been surprisingly usable this year. a lot less delays and a decent amount faster

You can already play that game, just put a static picture of the system map on your screen, then click all over the place and watch nothing improve

This makes me realize simulations like this will be possible with AI at some point, and could be an interesting way for a city to hire employees

Yeah, I was expecting a gag game where you, e.g. try to build a subway but get told you don't have enough budget to do anything.

Then you have to have dinner with an influential member of the city's planning committee and promise that the residential zoned real-estate that your company currently holds will be on offer to the committee before it is publicly offered. Also that you'll stay announcements of the new platform locations until they've bought the properties.

This was my first thought when it stressed realism. Dealing with red tape, bureaucracy, zoning issues, opposition from citizens and local officials, etc.

Even without the political chaos, modeling the physical and commuter-side complexity is already a huge win