Prissi,
interesting thoughts. Of course, you are correct in stating that the ultimate goal is to produce something that is entertaining (and perhaps also informative: I, for one, think that the best simulation games are ones in which one can learn about the reality of the thing being simulated by playing the game) - the complicating factor is that what entertains some people is different to what entertains other people which is why, I suspect, that some people think that adding certain features adds complexity without merit whereas others think that those features are very desirable either in spite of or even because of the extra complexity that they add: the difference is in how entertaining that those individuals find the effects of those features.
One thing with which I do not agree about what you have written is in respect of realism: it is, I think, too simplistic simply to state that, because Simutrans is not exactly like reality in every respect, there is no value in making any aspects of the game more rather than less like reality. Realism versus entertainment is an entirely false dichotomy - up to a point, a simulation game is more entertaining the more realistic that it is. People's preferences differ, of course, as to where that point is. However, a simulation game that is more realistic is, all other things being equal, easier to learn, since one only has to know about the reality of the thing being simulated in order to play it effectively, rather than special rules that apply to the game but not the reality. If things work in the game more or less like the work in real life, players will have a pretty good idea of what will work and what will not just by thinking of the game as if it were a real-life situation, which is likely to be more familiar to the player than the game itself. Also, for many, it is likely to be more satisfying to think that they are making decisions that are successful in the game knowing that the game is realistic and therefore that those decisions, in a broad sense, would likely work in reality, too.
Freedom does indeed allow players to adapt things to their liking, although, in terms of a game, at least, freedom includes the freedom to choose to be constrained by interesting rules, requiring the player to make interesting decisions about how to succeed within those constraints. As to "micromanagement", again, it is a matter of taste to some degree - one person's micro is another's macro. The real criticism of true micromanagement that extends in most cases beyond mere preference is a game that requires a player to take a very large number of trivial (and therefore uninteresting) decisions in order to succeed and do well. The best games are those that give the players all the interesting choices, that let the player be creative and exercise intellectual problem-solving skills, and leave all the uninteresting choices (cases in which there is always a single obviously right answer, or cases in which the correct solution can simply be calculated by some fairly straightforward arithmetic - a game in which the player has to perform frequent arithmetic in order to do well is not, in my view, a fun game at all) to the computer to perform automatically.
Whilst I appreciate that the patches that I write, therefore, might not be to everybody's taste, I do not agree that they give rise (unless as an unforeseen consequence, in which case I should very much like to know about it) to any micromanagement in the sense that I describe above.
Incidentally, you didn't reply to my previous question asking about your comment on instability and resource consumption - did you mean that in respect of any of my patches? As I wrote before, if you have found any bugs or unacceptable performance hits from my patches, please let me know so that I can try to rectify the problems!
