Perhaps the best ever city transit simulator
For me, this was THE game of 2011. I bought it new, back then, and did not regret it for one moment.
This is transport management. You cannot control how the city grows, but scripted events will cause "future expansion". There are enough game-playing tips on forums to sort out almost any challenge you come across, and believe me, there are quite a few serious conundrums that most players won't even notice.
The challenge is simple. The people live somewhere. The want to go to work, and they want to have fun. So, your transport systems need to CONNECT homes to workplaces, and homes to retail, and homes to recreation. Running a bus route around the suburbs, will not attract passengers. Because, if your transport network can't get them from A to B, they won't use it.
It is easy to go bankrupt. But once you get the basics, it is hard to not succeed. The level of profit might vary, but you should be successful, if you get the basics right.
Spoiler tip: the inbuilt railway stations are MAJOR sources of passengers. If you're struggling to make money, connect a train station to almost anywhere, and you'll be fine.
Mostly, you'll be using buses and trams. And metros. I LOVE the metros, and you can build them above ground, too. (Might need the USA cities expansion for that - not certain, but you really should buy the expansion Collection - the extra cities add SO much extra play, you'd be mad to not buy it)
There are water buses too. And helicopters. And an achievement for making a passenger use EVERY ONE of the available types of transit, for one journey.
Line building, and stop organising, is some of the simplest and best I've seen. Create new lines, modify them by adding stops in the middle, or copying the route and then splitting it halfway. It has the most straightforward way of handling lines and stops, although (as is true for most of these games) it might take you a little while to get familiar with it. And with all of the "information" tools and overlays.
Make no mistake, this is about organising routes, and frequencies, and keeping an eye on profit margins and congestion. Buses stuck in traffic jams? The people will give up waiting at the stops and walk. If you lay out the routes badly, looping around, your own vehicles can cause the traffic jam, as they get stuck behind each other. If you ever wanted to know if you have enough sense to be a traffic planner, this game will tell you. If you want to play with a trainset, go elsewhere. Despite this game have trains and train stations, and airports, you CANNOT build them. The transit system is that "within" a major city, not "between cities".
There is also some serious modding already available. Vehicle stats changed, eras when certain vehicles appear changed, etc etc. Bear in mind, though, that the "numbers" used by the game are somewhat meaningless. They are balanced and work well as released, but make little sense for "realism". So if you mod because a ten seater bus should carry 20, you might seriously wreck the game balance.
You might also see LOTS of complaints about framerates. It isn't graphically difficult, though, it's the game engine that is struggling to calculate the actions of ALL of the individual sims. What Simcity V was supposed to do with glassbox, CiM actually does. And it proves how intensive that effort is. Just run the game at high speed between builds, and slow it (or pause) to build and adjust without sluggish framerates.
The original game was released with very few bugs. I have no idea how "sorted" the GOG version is, but I'm really glad to see it here. Because. CIM2 was sent steam-only by Paradox, and I missed it because of that.
Fingers crossed GOG is finally winning the DRM free battle....
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