best tycoon/ business management games?

Jimi_Shuffler

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 26, 2009
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I really love tycoon/business management games and I am itching to find something to play.

I do have quite a few of them already, I know a bunch of tycoons were made already. and it would be awesome to hear what you guys would recommend, regardless of how old/new the game is.

I have/ tried out:
  • skate park tycoon
  • simcity
  • cities XL
  • game dev tycoon
  • (almost all kairosoft games on android)
  • railroad tycoon
  • game tycoon
  • mud tv
  • the movies
  • sim golf (it was funny pissing off the golfers with difficult courses! :D)
  • rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 3
  • sim theme park
  • ski resort tycoon
  • theme hospital
  • game biz 2
  • school tycoon
  • new york city tycoon
  • rock tour tycoon
  • rock band tycoon
  • oil tycoon
  • cinema empire
  • mall tycoon

I guess I forgot more XD till I saw them as replies.

X3
Evil Genius
Ghost Master
 
Last edited:
I really love tycoon/business management games and I am itching to find something to play.

I do have quite a few of them already, I know a bunch of tycoons were made already. and it would be awesome to hear what you guys would recommend, regardless of how old/new the game is.

I have/ tried out:
  • skate park tycoon
  • simcity
  • cities XL
  • game dev tycoon
  • (almost all kairosoft games on android)
  • railroad tycoon
  • game tycoon
  • mud tv
  • the movies
  • sim golf (it was funny pissing off the golfers with difficult courses! :D)
  • rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 3
  • sim theme park
  • ski resort tycoon
  • theme hospital
  • game biz 2
  • school tycoon
  • new york city tycoon
  • rock tour tycoon
  • rock band tycoon
  • oil tycoon
  • cinema empire

Totally agree ... of that list which few did you like the best?
 
I tried the demo for it a few days ago! I don't mind the graphics, but I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.
 
Theme Hospital is still my all time favorite.

"Wages of War: The Business of Battle" is in a way a tycoon game, or at the very least, a turn based strategy with a tycoon side. I really loved playing that game when it first came out.
 
Some of the games you mention are great. I've yet to play a tycoon game that beats RCT though.

I really liked Entrepreneur from Stardock back in the day. I never tried the sequel The Corporate Machine though.
 
Zoo Tycoon conspicuously absent from that list.

I think it's a fantastic game. That said, I'm a seven year old girl.
 
Give the X series a whirl. They're often touted as a space sims, but the economic, business, building, and trading aspects are well developed. It'll be a fresh perspective if nothing else. There's playable demos of X2 and X3:Reunion.
 
I own a few of the X games as well!
Just jammed some the movies, I forgot how much options they gave when editing scenes! man oh man!
 
Give the X series a whirl. They're often touted as a space sims, but the economic, business, building, and trading aspects are well developed. It'll be a fresh perspective if nothing else. There's playable demos of X2 and X3:Reunion.

Eww. X2 was fun (aside from one rather horrible mission) but with X3 they went rather off the rails. Went to the stupid not possible stuff way early.

one I haven't seen mentioned yet is the Tropico games.
 
Eww. X2 was fun (aside from one rather horrible mission) but with X3 they went rather off the rails. Went to the stupid not possible stuff way early.

one I haven't seen mentioned yet is the Tropico games.

Heh. I'd generally shrug my shoulders at the missions and wander off to explore and build my own little empire. Eventually I'd remember the plot and turn back up with an oversized armada at my command and just powerhouse through.
 
Heh. I'd generally shrug my shoulders at the missions and wander off to explore and build my own little empire. Eventually I'd remember the plot and turn back up with an oversized armada at my command and just powerhouse through.

except as I recall you get stuck with a certian kind of ship and are expected to win a basically impossible race.

In X2 I rather did that though. got a nice trading empire running and sorta cruised through a lot of the missions in a capitol ship. Fly around and shoot at things? posh.. fly in and let the turrets take care of it! Bonus points for flying in, parking the big gun and then taking the small fighter out :)
 
While it is debateable if it could be called a management game, I think Ghost Master offered similar style gameplay and feel to a business sim. You'd assign ghosts to scare people to generate Ectoplasm and stuff. It was a really good idea.

Also, Evil Genius counts as a business sim.
 
I forgot all about evil genius, I loved that game!
The only thing about prison architect is, it's pricey for me right now.
 
I am surprised no one mentioned EVE Online yet.
If you want to compete in business with actual humans rather than predictably stupid AI then EVE Online is a must have. They have decent API support to get financial data out of the game. The only thing is that it's pretty tedious to work the small trades you inevitably have to do when you start out as the market interface remains meh.

re: Prison Tycoon
Will by when it's $4.99, charging what they are charging for an alpha is unconscionable.
 
railroad tycoon 2 was awesome but left too much open like being able to sell items even if a stop didn't need it, RRT 3 solved that though
 
eve online is really awesome, lots of things to do in that game. I reactivated my sub twice. I still have one plex left somewhere. Just takes too much time off my hands and none of my friends play it either.
 
I'll throw in a mention for Europa 1400: The Guild. I had a lot of fun with this game, though I'll confess that I mostly played a thief. Running my own guildhouse of thieves and setting up robberies, pickpocketing endeavors, raids on the city watch or other hostile criminal elements, and so on was a lot of fun. Using the revenue from that as a launchpad to break into legitimate business and politics to further expand and exploit was intriguing as well. There were quite a few other businesses and professions I never got around to trying. Might have to load the game back up someday...
 
I have tropic and tropico 3! Sins is great, I have the original all expansions and also rebellion. I rage quit after 3 of my capital ships (ranging from level 1 through 3) and a bunch of my smaller vessels got wiped out by a titan. -_________-

for football manager, I know there is cycling manager and soccer manager as well, which in anyone's experience is the more customizeable one? I think I saw some pics where you were able to even pick out what stadium food to serve?!?!? or maybe that was madden or something, I can't quite remember.
 
There is Port Royale. There are 3 of them but I played 2 and it is considered the best of the series. You play as a 17th century sea merchant sailing around the Caribbean trading goods like rum and sugar. Gamespot gave it a 8.3 and the user reviews give it 8s. Actually I only played the demo and this thread got me thinking about getting the full game. It's on Steam but looks like they took it off sale because it has problems running on Win 7. Too bad, I must have played the demo on XP.
 
railroad tycoon 2 was awesome but left too much open like being able to sell items even if a stop didn't need it, RRT 3 solved that though

Just dug out Sid Meyer's Railroads from deep in the computer closet. I forgot how much fun it was, so installing it now. :)
 
railroad tycoon 2 was awesome but left too much open like being able to sell items even if a stop didn't need it, RRT 3 solved that though

That's a due to the difficulty settings - you can set it so stations don't buy anything they don't demand, just like you can set the stock market to allow you to purchase businesses that you supply to REALLY roll the cash in. I love starting a company by running trains between a grain silo, two towns with bakeries, and delivering grain/food all around - buy the businesses as soon as you can afford to, and the money just start rolling in. Then go fancy, take the grain to a cattle farm, cattle to a meat packing plant, food to a town..

I play RRT2 monthly :p

Also, OP, I cant really recommend anything you haven't tried - I still play and LOVE Railroad Tycoon 2 and Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.

I suppose you can try Airline Tycoon 2 if nobody mentioned it, it's pretty fun, and gives a lot of the feeling the first one did. Airline, not Airport - Airport Tycoon 2 sucks ass, and I would never recommend that horrid game to anyone. Airport Tycoon (The original if you can find it) is really fun, especially surprising since it was a super budget game back when - take2interactive I think, at least, they had an airline in the game after them, and I think it was $10/20 on release.. You can do everything from layout of the terminals to the runways/taxiways and external hotels and gas stations.
 
Has anyone tried the Capitalism games? I saw them on sale on GoG and was tempted, but I have never played either.
 
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