Trying to find the game for me

[+Guest RoseRodent]

I'm hoping that you can help me out here. I know everyone has their preferences for different games but I hope that there is enough variety here to maybe find me what I am looking for. I've been trying to find proper play by play information about different city sim games, but without demos it's really tricky, most screenshots and stuff are "Look at this lovely pretty city".

I'm looking for a game to replace the Facebook game Cityville. I like that style of game, but I cannot bear the need to collect all sorts of virtual items from "friends" in order to progress the game, I want to just be able to earn my upgrades by my own gameplay.

But I am finding little luck with the main games that you can buy as I want to micro-manage my city. I want to place individual houses house by house and choose specific businesses and where exactly I want to put them. I don't like the ones where you just draw a massive square and wait for the game to fill it in with randomised houses.

It doesn't need to be free, I'm happy to invest in a game but it does need to be one that you buy outright and then it's yours, not one on a Facebook-style pattern where you buy a pass to the next round of building and then you will probably have to pay for it again.

Is there a game of that sort out there? Or is there an easy way to change the major players to be micro-managed so that you can not only build something that is cosmetically a specific landmark but which has different functions and profitability characteristics depending on what it is?

Hopefully you guys have played a wide variety of games and would know what sort of thing sounds like my cup of tea, as I'm having no luck with my searching.

Thanks.