+1 as well, if you can get it running stably. For some reason it seems to hate nVidia GPUs.

Caesar 2 is a good one to play. Simcity 2k and Metropolis are great. OpenTTD is wonderful and free. I like Sid Meier's Railroads. I haven't played it much, but you can also get Railroad Tycoon free.

With MechWarrior 3 being the better "simulator" (i.e. it simulates running around in a huge mech a bit better than 4), it is a darn pain to get to run on modern systems. MW4 is a bit more accessible, and the final (standalone) expansion is free.
There is also a mod for crysis that does a decent enough job at simulating piloting a big mech. It can be found here.

Still Life is by the way really good. Sadly not much of a simulator, but still worth playing.


*edit* Come to think of it, hacker evolution does a good job at simulating movie style hacking, and it is quite fun.

Most of mine have already been mentioned.

OpenTTD is good.

Orbiter is probably the best simulator in the universe, the sense of achievement when you finally get a shuttle docked with the ISS is amazing. Sim city 4 is fabulous too, its the only game that is a permanent install on my computer.

Ceasar III has been mentioned a few times, I prefer Pharaoh, but it may be because I'm more and Egypt person then a Rome person.

My favorite business sim is Industry Giant 2, but I don't know whether it works with win7 because it claims it doesn't like my graphics card on this machine.

Incidentally I really wouldn't class Art of Murder as a detective game, the series is weirdly split a few are hidden object games an some are straight point and click adventures and pretty poor ones at that. (some of the puzzles are really infuriatingly illogical, in FBI Confidential, for example there is one inventory puzzle that you know how to do and have all the stuff to do, but you have to do it in a very specific location.) Some of the cut scenes don't make any sense possibly because of the poor translation.

My favorite from GOG is F18E, its a solid military flight sim with challenging missions. I've still got my CD version.

Second the rec for Patrician 3 as an economic simulator. It's a very good trading/city-ruler game.

are those submarine simulators any good?

Silent Hunter is good series

I have this (and the fourth, too) but can't play it. Somehow my antivirus keeps insisting that patrician 3 has a trojan and proudly deletes it. Every time. No matter whether or not its in the exceptions list, it deletes it. Maybe not instantly, but surely after a brief moment.

That is hilarious, yet troubling. It's really quite interesting that the antivirus doesn't listen to the exception list. That suggests that it might not be an actual antivirus. What are you running?

If you have the GOG version of the game, it may be the GOG treatment making the game work on later systems. The GOG treatment can involve exe editing, which is exactly what trojans do. Your antivirus is picking up on the method and deleting it without regard for the content or context - kind of like SOPA, actually. ;)

Edited to add: Not one person has mentioned Dwarf Fortress? For shame! it's a world-building simulator. Or a mining simulator. Or a fantasy game (sometimes, depending on who you ask). Or a management/city-building simulator (for a very specific kind of city). In all of it's aspects it's a great deal of fun, and very complex. Here's the easiest way to play it: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

Ship Simulator Extreme

I heard nothing but bad stuff about the latest Silent Hunter.

Agreed. Some of the puzzles are utterly retarded, but if you can cope with them and focus on the story and the way it unfolds, you've got yourself a great adventure game. I especially like the way you hop between the two protagonists' stories; it keeps things interesting without interfering in any way.

In addition to SIlent Hunter (which I haven't played), try Defcon or Harpoon if you prefer simulation from a higher-up's (president, general, whatever) perspective.

For submarine, i think Dangerous Waters is pretty good and underrated, overshadowed by Silent Hunter franchise.
Though, the game is not limited to submarine only. It's naval simulator, so you can control submarine, surface ship and aircraft.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/1600/?snr=1_7_suggest__13

Is it walltype.dll?

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/patrician/virus_infection_false_positive

EDIT: I see that it is and that you already posted in that thread. :) Have you tried contacting GOG support directly and/or the maker of your AV program?

SIlent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific is the best of the bunch IMO. However you do spend a lot of time doing nothing, just travelling to your destination and due to the air limitations you spend most of this travelling on the surface. Your sub is also incredibly vulnerable (which isn't beyond reality) and the early missions can be really difficult until you get used to your sub's capabilities and the game mechanics. It's nowhere near as easy as just sneaking up and popping off a few torpedoes.... you have enemy air patrols that can spot you down to a certain depth (& the bottom isn't always beyond that depth, though you can opt to shoot at them instead which can cause more problems), submarine destroyers that have quite a wide sonar range & very lethal depth charges. When you do have a torpedo lined up and you've set the timer on it, you still have to wait precious moments in hostile territory to see if it hits it's mark and even then you have to hang around to see if it was sufficient to sink the ship or if you need more (they take a while to sink.) It's satisfying when you finally pull a mission off though. The graphics still hold up pretty well too. So if that sounds like fun to you then give it a go... the realism is scalable.


Edit. As for Patrician 3 have you tried adding it to your antivirus's ignore list? I don't know which one you're using but most have an ignore list hidden somewhere in the bowels of them. If you google it you should be able to have it ignore Patrician 3's folder entirely.

Silent Hunter 2 was really good, at least for its time, but that & Silent Service are the only two sub-sims that I've played. Silent Hunter 3-4 are supposed to be better (according to submarine simulator fans that I've talked to), and Silent Hunter 5 is, according to the same fans, an unfinished and unpolished mess. Silly things, like the crew still walking around, as if nothing has happened on a sinking ship, while it is under water, is supposed to be a real immersion breaker, and the game is apparently very buggy in general. Also, it has the "lovely" Ubisoft "always online" DRM.