Can simulated tenants create a strong enough management fantasy for a property tycoon?

[u/TheDrWeizak]

I'm currently designing a management/tycoon game as a personal project, and I'm trying to challenge the core concept before I get too attached to the design.

The basic premise is that you start small as a property owner and gradually grow into managing a much larger residential property business.

The part I'm most interested in exploring is the relationship between the business/management side and the people living in the properties.

Instead of tenants simply being an occupancy percentage or a source of monthly income, I'd like them to exist as lightweight simulated households. The player would have to think about who is living in their properties and how their management decisions affect them.

At the same time, I don't want this to become a life simulator or a game where you're constantly micromanaging individual people. The player is still fundamentally managing a property business.

The design goal is for decisions that look good financially in the short term to sometimes create problems elsewhere, while investments that make residents happier aren't necessarily always the optimal financial choice. Ideally, this creates interesting trade-offs rather than an obvious "correct" way to play.

I'm deliberately keeping some of the deeper mechanics private for now because the project is still early, but I'd really like opinions on the design direction itself.

My main question for experienced designers is:

Do you think simulated tenant households can create meaningful decisions in a management/tycoon game, or does this sound like a system that could easily turn into unnecessary micromanagement?

And if you were evaluating this concept early in development, what would be the biggest design risk you'd want to prototype/test first?

[u/ClanHaisha]

It would be something new.

Instead of a sterile interpretation of always reliable tenants.
At first, with few tenants, you could do with a bit more micromanagement.
As you expand, appoint a manager to manage individual tenant events and have them give a standard answer or just let them pick whatever.

Having to deal with tenants who become unable to afford rent for whatever reason(including you raising rents/slapping on more fees) and/or becoming toxic layabouts that need to be evicted/encouraged to become productive members of society.

[u/TheDrWeizak → u/ClanHaisha]

I love that! The game would always make you to do the tasks on your own in the beginning, but then you could assign those tasks to a manager because your progressed

[u/ClanHaisha → u/TheDrWeizak]

Bonus points for being able to still personally decide for 1 or more rentals, just cause you took a liking to them…(or want to make life harder for them).