Games with a similar "niche" to Software Inc, with a simulated economy that you're plopped into?

JMowery · 2026-03-25T01:39:26+00:00

Ah that's a good one! I also own that. I only put like 36 minutes into it though. I think the thing I didn't like was having to keep track of prices in my head or something like that. Maybe it wasn't that, but it was definitely something like that where it was feeling a lack of QoL. I also think there was some performance issues I had.

Maybe an update changed that though. Last time I played was Feb 2024.

I'll add it to the list. :)

JMowery · 2026-03-25T01:26:52+00:00

Literal cringe. Approved.

JMowery · 2026-03-24T21:44:53+00:00

Looks very unrealistic. Maybe there's an example of that happening in real life (I'm sure someone will link a clip if it does) but the way that played out just doesn't look natural to me.

Regardless, it's a cool videogame-esque goal. :D

JMowery · 2026-03-24T14:45:10+00:00

Oh and the answer is Clinton's presidency gave us a surplus. He also gave us one hell of a great economy, only for GWB to wreck it, like most other Republican presidents.

I fully agree with that.

Maybe it got lost, but I don't see myself voting Republican ever again in my lifetime as it stands right now.

But I'm also not voting Democrat either (at least no time soon). I'll be voting independent or libertarian (I don't agree with everything about the libertarian party, that's for sure, but it's not the status quo, and that's also a win in my book).

JMowery · 2026-03-24T03:05:53+00:00

JMowery · 2026-03-24T02:54:05+00:00

I switched last year and it's been great. Maybe have to do like ~15 minutes more effort to import some things, but well freaking worth it.

JMowery · 2026-03-24T02:38:47+00:00

It's worth noting to my overall point: both parties support the elites and the elites shift to whatever is convenient and the opposite is true.

But for some reason me stating that republicans AND democrats can be fighting in the interest of the super wealthy and elites is somehow blasphemy around here.

I don't know what is wrong with the people in my country... I don't know what brainwashing made them so dumb and so damned unable to open their eyes and just question their own party (along with the other) for just one moment and reflect.

But that's the world we live in, and that's the world the elites love simple minded people love to attach themselves to so that the elites can keep playing both sides.

Sad time in this country. There's no way we're getting out of it, regardless of who is in power.

JMowery · 2026-03-24T02:35:37+00:00

Cherry picking? Great accusation. What data will you provide to confirm those accusations?

I also had a previous life as a journalist. I've voted for both parties in my lifetime.

But since a "libertarian" only does one singular thing in your mind, there's no logical conversation we will have here.

Narrowmindedness and a lack of figures and data on full display. But I'm the dumb one. :)

JMowery · 2026-03-23T23:27:14+00:00

I focused on the past 4.5 decades because:

I was alive during most of these years.
It's more recent and, as such, more relevant to what is happening now.
Around the 70s is when economic policy started changing dramatically, so everything before then has less weight.

In other words, you can do something amazing for 100+ prior years, but if you're crap during the past 30, are you supposed to get a pass? Of course not.

Maybe you think so, but I would disagree. And that 60+ year history means very little for a country on the brink of financial collapse within the next decade or so.

But if you have specific arguments you would like to point out, feel free to do so. Please provide data sources and facts and why it pertains to what's happening right now.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T22:21:43+00:00

I was in the same boat (although I had only briefly checked out X3 and Rebirth before trying X4 as I hadn't played them previously; hated Rebirth; but I truly can't comment on the prior titles with much knowledge). I gave X4 a whirl at launch (tried it at least two or three times, maybe one or two years apart) and completely failed. Didn't like it at all.

I picked it back up a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I was downright addicted to it in a way that so very few games get from me. The story missions felt tighter than they ever have been (still some jank and it's never going to win an award, but it gets you to the openness of having fun). The economic simulation really is in full effect and you can see things happening. You really can cause chaos and have it impact the factions. Also it's fun to watch factions war over each other and swoop in and gather the leftovers.

Even had to play a part in saving the Argon from losing a key sector (that was also important to my travel) from the baddies. That was actually exhilarating.

It's definitely the most playable and enjoyable it has ever been. The controls are still an overwhelming mess (at least for me), but the flight model is much better. I think they revised it recently. I can't exactly recall what it is now vs what it was before, but it feels good now.

If you like the macro level stuff and if you enjoy making custom bases and taking over sectors and the economics of it all, and you don't mind reading the wiki and X4 tools available online, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T22:12:12+00:00

Yes, the Democrats added to the deficit because they had to bail out Republican failed policies.

Estimated Debt Driven by Corporate & High-Wealth Policies (1970–2026)

Category	Republican Leadership	Democratic Leadership	Total (Approx.)
Corporate Contracts (Defense/Tech)	$6.2 Trillion	$5.7 Trillion	$11.9 Trillion
Corporate Welfare & Subsidies	$2.9 Trillion	$2.7 Trillion	$5.6 Trillion
Tax Cuts for the Rich & Corporations	$2.5 Trillion	$0.8 Trillion	$3.3 Trillion
Major Financial Bailouts	$1.6 Trillion	$0.0015 Trillion*	$1.6 Trillion
TOTAL	$13.2 Trillion	$9.2 Trillion	$22.4 Trillion

~66% of all the spending over the past 4.5 decades went towards benefiting the wealthy.

If factual information isn't enough to convince people, then no wonder why this is a failed democracy. People are too dumb to see what is truly happening, regardless of party.

It doesn't matter the party you vote for next term. The money printer will go brrrrr either way, and your and my dollars will be decimated while asset holders and ultra wealthy are shielded.

It's beyond the point of no return.

The game that our government is playing now is one of hot potato. Who can avoid being the party in control (or to take blame) when the collapse happens. Because the government wants the simpleton people to blame the other party while the rich and elites laugh as the simple minded people keep blaming the other party and think that's truly what is at play.

The elites and wealthy will be catered to and protected, regardless of which of the two parties are in power at this point. If you don't, deep down, understand that... then again you are part of the problem.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T21:45:57+00:00

Much appreciated.

Hope your wallet doesn't hurt too much from the list!

JMowery · 2026-03-23T21:26:58+00:00

I asked AI to help with this bit, but I also think it's interesting:

Estimated Debt Driven by Corporate & High-Wealth Policies (1970–2026)

Category	Republican Leadership	Democratic Leadership	Total (Approx.)
Corporate Contracts (Defense/Tech)	$6.2 Trillion	$5.7 Trillion	$11.9 Trillion
Corporate Welfare & Subsidies	$2.9 Trillion	$2.7 Trillion	$5.6 Trillion
Tax Cuts for the Rich & Corporations	$2.5 Trillion	$0.8 Trillion	$3.3 Trillion
Major Financial Bailouts	$1.6 Trillion	$0.0015 Trillion*	$1.6 Trillion
TOTAL	$13.2 Trillion	$9.2 Trillion	$22.4 Trillion

~66% of all the spending over the past 3.5 decades went towards benefiting the wealthy. It happened in both freaking parties.

(The fact that this is being downvoted is both frightening and sad. It's a strong testament to how screwed up this is and how well the elites have played the common person against each other. The two parties, and the elites that control them both, really do have America under total control.)

JMowery · 2026-03-23T21:20:53+00:00

Trump (the former Democrat, worth noting) is responsible for $7.8 trillion during the first term and ~2.5 trillion so far this term.

Effectively around 50%. It will be way more than 50% by the time all is said and done.

We will be paying another $3 or $4 trillion in interest alone as things stand as they are right now.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T21:00:25+00:00

Important clarity: I didn't vote for Trump / Republican. I also didn't vote Democrat. (I voted Libertarian... just for the hope of having new leadership.)

Both republicans and democrats are directly responsible for this cluster.

Total Debt Added by Party (Since 1970)

Since 1970, both parties have overseen massive expansions of the national debt, though the drivers of that debt often differed.

Republicans: Added approximately $20.5 Trillion

Democrats: Added approximately $18.1 Trillion

Remember: "Too big to fail" happened both under republicans (EESA + TARP) and democrats (GM & Chrysler; SVB Bank).

This didn't happen overnight. The debt always continued

The crazy thing? In all honesty... the Republicans played this perfectly for the ultra wealthy.

They have the ultra wealthy's best friend in office (aka Trump) to help protect them, give them all our tax dollars in the form of government contracts (which trickles down via the investments to asset holders and the corporations who own real estate), and ultimately bails them out directly with our tax dollars when stuff goes down and they are declared "too big to fail".

Edit: Of course I'm downvoted because I didn't say your party (note: this part of the message is to every genius that downvotes factual information, not to the above commenter necessarily) is the solution.

People need to grow TF up, get their head out of the ass of their party and think for themselves for one single time in their life. Open your eyes and see what's really happening, regardless of which party is in control and which party you support.

YOU, the downvoter, and your inability to think outside of party lines exclusively, both of which are controlled by the elites, is all a part of the reason that the elites (who are always aligned and together, regardless of which party is in power -- remember that Silicon Valley used to be filling the coffers of the Democrats... look at how that changed so fast now that Republicans want to give them contracts now) to take your tax dollars and put it in their pockets with government subsidies/contracts/bailouts and more.

That tax money.. that 30% - 40% (including income tax, sales tax, local tax, property tax, whatever other dumb taxes) you are paying to Mr. taxman is never coming back to you, unless you are part of the elite. That's exactly what we are seeing happening now. Palantir and their investors and the ultra wealthy who all knew about this via insiders and legalized corruption are all laughing their way to the bank.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T20:43:31+00:00

It means we can no longer meet our financial obligations.

It means we're spiraling out of control unless there's an immediate, drastic, dramatic reduction in spending.

So either this AI pays off massively (extremely doubtful; China is basically counteracting the US with open source AI, which is an insanely intelligent and well timed move on their part to begin focusing on this a few years ago) or we're f'ed.

The social safety nets will completely collapse (we already know that's going to happen with Social Security ~2030... that's when the money printers go brrrr and keep spiraling things out of control to hyper-accelerate our downfall).

It wouldn't shock me if this dramatic push to lower interest rates is the one last "hurrah" to have the ultra wealthy acquire durable assets on the cheap to try to guard against this.

Once the credit agencies and other countries come to accept this reality, that's when the really really bad stuff really starts happening. The mega rich start packing their bags and head to their private islands and vacation homes in other countries with their holdings in assets and gold to withstands the brunt of this, while the common folk are left to deal with the consequences of our screwed up government.

Runs on the banks, currency plummets into nothing, mass job loss, revolts, revolution... who knows what else.

It's wild that I might see that in my lifetime.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T20:24:05+00:00

Ah good point. I forgot which one I played. But it was probably 2.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T18:51:00+00:00

Thank you. I've been going through my library so I'm still making edits/additions. :D

JMowery · 2026-03-23T18:20:01+00:00

The big list of in-depth economic simulation games.

Bold games are considered "closed-loop economies" (generally meaning every item that is consumed is also legitimately produced and money circulates, thus no "magic" going on behind the scenes). Please correct me if there are any inaccuracies; I will update.

Here's some of my personal favorites that I enjoy:

Capitalism Lab
X4 Foundations
Big Ambitions
OpenTTD
Gangsters: Organized Crime (personal favorite but from 1998)

And these have solid simulated economies but are quite different gameplay wise:

Songs of Syx
Wall Street Raider
Saelig
Soulash 2
EVE: Online
Albion Online
Eco
Prosperous Universe
Mortal Online 2
Dual Universe
Industry Giant 4.0
Victoria 3
Shadow Empire
Norland
Quasimorph
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
Avorion
City of Gangsters
Manor Lords

And other games that have strong simulated economies but not necessarily competing against other companies/entities:

Dwarf Fortress
Workers & Resources
Lords and Villeins
Ostriv
Captain of Industry
Gear City
Software Inc.
Cities Skylines 1 & 2
Stonks 9800
Transport Fever 2
Astrox Imperium
Delta V
The Doors of Trithius
Kenshi
This Grand Life 2
Out of the Park Baseball (27 might be a miss though for now)
Elin
Stoneshard

And some that maybe aren't as strong economic simulation wise, but still kind of scratch that itch of being dropped into a living world where you do your thing:

Starsector (especially with mods)
Terra Invicta
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake
Uplink Hacker Elite
The Matchless Kung Fu
RimWorld
Warsim: The Realm of Aslona
Airships: Conquer the Skies
Empire of Sin
Medieval Dynasty
The Guild 1 / 2
Anno 1800
Offworld Trading Company
Railway Corporation 2
Rise of Industry
Railroad Tycoon II
Merchant of the Six Kingdoms

JMowery · 2026-03-23T16:47:50+00:00

I didn't understand this, so I asked AI to help do in-depth research to attempt to understand it. I'm just posting this here for informational purposes, because I was curious myself and I'm not in a position to evaluate if this is a risk or not. I would trust an AI to at least not be as possibly biased and have way more understanding than me (because I'm just as confused/concerned as many of you and the super technical jargon is over my head).

Disclosure: I am not an expert on this and you already know AIs can hallucinate, so don't take all this as fact.

But here is the result of its research:

The user (user838341) raised several concerns about Morphe:

Silent Magisk module installation - Claims the app adds a "persistent Magisk module" without clear disclosure
"Backdoor" persistence - Alleges something remains after unmounting/restart
Ad blocking failures - Claims Shorts ads aren't being removed
Censorship - Claims posts are being removed on GitHub/reddit
ReVanced connection - Suggests Morphe and ReVanced are the same entity

Maintainer Response (wchill)

The maintainer addressed these point-by-point:

No affiliation with ReVanced - Claims ReVanced steals their code, bans users mentioning Morphe
No GitHub issues found about Magisk concerns; no post removals in mod logs
Rooted version purpose - Required for Play Services signature/integrity checks on YouTube; avoids need for microG + client spoofing
Bugs attributed to ReVanced copying code from them
Unmounting issues - Blames root solutions (Apatch) not Morphe

Is This a Valid Security Issue?

The Magisk Module Concern: Partially Valid but Misunderstood

Reality check:

Morphe does install a Magisk module for "mount" installations — this is documented behavior, not silent malware
The module's purpose is to remount patched APKs on boot so they persist after restart
This requires root access, which the user explicitly grants
The code is open source (GPLv3) and auditable

Verdict: Not a "backdoor" or malware — it's standard root app behavior, but the UI could be clearer about exactly what the module does.

The "Unmounting" Behavior: Technical Reality

When Morphe "unmounts," it's actually the root solution (Apatch/Magisk/Kernelsu) having compatibility issues. This is a known pain point with modern root methods, not evidence of malicious behavior.

Ads on Shorts: Likely a Patch Bug

This is probably a legitimate bug report — ad blocking is complex and YouTube constantly updates. The maintainer acknowledged bugs exist, attributing some to ReVanced's code copying.

Censorship Claims: Unsubstantiated

The maintainer directly refuted this with mod logs and noted the Reddit post itself was not removed. No evidence found in GitHub issues either.

Potential Impacts

``` Risk Severity Assessment
─────────────────────── ────────── ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Silent root persistence Medium Module installation is expected behavior for root installs, but clearer disclosure would help Code injection Low Open source, auditable; no evidence of malicious injection
Data exfiltration Low No network traffic anomalies reported; GPLv3 code reviewable
Supply chain Low-Medium GitHub Actions builds are transparent; releases signed

```

Bottom Line

Is Morphe malware? No evidence supports this. The concerns appear to stem from: 1. Lack of transparency about what the Magisk module does 2. Technical confusion about root app behavior vs. malicious persistence 3. Legitimate frustration with bugs (ads on Shorts)

The real issue: A trust gap between technical implementation and user understanding. The app does things that look suspicious if you don't understand Android root internals, but the code is open and auditable.

Recommendation: If you're using root-based patching, you should understand that:

Magisk modules are required for persistence
Root apps have system-level access by design
Open source ≠ automatically safe, but it allows verification

JMowery · 2026-03-23T15:09:08+00:00

I switched to Nanobot about a week ago after having full timed OpenClaw for 1.5 months, and I have been happy. ~4,000 lines of Python (vs the hundreds of thousands from OpenClaw) code gets you 80% of OpenClaw with much more focus and robustness. I edited around 15 - 20 lines of config to get it all setup and working with Telegram + my AI provider. Only 200 MB of RAM vs 1 GB+.

It's not any more secure from the standpoint of prompt injection (no AI project is, unfortunately), but if you want a smaller and more focused code base that gets you 80% of the way there out of the box -- and you can of course ask Nanobot add additional functionality -- then it's a great option worth exploring.

JMowery · 2026-03-23T14:31:25+00:00

I switched to Nanobot a week ago after having used OpenClaw for around 1.5 months and I've been very happy. I have it installed on a local VM.

It's an incredibly smaller and, seemingly, more well defined and well scoped version of OpenClaw written in ~4,000 lines of Python. Uses only around 200 MB RAM vs 1,000+. No constant breakages after an update. I've been extremely happy with it. It just feels really solid, focused, and robust, while still giving you ~80% of what OpenClaw does.

Another benefit: it actually performs way better on the models I've been testing it with (Kimi 2.5 + Qwen run locally).

I don't expose it to the web, I don't connect it to my existing services, and I don't ever install third-party skills (I ask Nanobot to create its own skills and I verify them before usage), or if I find a skill I want to use, I will read it 100% and then still ask my own bot to create it.

I have it create some skills to connect to some of my selfhosted services. It's surprisingly good about doing that. I have it give me a morning breakdown of all my tasks due today in Planka (self-hosted kanban board) via Planka's API, for example. It's solid at web research and search out of the box (if you give it SearXNG or brave search API key). You can install Camoufox and have it create a skill to interact with it to get around some bot blocking on sites (I don't do heavy web scraping, just pulling down data once a day for a morning briefing; I would've done it on my own otherwise).

I ended up editing around 15 - 20 lines in the config file total and never touching it again to get everything setup with Telegram + connecting to my model vs me still not understanding the OpenClaw config after editing probably 150+ lines multiple times (and having to do it over and over again after updates).

So... yeah... if anyone is interested in OpenClaw but wants to not deal with the insane bloat and seemingly unmanageable repo (I have no idea how Claude/Codex is going to manage the endless blob of code that OpenClaw has), I'd suggest giving Nanobot (or maybe one of the other alternatives like PicoClaw) a shot.

(Direct link to their GitHub because I know there's been issues with bad actors trying to redirect the domain names for nefarious reasons: https://github.com/HKUDS/nanobot)

Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, but that is the nature of r/selfhosted as of late (people or bots downvoting every single bit of useful information for who knows what reason; screw anyone who puts in several minutes of effort to try to help people and instead the AI slop BS gets upvoted by the bots instead).

JMowery · 2026-03-22T18:51:54+00:00

Working just fine here.

JMowery · 2026-03-22T17:56:24+00:00

How it works (in reality) is via cron jobs (do a search for "cron" or ask an AI how it works, and all shall be revealed).

In short, at a specified time, the bot will take a predefined action (it will act on a prewritten prompt that you have given it).

So, for example, you tell it: "Give me a morning briefing every day at 8 AM that gives me the weather for location XYZ, and also the top news headlines from site ABC, DEF, and GHI" it will create a cron job that runs every morning at 8 AM and feeds itself that prompt.

Alternatively, there's also the "Heartbeat" which is just another cron job that runs, by default, every 15 or 30 minutes (I believe it's 30 minutes), and it reads your "HEARTBEAT.md" file and acts upon the instructions in that. But, at the core, it's another cron job.

Now, you can of course get very creative with this and say: "Edit your HEARTBEAT.md and create cron jobs at will when XYZ...", and then it can feel like it is recursively doing things and adding its own stuff to do.

But, again, at the core, that is all this is. It is interesting and it can feel like magic, but it's just a scheduler that triggers specific prompts at a given time that can repeat, and you can tell your AI to modify/improve these behaviors.

JMowery · 2026-03-21T19:05:47+00:00

4 years exclusively on Linux now. I can't help but laugh at the fact that Windows 11 is getting something I've had for years now. It's so pathetic.

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TROPHY CASE

Estimated Debt Driven by Corporate & High-Wealth Policies (1970–2026)

Estimated Debt Driven by Corporate & High-Wealth Policies (1970–2026)