[ehnto]

The best simulation games are those that have done a good job at giving your systems a purpose that requires using what you have built. One such game is Factorio. It's a logistics and manufacturing simluation at it's core, but they gave a half decent attempt at making a story and antagonist that makes your factory have a purpose outside of just building the factory.

Another great example is Stormworks: Search and Rescue. There's no shortage of lego-like vehicle building games, but Stormworks gives you the purpose of completing various search and rescue missions with your vehicles. From that, you suddenly have practical reasons to build things certain ways. I can build a boat in a few different games, but only in Stormworks would I need to build a boat that can extract a piece of mining equipment from the sea floor and have provisions for delivering it onto a wharf.