Yeah, I think when making a game, in general, fun is the first thing to consider. All these games are lumped into the article as "city builders", but Age of Empires and Sim City are completely different genres, just as one example.

I expect an RTS game like Age of Empires to be balanced for competitiveness rather than realism.

Sim City 2000 at least markets itself as a simulation game, which I'd expect to be more realistic in terms of city building. For better or worse, though, the simulation seems rather simplistic, which could lead to unrealistic city designs or confusion around why the Sims don't want to drive over the fancy highway bridge I just spent $5000 on...