It depends on what you are looking for.

SimCity deals with organization, control, planning, logic, populations as a whole, and so on.

Whereas The Sims deals with people on an individual level, relationships, family life, and so on.

I've been playing The Sims 3 for over a year now.  I used a lot of mods (modifications that adds to or alters the game, some add clothing, some change basic parts of the game itself.)

My main world is the Sim's University which by some game glitch, I was able to keep my sims in instead of their having to leave after they finished their college terms (it was original just 3 guys).  I've added a lot of new buildings and other things to the University world that were not originally part of it, like a city hall, fire station, police station :police:, a school (since the University world really wasn't set up to have children), the Stone's Throw Greenhouse, a criminal hideout (in a dense forest on a mountain side), a magic shop, a general dance club and bars, more restaurants (including a Chinese one – how can you NOT have a Chinese restaurant in a college town!), a gay hangout and bar, a lot more homes, an all gay-male fraternity (oddly some of those sims look like some very handsome male actors (thank you mods!), and Simhenge.

So in my 'Sims 3' game I have a billionaire family (The Wu Family) of 15 gay male sims living in one huge mansion (5 stories high with 5 basements and sub-basements (including their secret laboratory where simbots can be created and there is a time portal) , and a greenhouse, and a stable in a group marriage (with sub-marriages as well), 13 adults sims, 2 teenager, that includes a lot of humans (of different races), a ghost, a fairy, a warlock, a pack of werewolves (7 sims, including the two teens, and a merman), 2 dogs (gay) and also a gay purple unicorn.   :cheers:

(There is also a sub-family of The Wu's) that lives in their own home to be next to the ocean of a husband/husband mermen and their teenage son (also a merman).  Part of their house is actually over the water and they have wind towers on their property to help pay their electric bills.

Sometimes when I am not watching them, they do things on their own (they love ice cream) and, well, the merman got pregnant and I do not know which of them is the father!  :hug:

Needless to say I have reach the utter top of the red level of player difficult, but I find it all a lot of fun and I really like all the sims I created with all their different personalities (one mod allows me to give them 14+ traits instead of the usual 5) and seeing how they interact with each other.   :love:

The one downside of all this is it takes literally an hour for the game to load and 15-20 minutes to save a game.  sigh  I read books while that is happening.    ;D

So, I personally would suggest The Sims.    :blink:

. . .

OMG cool

i never get that far, i love the sims but i really mostly play at Create-a-Sim xD but a lot of Custom Content. Most of my playtime used to be spent on forums and blogs and sites of CC instead of actually playing. LOL

SimCity deals with organization, control, planning, logic, populations as a whole, and so on.

Whereas The Sims deals with people on an individual level, relationships, family life, and so on.

I've been playing The Sims 3 for over a year now.  I used a lot of mods (modifications that adds to or alters the game, some add clothing, some change basic parts of the game itself.)

My main world is the Sim's University which by some game glitch, I was able to keep my sims in instead of their having to leave after they finished their college terms (it was original just 3 guys).  I've added a lot of new buildings and other things to the University world that were not originally part of it, like a city hall, fire station, police station :police:, a school (since the University world really wasn't set up to have children), the Stone's Throw Greenhouse, a criminal hideout (in a dense forest on a mountain side), a magic shop, a general dance club and bars, more restaurants (including a Chinese one – how can you NOT have a Chinese restaurant in a college town!), a gay hangout and bar, a lot more homes, an all gay-male fraternity (oddly some of those sims look like some very handsome male actors (thank you mods!), and Simhenge.

So in my 'Sims 3' game I have a billionaire family (The Wu Family) of 15 gay male sims living in one huge mansion (5 stories high with 5 basements and sub-basements (including their secret laboratory where simbots can be created and there is a time portal) , and a greenhouse, and a stable in a group marriage (with sub-marriages as well), 13 adults sims, 2 teenager, that includes a lot of humans (of different races), a ghost, a fairy, a warlock, a pack of werewolves (7 sims, including the two teens, and a merman), 2 dogs (gay) and also a gay purple unicorn.   :cheers:

(There is also a sub-family of The Wu's) that lives in their own home to be next to the ocean of a husband/husband mermen and their teenage son (also a merman).  Part of their house is actually over the water and they have wind towers on their property to help pay their electric bills.

Sometimes when I am not watching them, they do things on their own (they love ice cream) and, well, the merman got pregnant and I do not know which of them is the father!  :hug:

Needless to say I have reach the utter top of the red level of player difficult, but I find it all a lot of fun and I really like all the sims I created with all their different personalities (one mod allows me to give them 14+ traits instead of the usual 5) and seeing how they interact with each other.   :love:

The one downside of all this is it takes literally an hour for the game to load and 15-20 minutes to save a game.  sigh  I read books while that is happening.    ;D

So, I personally would suggest The Sims.    :blink:

. . .

The Sims is more of a "design ur house, live in it for a bit, maybe make another house" thing for me, I don't see much of a challenge. SimCity is much more challenging, because you have to manage funds, keep people happy, develop roads and deal with traffic, sickness, industry etc. Especially the latest SimCity, where you can build massive wonders collaboratively online. It's great.