Sim City 4 is my personal favourite from the franchise. So if you want get stuck in then SC4:Deluxe Edition is it
According to some reviews there has been mention of lack of (if not none) scenarios that which were present in the prior games. I will get back to that a little later in the review.
Before this installment of the franchise Sim City 2000 was my all-time favourite game from the Sim City franchise. Why? Firstly it was never too challenging when you played the main game (build a city from scratch), but if wanted more of a challenge there was library full of scenarios to keep you stewing over.
Sim City 3000 was raved on as the best, but I found it too challenging which is why I asked "How tough is SC4 to 3000?". I soon found out.
NOW...
Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition (you can see I didn't waste my time getting the game and ep separately) is the best (IMO) even when compared to Societies (Great for social experiments and not much else). In terms of building cities... You could do EVERYTHING!
...But on much grander scale to any of it's predecessors!
Sim City 4 gives you the chance to build entire regions filled with cities!
And with the control modes...
God Mode. Mayor Mode. Sim Mode. Drive Mode (EP Implementation).
God Mode let you shape terrain AS YOU SAW FIT!
Mayor Mode let you take care of the "Business End" of things!
Sim Mode more or less gave an "Insiders View" as you could create sims and place them any where to act as insiders.
Drive Mode gave you opportunities to earn some cold hard cash or a better reputation by completing driving missions, more or less "Minigames" which make things interesting.
And if wanted scenarios...
Make your own or download a game file from the community... So to any uploaders...
Upload anything filled with cities that are "Bound for Hell in a Hand Basket" type material. (Hint. Hint.)
In terms of having NO scenarios...
Open your eyes (all naysayers) take a good look in the online community and you will find next to endless amounts of them (if not endless).
In terms of the "Mainstream" for the Sim City franchise, Sim City 4 is by far the best in my opinion and the Deluxe Edition is the release that I strongly recommend you lay your hands on (if at all possible)!