Not sure this is what you are looking for exactly... it's not an overarching management game but more about your value within a community. It's multiplayer and depends on having several regular players to make the most of it.
Eco (It's been a year since I played so this may be a bit dated_
The game is (was?) mostly focused on the environment, but you're trying as a community to build up while not killing your tiny planet. Someone is elected governor of the community. the people can vote on laws. (laws were set up with a very basic programming language) There's a skill tree but skill points are limited so you focus on a career, (lumberjack, road-builder, miner, furniture maker, etc etc.) People can open their own shops, they can make their own currency but usu sally the community agrees on a single currency so the market makes sense. Looks like they added work parties but I have no details on that.
Default setup you have 30 real life days to advance enough to stop a meteor from destroying your planet, while trying not to kill the planet yourselves in your advancement.
I think they did have educational bundles so you could do a whole class but I never looked into it, and looking now it seems like they only do 4 packs. You might be able to contact them directly and work something out though, it does seem like education is their goal.
I think this is probably a bit of a longshot but its worth mentioning https://www.play.eco/
The idea behind the game definitely seems to be about creating a living ecosystem, but I havent played it to know whether there are intelligent animals or not :)
Eco has private property and trade but it’s zoomed in to you as a player, and you don’t manage others unless you get elected to office. Interesting to see how things play out. (Hint: only socialism really works well)
One of the main inspirations for Vintage Story is actually the Minecraft mod TerraFirmaCraft. (Just.. for anyone who did not already know that) There's also a modpack I played for many months called TerraFirmaPunk which brings in some other mods not usually compatible with TFC and integrates them quite well.
ECO comes to mind, in which you can harvest and mine materials to build structures and machines that allow you to craft more things. But it's much more focused on cooperation (and the structuring thereof) with lots of other people and simulating environmental impact. "Can you save the planet from a disaster before you destroy it yourself?"
Staxel might be a game that captures more of the housekeeping, farming and animal husbandry part of Vintage Story. I'm mentioning this because I've been quite enjoying hopping onto a multiplayer server about every other day to harvest farms, feed animals, collect cattail and harvest the bee skeps. (Obviously there's other games - like Stardew Valley - that do some of the same, but I figured Staxel might be the most similar.)
(Then there was also "TUG" by Nerd Kingdom, which unfortunately flopped a couple of years ago. But I'm not sure in what ways to compare it, since I've never looked too deeply into it.)
Ähnlich zu Minecraft aber mit hübscheren Klötzchen ;)
Und es gibt nen Ziel. Da fliegt ein Komet auf den Planeten zu und alle müssen gemeinsam daran arbeiten, den vom Himmel zu holen. Dabei müssen alle auch darauf achten, den Planeten nicht zu sehr zu verwüsten (Gibt Umweltbelastung ect.). Es baut sich im idealfall eine Wirtschaft auf. Es können einzelne als Bürgermeister gewählt werden und und und.