Currently playing Medieval II: Total War, which while fun doesnt quite qualify for this kind of list yet (it might after I've played it some more and if the retarded "make no peace ever" AI is fixed).
Hmm, I suspect most casual gamers would dismiss my taste as rather dry. I like realism, especially in historical games (and I am a bit of a history buff). I mainly play turn based strategy games and subgenres of that when not playing RPGs. It is hard to rank those games, it wholly depends on the situation.
Long siingle player campaigning:
Europa Universalis II and
Victoria by Paradox Interactive. Use pausable real time (like Baldurs Gate or the Total war games) on a global map featuring nearly all countries in the world 1419-1919. Has functioning world market and the like due to the number of actors (market mechanisms tend to be broken in computer games as there arent enough buyers or sellers). EU2 is the more polished of the two, with more fluid gameplay, but I enjoy the Victorian period more. I have also had fun with the
Warlords series, and with civ clones like
Master of Magic back in the day.
Colonization and
Master of Orion II are other memorable classics, but unfortunately bog down in micromanagement hell (unlike MoM which you can win by simply burning all enemy cities to the ground).
Business games:
Railroad Tycoon III is immense fun, much more of a serious business game than Sid Meiers Railroads.
Capitalism II simulates production and retailing business. It is cool and particularly fun to play in MP against my gf (who has a major in computational finance)
Merchant Prince,
Machiavelli the Prince, and
Merchant Prince II are all basically the same. Buy low and sell high in a Marco Polo-esque renaissance world. Buy cardinals, assassinate the pope, and vote for a pope of your choosing. A humourous yet somewhat historical game.
Port Royale I is the best in a long line of trading games from Ascaron, and the least dry one. Fun for a while, but a bit repetitive.
Sports Games:
The
Football manager series, and its predecessors
Championship Manager. IMHO
FM 2006 is the best incarnation of the series (the latest one for some reason doesnt use a "huge" database, which makes it hard to find foreigners willing to play in the sucky Swedish league, and retaining more players manually slows the game down to a crawl). A number crunching game, but oh so addictive if you are into football.
Action games:
Seadogs and
Mount and Blade are similar in a way. One is Elite with Pirate ships and rpg-like stats and quests, the other is Elite with swords and rpg-like quests. Mount and blade has the best battles medieval combat engine ever seen in a game, period. You can get a demo from
www.taleworlds.com.
Seadogs is a pirate game which, while uglier than its successors "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Age of Pirates: Carribean Tales" is reasonably bug free, something that cant be said for the later incarnations. These games have one of the best sea battle systems I've seen.
Quick (completed in less than 1h) games:
Gold of the Americas, a strategy game set in the new world with a lot of humour. Exploit slaves, indians, or your colonists. Hide your gold stash from the fat king's taxman. Prevent the colonists from forming stupid "free" nations.
Revolution '76 is a turn based game where you try to free the American colonists from evil England, ally with France, persecute loyalists, etc.
No Greater Glory is a somewhat slower (2-3h if you know what you are doing) ACW game by the same team, where you have to deal with generals who might be cautious and not press the attack when you ask them to (McClellan) and play as either Lincoln or Davis. Great game but a bit heavy in the logistical part.
Multiplayer:
Worms is the king of hot seat multiplayer with mildly drunk buddies. For network gaming with my gf I prefer
Capitalism II, Seven Kingdoms I/II, and certain relatively modern AD&D games
The very best games I've played were on the Amiga though.
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge and
Supercars II were PERFECTLY balanced hotseat multiplayer games with that drunken buddy. Both came from the same developers and allowed split screen play. Lotus is a very early third person racing game akin to Need for Speed. Supercars II is a top-down car game where you dont just race, you use missiles, mines, and various upgrades to knock out your friend and the AI cars on a course with obstacles such as trains... And then there was the unforgettable
North and South, based upon the (French?) comic Les Tuniques Bleues. A humourous ACW game
Sensible Soccer was also a blast to play with the old digital joysticks
If anyone has similar taste the Paradox games can be bought online at Paradox website, Mount and Blade can be found at
www.taleworlds.com, and many of the really old games can be found at various nostalgia sites. Try demos and check out forums/screenshots first though. Many of my games are an acquired taste....
