Civilization IV

GANDHI YOU FUCK

The Civilization series is undeniably the games I've spend the most time with, and Civ IV probably ties with Civ2 for the version I've played the most.

The one with the best AI. Every game was memorable, and it's own story. There are game I can remember clearly 15 years later. Better than Civ2, but not as addictive.

The greatest 4X strategy game ever made and the pinnacle of the Civ franchise.

IMHO the best Civ game. Not flawless by any means, and the doomstacks are a legitimate problem, but the games that came afterwards had even bigger issues. As far as mods go, Fall From Heaven 2 brought me countless hours of fun.

At the time it was one of my favorite 4x games, but looking back on it now, I'm really happy that we got rid of those army stacks of doom.

I generally suck at these type of games but at least these aren't all about fighting and I can just try to peacefully make my cities and form treaties and trade and whatnot. That's I do in any of these strategy games is try to make my base cool and then get run over. Here I can win a space race and be king of the world that way.

For some reason, once you get used to and love the original, all the other ones seem to fall short.

Peak civilization, much like the time that they set the matrix in.