Games I Want To Own... and DO!
Europa 1400: The Guild.
This game is pretty close to perfect for me. I love the idea of owning my own business, making stuff and selling it, and that's what Europa is all about. But that's not what it's ALL about, that's just one thing it could be about.
You start as a 'Citizen' in a city (more of a village at the time, though) and must slowly build yourself up in wealth and political power. Part of this is the fact that you are going to die, and you have to have a child in order to continue the game at this time. So you have to worry about getting married, too, because there's no way you're going to do everything you need to in the first lifetime.
Of course, when you have a kid, they get a certain starting set of skills, based on you and your wife's skills, but they're usually lacking. So you can build them up with toys, and you can give them gifts of money, and eventually train them in an occupation so that they can do well for themselves even before you find yourself in their skin. For game reasons, your careers are passed down to your kids, as well. Would be impossible to play without that, but it doesn't make sense.
Today I was playing and I had the Town Guard career. My character's father had died (me at the time) and passed it down to him. However, my character's sister had become a Robber Baron, and our soldiers ended up fighting each other a lot. I found it pretty funny that someone I could've choosen to suceed me became my enemy.
It's really hard to explain it in a way that makes it fun, probably because I'm the only one who finds it fun. But it's very fun trying to break into politics. And there are all kinds of nasty things you can do to people, if you enjoy that sort of thing. You can also be a 'Thief' and kidnap people for ransom, and just generally thief about. And when you're tired of running your businesses, you can hire someone to do it for you, who will only do what you want them to, and have a lot of settings to tell them exactly what you're looking for.
Europa Universalis:
This is a RTS that is entirely different than any other RTS I have ever played. Most RTSs involve building a base, and attacking your opponent to destroy whatever he has. That's all well and good, but those all have only about 8 sides to them. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, even FFA. In Europa Universalis, there are over 100 countries to attack. But there's more political maneuvering, and I can't just go attack you... I have to tell you I'm coming with a Declaration of War. It's even stickier if we happen to be in alliances, because then I can call on them to help, and you can call on yours, and then there's 20 countries at war. But maybe in 50 years, the same countries will go to war, but the sides different.
There's really a lot to this one. It's less of a RTS and more of a Management game with combat involved. The bigger countries can colonize the new world, and then fight over those lands, too.
There's not as much to say about it, but that's because there's so much to say. www.europa-universalis.com
If you want to know the kinds of things that can happen, check out the AAR forums. I've been thinking about writing one here on JU, but lately I haven't had a chance to even play the game.
I don't have a site for Europa 1400, but I'm sure if you searched for it, it would come up. It's by JoWood/Encore. Europa Universalis is by Paradox. You may have heard of them, I believe they did something with GalCiv2.