Any good civilization building games?

Hey everyone,
I really enjoy the Total War series so far (I haven't picked up RTW yet due to an insufficient computer but I hear it has more depth dicplomatically) and they are very good at being games focused on war and I don't feel any dishonest pretenses about that.

I was wondering if there are any good civilization games out there that treat armed conflict with the depth of the TW games but also focus on other aspects of running an society, like maybe religion, education, food supplies, trade, language, entertainment, secret police maybe.

In other words I'm looking for a game where you can succeed not just by ruthlessly taking out all your neighbours. :duel: As I said though, I like the depth of commanding soldiers well instead of just having the computer autocalc battles, where you can win against bad odds with supirior strategy ~:cheers:

Is such a game too good to be true? Does anyone have any reccomendations?

I think the civilization series would be right up your alley

Well, I had CIv 3 and I enjoyed it relatively but I was frustrated with some things in it and sold it to a friend cheaply. I couldn't group many armies together until I got a "hero" unit or something in a later age, which I thought was rediculous, even ants know strength in numbers. Also the notion of the US existing in the stone age was maddeningly preposperous.

I really wish that cultures were more open ended and not fated to turn into certain modern countries. Empire Earth 2 had aspects of that which was nice, though the game was in many ways just another RTS to me.

On an aside, something that also frustrated me with the Age of Kings: The Conquerors was that the idea that the mayans and mexicans would advance in a different but equal way to the spanish for instance. Let me explain, in the fourth age of advancement both factions would be theoretically equal (For gameplay purposes of course, this makes absolute sense). In reality when the spaniards came to the Americas the mayans and aztecs never had left the bronze age (if they indeed did have bronze) while the spaniards came from an industrializing Europe.

I'm older and maybe more tolerant now so I guess I will give it another look. I see that there is a civ 4 coming out.

The ideal game for me would have cultural social aspects like the civ games and the tactical battles of the TW series but that is a dream game. ~:handball:

That reminds me of a game called Alpha Centuri that I enjoyed the demo of quite a lot a long time ago. It is dated but maybe I can find a copy somewhere for cheap.

I recommend you to try out the paradox games home page specially Victoria and Hears of Iron 2.