Haaaaaa! *chokes with excitement*
Ahem. How 'bout Castles 2 ?! We had at least two decent threads on it, IIRC - always loved it, keep playing it occasionally. It's got so many good things going for it, it's hard to count them all:
- you have the really good AI - it can be tough at higher levels, and it's not all due to AI cheating (i.e., getting more resources than you)
- the graphics are cool - I love the battles! Sure, sure, the little guys are squares with rough edges, but hey, they're really cute in their Lego-ness! And they look really cool chugging along and shooting arrows and stuff, especially sieges are lots of fun, I never get bored of watching them during sieges!
- you have soooo many special events, and they're so varied! I still don't know how many there are, but there's sure a lot of them. And I like that some of them really don't matter, some of them have a minor impact, and some of them can really make a difference - and there's no way of telling which kind any of them are...
- you have the obnoxious Pope! *laughs* - I wonder if CA got their idea of making the Pope a nuisance from Castles...
- laugh at me if you will, but I actually enjoy the music!

All right, I'll stop here for now, even though there's more cool stuff to be said about it...