I've recently had a hankering for games that involve, as the title notes, games that include or entirely require the building and management of a civilization, city, or something along those lines. Old, new, turn based, real time, grand strategy; there's just something that pleases me about making what may be a lasting (or not so lasting, if done badly) mark on the world that the game involves. Whether it's a kingdom, an island, a city, a country, a galaxy, or just managing a few psychotic dwarves, I generally love to play it.
They don't seem to have all that many these days, and those that try usually don't seem to do much beyond follow the same formula of those past with a few modifications and graphics updates. I do have a preference for space-based strategy games, but it's only a preference. I also prefer more in depth games rather than one shot skirmishes, as I find it more fun to watch my fledgling empire grow from a single sparsely populated city, country or world to expand well beyond its roots, usually through the crushing power of an overwhelming economy and sheer numbers.
Anything that lets you play as the aliens, zombies, or robots is a plus, too. Humans are boring. Zerg rushing with superior numbers (yet weaker individually), raising the corpses of your fallen enemies to serve you, not or having to worry as much about supply lines due to readily available resources in terms of the enemy population make for interesting mechanics.
If they're for Android, even better, but no freemium games. I have no tolerance for games that prey on psychological buttons for money; while I play them on occasion, my strict rule is to delete them once I get bored, or find I get to a point where paying money is the only option to continue at any decent pace.
Instances of the games I've played include, now alphabetically for readability:
7 Days to Die (Building your own "civilization" among friends, working up from the stone age counts even if it's in first person, in my opinion)
Age of Empires 1/2/3
Age of Wonders 1/2/Shadow Magic/3
AI War: Fleet Command (Sort of hard to get into, I need to spend a day trying to learn this game)
Alpha Centauri
Banished
Cities XL
Civilization 1/2/3/4/5/Beyond Earth (Of course; Cavemen2Cosmos for Civ4 was probably one of the more enjoyable experiences I've had with the genre, as was the Fall From Heaven 2 mod)
Civilization Call To Power 1/2
Crusader Kings 2
Distant Worlds (With too much automation, it plays itself, but with too little, I don't know what's going on)
Dwarf Fortress (Wouldn't be here if I hadn't)
Eador, Masters of the Broken World
Endless Legend
Endless Space
Europa Universalis III/IV
Fallen Enchantress
Galactic Civilizations 2 (Haven't decided if 3 is worth it yet)
Gratuitous Space Battles (Campaign Mode)
Master of Magic
Master of Orion 1/2
Minecraft FTB packs (Building your own "civilization" among friends, working up from the stone age counts even if it's in first person, in my opinion)
Mount & Blade Warband (Even with mods, the kingdom creation feels very lacking due to the relatively primitive AI)
Pharoah+Cleopatra/Zeus+Poseidon/Rise of the Middle Kingdom/Casear 3 (Old city builder games)
Rise of Nations
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Starting from 3 to whichever the most recent English translated one was... sad they seem to have stopped development on this series)
Sim City (Haven't played the new one, think I've played up to 3000 or 4
SimEarth
Star Ruler 1/2
StarDrive
Sword of the Stars 1/2
The Last Federation
Towns
Tropico 2/3/4
Warcraft 3 Custom Maps (Namely, Heroes and Empires, Genesis of Empires, and many others)
Warlock - Master of the Arcane
So does anyone have suggestions for games other than those listed above? I'm sure there are some I missed that I have played, but any suggestions are welcome.
Games that I've seen listed in the thread that I haven't tried yet:
C-Evo
Cultures 1/2
Deadlock 1/2
Enemy Nations
FreeOrion
Grand Ages: Rome
Immortal Cities: Children Of The Nile
Pandora: First Contact
Rise and Rule of Ancient Empires
Space Empires 4
Victoria 2