Krikket posted about her five favourite game series (this topic is apparently going around in Twitter, but I haven’t seen it there yet) and I like the idea so much that I decided to post about my own here.
At first, I thought I would find two, maybe three series and then I’d have a problem finding more. But in the end, I actually did have to make a choice between two series. I decided to favour time spent playing the games and make my choice this way, because I obviously enjoy these games a lot or I wouldn’t spend that much time playing.
1. The Cultures Series
Now this is mainly for nostalgic reasons. All games still play perfectly well on my Windows 10 PCs, though. But I don’t play them anymore. I still remember the time when I was a university student with a really weak PC at home and not much money. I liked to look at the PC games/software rummage table in a department store and saw Cultures. It looked cute and I knew I liked games where I can “build something”. To this day, I still favour the graphics of the first game over the graphic style that followed, only because I liked the female Vikings a lot more!
If they made a new Cultures (a real new one, not a bad online browser-based game), I’d definitely pre-purchase it immediately!
2. The Tropico Series
The first Tropico game I bought was Tropico 4. However, I tried the demo of Tropico 3 a few months before that. But at the time, lack of money and time made me decide against buying the game. I now own all games and have spent the most time playing Tropico 4 (156 hours), followed by Tropico 5 (125 hours) and Tropico 6 (120 hours). Although I’d put 4 and 6 much higher than 5… come to think of it, let’s just forget 5 ever existed. I even played some Tropico 2 which was a very different game with a pirate setting, but I’d absolutely love for them to remake this, actually!
3. Civilization (since part IV)
I never even knew Civilization existed before part IV. Bookahnerk introduced me to this game. My main playstyle was having the biggest army possible and then putting everything into culture, taking over neighbouring cities this way. Too bad it’s not really possible to play like this anymore. I know they made some changes in VI, so culture plays such a role again, but it can’t be used as excessively as it could be in IV. Maybe I should reinstall that one and give it another go… it really was fun! Again, I didn’t like V as much as I liked IV and as I like VI (what is it with me and the no. 5 in a series?). But that’s just personal preference.
4. Warlock I and II
The funny thing is: I do not remember whether I liked the first or the second game more. I have more hours played for the second title, but I don’t think it’s counting the hours correctly that I played on my laptop. Also, both games run perfectly on my laptop which I bought to use for work and not to play games with. But when we visit family and I’ve got a few hours with nothing to do as everybody else is busy, I love taking it out and playing some Warlock on there. But that’s not the main reason why I love this game series! I love Civilization, but I always try to avoid war. I don’t like the fights there and I don’t want to engage in it. I can defend myself, but I hardly ever declare war on other nations. The barbarians annoy me as well, but in Warlock, I love the game exactly for these parts! I love taking my goblin archers (yes, I almost always play with the monsters) for a stroll to kill all the mobs nearby! Also, having spells helps, too.
5. Torchlight Series
SimCity was on my list at first, but it dropped below Torchlight. Yes, I loved SimCity… 2000. I liked 3000. SimCity 4 kept crashing on my PC and I gave up on it. I actually did buy it some time ago to finally play it, but I didn’t spend much time with it anymore. Torchlight, on the other hand, has gotten better between the first and the second game. I am not sure yet where the third one will land, obviously, as it’s not released yet. But I’m very excited to see it release and I know I’m going to enjoy at least one of the classes. In fact, it’s only the Railmaster that I don’t like. Torchlight seems like a light-hearted take on Action RPGs, but there’s still enough depth to take it seriously! And the pets that go and sell your loot are priceless! This is the one feature that I wish all Action RPGs had.
Nerdy Bookahs 
Interesting list!
I have conflicting feelings abut Civilization V. I liked how it got rid of stacking armies, how they made it so both large and small empires are valid and the introduction of trade routes in one of the expansions. On the other hand I still think Civilization IV was the best in terms of government/civics choices and VI took everything that V did right, refined it and added its own stuff on top of it all. I guess that means I like V for the changes and new mechanics it introduced but prefer to play VI as it does those better!
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Oh yes, getting rid of the stacking armies was a great step if you ask me. I was mostly annoyed with the changes to the whole culture part. It seemed to matter a whole lot less than it did in IV. And V’s theme song was a let down. I listened to it now just to remind myself what it was and it doesn’t sound familiar at all.
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