Europa Universalis III

Europa Universalis III, or EU3 in short, is a grand-strategy game by Paradox Interactive. The game starts in the years following the fall of Constantinople and lasts till the early 19th century, where you choose a nation and become it's ruler. It is up to your to see to the growth, stability and prosperity of your nation.

You do this in a wide variety of means. You can expand your nation's borders by taking over the provinces of another nation. There are two big ways of doing this:

1. War: You can declare war on an enemy nation and take it provinces by force. Your armies will have to occupy the enemy provinces, doing so will increase the war score for you and your allies. The higher your war score, the more provinces you can claim. Having a war score of 100% allows you to fully annex an enemy nation.
2. Royal Marriages: Royal marriages a peaceful way of expanding your territory. By engaging in a marriage your bond the royal lines of both nations. If one of the nations involved falls without a legal heir to the throne, the other nation can claim the throne. At this point you can either wait till the current ruler dies without a legal heir, in which case you will inherit the throne, or you can declare war on the enemy nation and force them to make a persional union with you. In which case you can integrate the nation after a certain period of time.
3. Colonization: Once the quest for a new land begins, most (western) nations that border to a sea will be able to start sending out colonists to foreign lands. If your colonization attempt is succesful, the oversea province will join your nation and fall under your influence. However, you need 1000 people for the province to become self-sustaining, this means that sending about 10 colonists to a province will make it self-sustainable. These people also generate over time, but colony maintenance is pretty high, so it's best to find a good balance in this.

Expanding your nation's borders allows you to earn more tax income and production income. These main incomes can be respectively upgraded by building certain types of buildings in your provinces. Another type of income is trade income, which is generated by the traders of your nation and your centres of trade. These incomes are needed to maintain your armies and navies, and secures your military power on the map.
Keep an eye out for inflation! Inflation is influenced by sliding your treasury slider, this increases or decreases your gold income to the treasury, which is basically the gold you get to play with. Every % of inflation makes it more costely to sustain your nation (1% of inflation makes troops 1% more expensive, etc.), but it is a great way to fill up your treasury. For new players I recommend keeping your inflation at 0% by hiring a suited advisor or using the national bank as national idea (-0.10% inflation yearly). This allows you to fill up your treasury without gaining inflation.
Players who have a little more experience can use inflation to fill up the treasury early game, and get rid of the inflation later on. It's a good way to start out and build up your nation and maximize your incomes.
Important: changing the treasury slider also influences the amount of gold you are investing in research and technology. This is a crucial aspect of the game as it determines what you are able to do as a nation. A higher land technology allows for better troops, a higher trade technology gives more trading opportunities etc. If you fall too far behind on your neighbors, it might become an issue when it comes to a power struggle.

The goal of the game is basically just surviving, but it provides a richer gameplay experience if you set some goals for yourself (e.g. conquer Northern Europe). Most nations in the game get some sort of missions, which usually are historical facts which can be persued for a bonus reward to your nation.

Tired of playing against the AI? No problem, with the Divine Wind expansion, EU3 features a multiplayer mode where you can fight against or alongside your friends. Which provides a unique game experience every time.

If you're a fan of strategy games, but haven't played grand-strategy before. This is a relatively easy game to get into. Paradox has made many games which are a lot harder to play than Europa Universalis (like Victoria). After playing the ingame tutorial and reading the basic wiki pages, you should have a very good idea of how to play the game.

I really recommend picking up this game, it'll provide hours of unique gameplay in an always changing political world.

Mount & Blade: Warband

Mount & Blade: Warband is a game by Paradox Interactive (also known for Magicka, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings) released in March 2010.
It features a very fun medieval combat experience in the land of Calradia.

Mount & Blade: Warband

"In Mount & Blade: Warband, you play as an adventurer in the medieval land of Calradia, a fictional land devoid of magic and high fantasy, instead bearing many similarities to our world in the Middle Ages.

The game offers you a great deal of freedom in this world. You may roam around the map visiting towns and villages, trading, pursuing various quests, taking part in tournaments, or trying out a myriad of other activities.

You will soon notice that the world itself is dynamic. Caravans travel between towns, sometimes being waylaid by bandits; villagers take their goods to markets; armies assemble to move across the land, besieging towns or castles and raiding settlements. Instead of giving you a fixed path to follow,

Mount & Blade: Warband lets you freely adventure in this world. In time, you will be well known in many places as you make friends and enemies with other characters, which in turn will allow you to affect events in profound ways. You don’t need to remain a penniless adventurer, either. You may obtain great wealth and power, become one of the trusted vassals of a king; conquer and own villages, castles and towns; command armies, and if you like, even lead rebellions and replace kings with other claim holders.
And who knows? If you are great and cunning warrior you might one day become the Ruler of Calradia."
- http://www.mountandbladewarband.com/game-info

What really seperates this game from other medieval games is the fact that it's combat system is very well worked out. As you progress in this game, you recruit an army which fights along you in battle. Just the sound of your cavalry riding in to massacre your enemies before you is pure pleasure.

Warband also features a multiplayer section of the game, where you fight against other players, earn gold and upgrade your equipment. This is atleast as much fun as the single player section of the game, as it suddenly becomes a lot harder to kill your enemies. Just imagine playing with a group of players, charging another group's keep. You got it, it's war!

The game is available on steam for a low €19,99 as a stand-alone release, this means you DO NOT have to purchase the earlier versions of the game. Be sure to check it out if you're into these kind of games, you won't regret your purchase!

Realm Of The Mad God

Another game I'd like to dicuss is Realm Of The Mad God. I discovered this charm a few months ago and can promise you, for a free game, you'll enjoy yourself quite a bit!

Realm Of The Mad God

The game starts as you have been teleported by the  Mad God Onyx to his realm of creatures. The goal of the game is to fight back by killing the Mad God's creatures. Slaying enough of them will teleport everyone in the realm to the Mad God himself for the final showdown.

You start out at a beach at a border of the map. It's your "mission" to complete the quests provided on the minimap and defeat the Mad God's bosses. As you level up you move more to the center of the land, where the stronger monsters reside.

Lay-out of a realm map in ROTMG

This game is a multiplayer isometric adventure shoot-em-up I-really-have-no-idea kind of game. It's unique in it's style and is pretty hard to play, because once your character dies, well it's not coming back. You'll have to start over again. Oh, did I forget to mention dying is recquired to unlock new classes? Puts it all in a new perspective eh?
There are several classes to be unlocked, each giving an unique gameplay experience as they each fulill an unique roll in the combat. The class combat is pretty straightforward, so you'll be getting what you bargained for when playing a character.

Realm Of The Mad God - Wiki

For further information I recommend watching Totalhalibut's first impression of this game.