Sid Meier's Civilization V

Like Skyrim, Civ 5 is a great game for stories. One campaign, my neighbor Napoleon made nice, asked for open borders, then declared war; I defended against him, we made up, and then he did it again (and a third time). Another campaign, I allowed Polynesia to wipe out Japan; then as I marched along on my war path, I liberated Kyoto, and Oda Nobunaga responded to his salvation by publicly denouncing me. My last campaign, I built up an impeccable seaport-based economy and raced along the tech tree toward a science victory, only to notice too late that General Washington was about to grab a surprise victory by winning every available United Nations vote.

I've also started experimenting with mods - specifically, the "Vanilla Enhanced" mod/patch - and it's fascinating that the game can be changed so broadly and dramatically, but I think I'll be sticking with the main game for the most part. Learning such a meticulous game is daunting enough, without having a mod completely shift the learning curve again.

There are some things I wish Civ 5 was better at, like starting faster and having AIs that aren't selfish assholes, but it's still a ton of fun just to tool around with.

Progress: Still haven't won a Prince campaign yet.