The role playing elements in Crusader Kings just add so much to the overall experience for me that they're easily my favorites. It's a shame because it's one of my favourite periods of history and the first game was not very good, so we were hoping the sequel would be a big improvement. Victoria II I never really liked all that much, and Imperator Rome was a massive disappointment - a group of friends and I bought and played it at launch and immediately disliked it.

Stellaris is great as well, but I haven't put much time into it. EUIII and EUIV are both absolutely solid games as well, and it's fantastic being able to start a game of Crusader Kings in the 8th century AD and continue right up until the early 19th century with the save converter. HoI2 was great too but I never got into HoI3 or 4 - I remember getting confused by the way battle plans worked. But CK3 is absolutely going to replace it, especially once a few expansion packs have been released. CK2 is my most played game (on Steam, at least - I presume it's actually Mount & Blade Warband, but there's no way to know) at just under 1,800 hours.

Best paradox interactive game