Well best games ever huh...guess the golden age has passed now its all about the graphics but here are a few that make the list...

Star Craft- best story ever

Diablo 1, 2 -hunt for the ultimate weapon...fun game

Counter Strike- well this game needs no comment

Civilization 3, best in the series i think

Harts of Iron- well many of you may be thinking WTF, but when it comes to total nation management and empire building this game is top notch

Quake 3- it runs on old PC's and its heck of fun in LAN

Shogun Total War- the one and only original TW...the rest is just evolution.

And what comes to the new era of games...massive graphics and nothing more

AoE3 isn't worth it ...played it, ur better off paling AOE1

As far as empire building RTS goes I can only think of Europa Universalis and Hearts Of Iron, now thats empire building, oh yaeh and medieval2 isn't bad at all tough its a TB and RTS...C&C series??? thats not empire building thats just pure rts smack fun...rise of nations is a bit weird...gets boring in the long run but thats just my opinion

But the best empire building game is by far civ3 or civ4 if ur paling in lan against a friend...much more fun

Ill be getting UT3 and Crysis for sure...and as for your list being expensive...you can always get that stuf for free you know...if its so expensive...tough i long for a good RTS like harts of iron...(bloody paradox didn't accept my third instalment idea...it would have rocked the ww2 RTS games)...and diablo3 which will probably be made like never...boo on blizzard and WOW.

Thief 2 was a fin game indeed, though it was a bit frustrating at times

Red Faction...yes I remember it ...i think it was too easy, but it had a unique touch

Cossacks... played the first game and that was in russian woot...didn't understand a thing, but got through the game..

I think games such as Caesar and pharaoh and so on will always see less attention, cause big titles will always hog the spotlight unless someone can create a true masterpiece.