the sid meiers civilization series - the flow of world history as filtered through the mind of an apolitical 90s american nerd right at the 'end of history', with terminal western highschool textbook brain
and dont even get me started on sid meiers colonization...
funnily enough, the imperialism games, especially imperialism 2, are very fun and much more honest about what they are
but yeah the civ games certainly work as ruling class sims and i do still love them, especially when they embrace their board-gamey origins and dont try too hard for rEaLiSm