Stronghold 2 had a great map editor, creating land from scratch could be a bit of a challenge, but laying out the towns was pretty nifty once you got going. I actually had a lot more fun building out the balanced economy than I did with the combat scenarios.

The wife hated playing against me too, I'd build up such a strong economy I could afford to take advantage of a glitch of sorts - instead of building regular walls I'd have a solid row of square towers .. impossible to scale with the ladders, if they got destroyed by catapults the ruins were still impassable, and I would have enough room inside my territory that I couldn't be starved out More archers on the towers than I knew what to do with, trebuchets just inside the walls set to repeat fire along my entire border so no one could get near... and I'd spend gold for mercenary camps outside the walls if I felt like disrupting her lands

aah memories.

Tropico 3 is awesome too, some very nifty tropical island cities waiting to be made there!