Recommendations? 4X TBS Game for My Wife

In article <0f34e277-d258-4017-b95d-f3bc46b31753
@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com>, p55carroll.TakeThisOut@gmail.com says...
> My wife's not much of a PC-game geek, but she does like having at
> least one great game available to her when she's in the mood for it.
> And when she is, she can spend hours on end playing the heck out of
> it. Then, eventually, she wears one game out and feels ready for
> another. Now the time has come again.
>
> Her all-time favorite is probably Master of Magic. So, that's
> approximately the kind of game she's looking for. However, she gets
> frustrated with aggressive AI players and sometimes wishes she could
> turn off war and just enjoy a game of more peaceful expansion.
>
> She also dislikes 3D graphics and real-time. And our computer system
> balks at some of the latest games.
>
> She does seem to enjoy micromanagement, and she gets more into the
> economic side of games than I do. But OTOH, she found Railroad Tycoon
> boring.
>
> Her partial playing history (games she's already done with):
> Master of Magic
> Age of Wonders I, II, III
> Civilization (I-IV) (She has always had mixed feelings about this
> game.)
> Heroes of Might & Magic III Complete (her latest favorite, but only
> with the WoG mod; and she complains that she can't build new cities
> and that the AI opponents are too aggressive)
>
> Any ideas?
>
> I'd offer her Disciples II Gold (which I've been playing off and on),
> but there's no city building in it. And that's what she really misses
> from MoM--the chance to actually build up an empire from scratch
> rather than just conquering existing cities.

Patrick, I'd suggest you get the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civ IV
and try some of the mods available. I just got this a couple of weeks
ago, and after installing the 3.17 patch and the August 2008 version of
DirectX I have finally managed to get some mods working: in particular
there are two mods: Fall from Heaven 2 (in beta) and MOO2Civ that will
probably appeal - since these are mods that try to catch exactly the
atmosphere she seems to enjoy.

I've spent a few hours with Fall from Heaven so far and I am totally
boggled by it so far - there is so much to discover. I think if you
turned barbarians off this might be possible to play fairly non-
confrontationally.

As for Galciv: not sure. You do build up your planets, and accumulating
huge empires and tweaking and fine tuning the economy and research are
my thing also. I have won many games without a shot being fired. But
sometimes you have to go and wipe out an overly aggressive AI contender.
The building in this game is moderately limited though. There's not all
that much room on most planets you settle.

h.t.h., -Peter