This will have to settle for third spot

There's a woodcutter, a stone mason and a miner, and they're all waiting for some food. The baker is having trouble getting hold of wheat while the fisherman is bemoaning his paltry catch in the lake. Everyone's demanding meat from the pig farmer but the butcher's shop isn't even built yet. And what d'ya know, while everyone's blaming everyone else, some knights come in from a neighbouring territory and kill them all! Nightmare.

Blue Byte is partly to blame for some of my dismal exam results at school. The launch of The Settlers on the Amiga in 1993 started me on the slippery slope of resource management games, and I've never looked back. The presentation was gorgeous and unlike anything I'd seen before. From the cartoon-quality intro to the realistic sound effects that littered the game: birds cheeping, axes biting into trees and pigs snorting - it all seemed way ahead of its time.
After picking a suitable site for your castle, you darted about the map constructing a series of buildings to collect valuable resources for your ever-increasing population. You even had to choose the road layout, being careful not to build on too steep a gradient as it would considerably slow the distribution of goods around your town.

Build enough food sources and your people would thrive, mine enough gold and your army would grow. Take too much time and your enemies would strike. Settlers led the way for Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and Civilisation, and spawned numerous sequels.

For me, the original was definitely the best. (Video: Artigkar40000000)