I could wrote paragraphs and parahraphs about Civ 4! Here you've got some thing I can think that make midgame interesting.

In the mid game there are some "universal" milestones, such as the race to Liberalism (first one to research it gets another tech for free, anything that is already researchable) or the development of Scientific Method (you initially lose science input because monasteries become obsolete, but it opens the path to other powerful technologies that you will need in the next turns).

Also by midgame, if you are playing in a map with different continents, you get access to Caravels and Astronomy, so you get to meet (and invade) a whole set of new civilizations. A bit later comes the Rifle, which is possibly the biggest leap in terms of military technology, and the perfect point to get an advantage over your enemies (more or less at the same time as drafting units become possible with Nationalism -drafting Riflemen is the most cost effective "rushing" action in thr game).

Also during Renaissance / Industrial Age several National Wonders become available, which are crucial to specialize your cities.

If you keep playing you will discover more subtleties and challenges as you go on.

I see! You've just answered the confusion that I had while I was playing a match of Civilization IV when I noticed that upon completing the research of a certain tech, the tab that got prompted afterwards (the one which you can never get rid of unless you choose something to either produce or research) showed me that I didn't need to wait for any turns to research anything that I was currently able to research next. What happened was that I took the situation for granted without analyzing further behind the reason as to why it happened. Therefore, you have my thanks. :)

You know, this reminds me back to the time when I thought that frigates could not only bombard the defenses of cities, but also fire at enemies on nearby tiles. As a result, both frigates and galleons became some of my most passive units in the game lol. I once made them camp on the sea near the shorelines of an enemy city and had them bombard the its defenses until my ground units finally arrived on the scene.

TIS-100

It's a programming puzzle game, with concurrency. I haven't played these games before because it just feels redundant as I code as a hobby and also for a living. So this was a first.

Honestly I didn't like it that much. I think I might enjoy games in this genre, but the instruction set and other constraints you have to work with in TIS-100 are frustratingly limiting. Many of the minmax solutions feel like terrible hacks; I'd rather have tougher puzzles but richer tools to attack it with so that one can enjoy a good solution that finds good, clean way to use the components and instructions provided.

Another thing that detracts me from TIS-100 is the lack of meaningful goals beyond just completing solutions. You can minmax, but it's ultimately just a scoreboard. Worse yet, you can code a solution that uses minimal number of instructions, and then code another that is as fast as possible.. and both counts improve! Which solution was "better"? There is no "better." Unfortunately that kind of thing doesn't really incentivize me to go on and try to achieve "better."

Verdict: decent concept, meh execution, too minimalistic.

Definitely different from anything I've played before though.

These three wonderful games:

Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons.
Rime.
AER: Memories of Old.

This would be World of Goo. Haven't played the game before even though i knew about it for a long time, no i don't know the story since i never watched a video that far. By now i feel the experience is very positive in it's gameplay am at chapter 3 now since i am playing it now. Like the physics, sounds and music all nice and levels are pretty interesting to how they handled them.
Only i am not good at OCD challenges which i don't know if they have any meaning, only reached one OCD challenge.
I am usually not into puzzle games, it's not like i can't do them i just don't like them usually.

Even in some rpg maker games if the puzzle isn't too hard then okay, but why would you have to stop gameplay with some puzzles and then make em hard and stop you from proceding the game.

In the first place it would be Gwent. It's the first time I play a card game online, and it's a great experience. Obviously the game has bad things, like microtransactions, but at the moment they are not so terrible.

Second, play some visual novels. It is the first time I play this genre, and although most of them bored me fast, in other cases they entertained me a lot. One of those cases is Monster Prom.

I also started playing more classics, like Icewind Dale and Divine Divinity, but I had already played similar games to those.

Since I've tried most everything over the years, there's really nothing brand new to me, these days. *shrug*

I did realize though that I thoroughly dislike games that have crafting as one of their major gameplay features. Even something as streamlined and far less tedious such as Subnautica put me off after a while. I just don't find anything satisfying in the whole "collect these to craft this so you can collect those and craft something even better" loop. It's all just a boring grind to me. Just give me some complete equipment so I just can get on with it.

Yeah I've been kinda thinking along these lines *although* I think crafting can be OK and even an interesting way to progress as long as you can either move on or automate it away. Having to grind the same materials over and over again so that you can craft the same consumables you need over and over again without really moving forward in the game gets old quick.

For example (thinking minecraft), I wouldn't mind having to craft a pickaxe (that then lasts forever) and thus enabling me to dig deeper and harder materials, but having to collect coal and wood and make torches over and over again is really boring. That's not to say the pickaxe is super exciting; I'd be more excited about something that really unlocks new possibilities, sorta like opening up a new research tree or a whole new class of items or units. So I'd rather craft complex mahchines and mechanisms than simple tools like pigaxes.

Thank you for all the replies so far !

*BUMP*

^This. Excellent game and my GOTY for the year 2018. Other than that and as far as AAA games go, the most recently released one that i've played and enjoyed this year was Mirror's Edge; its non-stop parkour action is nice and i didn't find anything similar gameplay-wise in any of the PC games i've played so far.

Cultist Simulator
Unique mechanics, lacking any tutorial or hand-guiding, you must figure how the game works for yourself. You'll need to die and replay several times before starting to do it, and once you do, you'll find new risks, as well as new objectives and rewards.
The game is an innovative form of storytelling, and reading the texts is worth it. Anyway, it's not a game for everyone, but if you like trying new things and are patient enough, it's a good choice.

Cultist Simulator (loved it) & Where the water tastes like wine (love it).