Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth. There are other less then stellar games in the Civ franchise that I haven’t played like Starships. Beyond Earth, though, was a day 1 purchase for me, and it wasn’t -terrible-, but it left a lot to be desired.
If you’re looking for something in the same vein as Dwarf Fortress, there’s Rimworld. It’s the game I hit 1000 hrs played the fastest, thanks to the ridiculous amount of mods available on the workshop.
Civilization 2. I was watching my brother-in-law playing it, thinking this must be some sort of simulation that was part of his college homework. After all, I had played F16 Fighting Falcon in my middle school science class as part of an assignment.
But, no, it was a game for fun. I became enamored with it and it began my love for 4X games that continues to this day.
This is the exact same thing they’ve done for the past couple editions, so Legends as a thing isn’t new. I see this more as, hey, these models are old as hell, aren’t made anymore and we don’t want to spend time making sure they’re balanced for tournament play, so here’s rules for you to play them in casual/Crusade games, have fun.