Regarding the Civilization franchise:
I got hooked on Civ2, stayed with them up to current and would rank Civ5 the best. Civ6 brought some additional enhancements, but it muddied the play for me. Civ2 changed the genre, and Civ5 was the next major evolution. I'll admit I also tried Sid Meier's Colonization spin off version (weak) as well as Alpha Centauri (meh) and I belive the more recent Beyond Earth. I always come back to Civ5. I've even tried a version they ported to smart phones (very weak and thin).
It's incredibly addictive! I've been playing literally non stop every moment of my free time.
Understatement. Only addiction I've really suffered under, as I have periods in my life of dodging work to play, or playing all night and watching the sun come up, or all weekend with breaks for food (maybe) and bathroom (after it reaches a breaking point).
I keep starting new games so I can do things better lol, I'm on like turn 250 or something though in one game
So, I've mastered the bottom 3 levels of difficulty and am working my way through the 4th at this point. The method is to make a save point every so often, especially before you choose to go to war or have someone launch an attack on you. I'll start with one seed of the game, run from save 1a to 1k, with frequent reloads when I realize I took a wrong path or have to plan for something I didn't see coming. Trying to navigate difficulty 4 is MUCH different from the lower levels. Nations want to be friends, then team up and beat the crap out of you much sooner - aside from the upped barbarian rates

Religion is falling behind as a tool (tithes and growth or religion spread help a lot in earlier levels), as I'm just getting smashed on religion spread. I have to focus on fewer owned citites, and a lot more military defense just to survive.
I always turn off all the victory options except military, start more or less peacefull rapid expansion and then start picking off other civs
Same. I used to like the rocket ship option but have opted to turn all wins off except domination. I got good enough with difficulty 3 to manage my growth (4 owned cities max) to stay near the lead on knowldege, and start conquering others (puppet cities).
I always play with the largest possible maps, continents, max city-states (love those guys) to extend the game play. But, kudos to the developers for allowing so many ways to set up your own experience and create whatever variety of play you personally enjoy. I'm also always the Romans, just because I like the accelerated builds for others once Rome has something.