And if Civilization and Endless Legend aren't hard-core enough for you (and the space 4X from the same folks in the same setting as EL, Endless Space), you can always load up the Paradox games Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis 4 and have your deficiencies as a complex multisystem manager rubbed right in your face.

Or at least that's what happens to me on a regular basis. There must be some sort of masochism involved because I keep going back.

Too many people have trouble with the idea of trade-offs, that they simply cannot find an optimum strategy that will satisfy their every want. The very idea that there may not be an optimum strategy leaves them flailing. I've always felt that this is a side effect of having insufficient amounts of exposure to games where failure in that mode is relatively common. Everyone learns from failure, and you learn most from failing more often in a context which is nonthreatening, where you can fail without it being dangerous.

I think that's a huge part of the 4X game play paradigm. Providing a context in which complicated management failure is okay, where you can learn that balancing all of the things that you want is not necessarily something you can do.

Now, if you'll excuse me – I need to go play some Stellaris as a devouring mechanical swarm and probably get my empire subjugated!