I too love Civ, but Paradox makes the best "emperor" games in my opinion. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but they're absolutely fantastic, and I've spent tons of hours on Stellaris, Crusader Kings, and Hearts of Iron IV. Vanilla Stellaris is just four bucks on Steam right now, and totally worth it. The only bad thing about Paradox is they're pretty bad about constantly putting out DLC and expansions, but the vanilla games are completely playable.
I had fun with the original Planet Coaster and Cities: Skylines. Unfortunately, the sequels to those games are getting mixed reviews, so I haven't played them. You might be able to get a good discount on the originals, though.
I like how even in this author's fantasy, the US immediately captures all major cities and strategic objectives like power plants, and the Canadians are forced to retreat to the Arctic wilderness with no supplies or electricity. At that point, the US just shrugs and starts using air power. Not sure how they're coming back from that, especially since the US Navy now absolutely mogs the Royal Navy and no foreign supplies would be forthcoming.
I'm talking specifically about game-related victories like Sweet Baby games flopping, Sweet Baby itself apparently pulling down their website, etc. It's useful to mention tangentially in other places like movies, tabletop, and so on.
Merry Christmas to all!