Black and White 2 to this very date still has the very best citadel building to it. It was let down by having no skirmish mode and the maps themselves felt rather restrictive in terms of free building.
Black and White 1 did many things much more right though! For example you have a temple where all of your alters were situated. Multiple villagers instead of immigrants. The way miracles worked felt much more skillful and varied with the amount of power you had. More mana meant shields would could protect your entire village for longer or against more powerful attacks!
I mean, for those of you that remember, the explosion x2 miracle which rained these giant thunder beams down from the sky about 50 times. The amount of energy needed to protect you from that was tremendous. Yet because of the unlimitations you could protect against it.
One day I hope to revisit black and white 1 and cast a multiplayer game of it for some good time memory and laughs.