Well, someone finally did it. They found a way to make nuclear Armageddon fun.
Defcon
Defcon is a multiplayer indie strategy game where the goal is to destroy your rivals. Its technically a real time game, but the pace is so slow and lumbering that it creates a high amount of tension while letting you think hard about your strategic choices. The graphics are simple: just geometric figures overlayed on a map of the world.
What I like best about Defcon is the atmosphere: the weak coughs in the background and sterilized kill counts progressing ever higher really bring out the feel of a war room on the verge of bringing about the apocalypse. Its also one of the few truly fun indie multiplayer games and is an excellent case study of doing more with less graphically.
Fittingly, no one really wins in Defcon: the game is set up so that every country will lose most of their population. It portrays war as brutal but somehow manages to make the experience of playing it entertaining.