They spiritually originated from the late 90’s games like Stars which were little more than spreadsheets. They just added some graphics and voila, instant success proving people craved this.

lol when I was like 10 I would make “maps” (random hand drawn shapes) in MS paint then change them around as if they were countries taking land.

I don’t even remember what gave me the idea to do that. Autism was definitely involved even though I didn’t know it at the time.