13 is Master of Magic?

#12 Tales of Phantasia - SNES / GBA / PS1

The one that started it all, which I actually had the chance to play it very recently, and what a great start it was, it established a lot of the conventions and mechanics that the series is known for to this day, from its trademark real time combat system, tone, themes and the excellent character interaction, be it the original Super Famicom version, GBA or PS1, a pretty basic tale of revenge that oozes charm and personality which makes it stand on its own and be something far more special (fuck all these feels tho, god damn),  thanks to a small group of main characters and some pretty good secondary ones, which works in its favor to create an excellent dynamic between them, all this combined with the great fantasy world, the fantastic dungeon design, the memorable soundtrack to create one of the best adventures from the series and my favorite RPG from the 16 bit era. Also major props to how much of a technical marvel the game was in the Super Famicom, the use of voice clips for battle cries and an opening with a lyrical song and its great visual work, it makes for quite an ambitious gem for the system.

for my top 10 I'll be using 1 word hints in an effort to make them difficult.
#10 rap

No, this game is much newer than that. Sounds interesting if it includes all of that hint though!

correct

Age of Mythology. Great game. One of the ones I keep forgetting each year but should actually be on my list.

And another one I forget about each year. Awesome game, Dark Forces is one of the first shooters I ever played. But, being like what 7 or 8 at the time I was terrified of the third level with the mirky water and the dianogas (the water creatures) and just kept replaying the first and second levels lol.

Correct! It's my top RTS game. Probably one of my top games in playtime, though that's probably true for 60% of my top 50.

Hmm, never heard about this game, but looking at the hints it could be interesting. I'll investigate.

Well, thinking about it, I don't think it 100% fits the description, but it is quite close.  The heroes you get in Master of Magic are basically just Warrior/Commander types or Wizard types, and also your armies don't even need one of these leaders.  Other than that the rest of the description fits in some form. 

Master of Magic is also a turn based 4X game.  I have no idea if your game is like that or not.  But MoM is a really good game.  When I was brainstorming games for my list I wrote it down, but it didn't quite make the top 50 cut.