- Sid Meier’s Civilization IV
- Sid Meier’s Civilization V
- Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
- Tic-tac-toe is too much strategy for me
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voters
I’m still partial to Civ IV.
If you’re not playing IV, go play Old World.
I’m glad you said this as I was wondering if other people felt the same way as I do.
That’s a tough one! It’s been so long since i played Civ IV i’m not sure i can say for certain which i like better.
Civ V feels like a better “game”, as a game. I think Civ VI may have a significantly more complicated economic chain, so if you like complexity for the sake of complexity, maybe Civ VI? I enjoy the starting turns, (say, turn 1 to 50) of Civ V better, but Civ V has some really bad mechanics later on.
But the music in Civ V is so good, and i like the art better, when i start with Songhai I really feel the game’s underlying gameplay. But honestly i think the only ‘fun’ game of Civ V i had was the first one (ie, the only time i didn’t understand the underlying game model).
But Civ IV has Fall of Heaven and the Dune mods, and if i recall those were both amazing mods.
I’ve played a lot of Civ VI but i always stall out… something about it rubs me the wrong way. I think at this point it might be considered the ‘best’ of the Civ games as far as ‘depth’ goes.
Civ V however performs very weird on modern systems. It’s like it’s not been updated. It crashes a lot and doesn’t seem to work well with resolutions over 1920 x 1080. It’s almost like playing a game from 20 years ago. It puts me off trying it again. OTOH, i think i’d rather play Humankind at this point if i’m playing for the vibe.
Yeah I think IV is still the best of the Civ series, but Old World is better than any of the Civs, in my opinion.
I wish we could get IV’s gameplay with later games UI.
Old World fills this void pretty well though.
I haven’t played these yet, sadly. But they’re in my backlog. I did play IV briefly, but was repelled because of the graphics (as compared to Civ 3, which was gorgeous) and overload of information on the screen (again, compared to Civ 2 and 3, which kept information nicely compartmentalized instead of trying to display so much of it all the time on the screen like Civ 4). I keep meaning to give Civ 4 another chance though, since everyone seems to love it.
I played V briefly, and was enjoying it until I started playing something else, so I never really got into the meat of it. For example, I never really got into many battles yet.
Yep, I mean this isn’t even a close contest between these choices.
Not even. Old World >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Any Civ.
I would be very surprised if there’s not a good majority favoring Civ IV on this forum.
I really wanted to like 5 and 6 more. They just didn’t click like 4 did at the time. Not sure why.
If you listen to any of the Civ designers talk, they always discuss how there are a few different types of Civ players – strategy/wargamers and role-players. I’m in the latter camp, so for me Civ V is my favorite. I loved IV at the time, and probably still have the most hours in it just due to where my life was at when that game came out, but the focus was too much on the strategy side for my playstyle. This primarily becomes an annoyance for me when forced into conflict, where having and managing multiple large armies is required. I’m one of the sickos who likes the move to 1UPT because I can take over a city with 3 archers and a swordsman and then get back to building my Civ how I want to.
As such, Civ V is the only one that I’ve beaten with every leader. And for me, Civ VI’s move to placing buildings on the map makes it too tempting to optimize the fun out of the game. In theory I like the change; in practice I sit there and agonize over city/building placement in a way that seems to double the time it takes to get through a single game. That said, Civ VI is the one I play around with every once in a while on my Steam Deck while Civ V is not installed anywhere at this point.
As for Old World – it’s my favorite modern 4x, but I don’t think it’s the same sort of game as Civ. There’s something I still find alluring about the entirety of human history.
Yes, this.
As for Civ I think I’d vote for my 4 even if I find the early 2000s graphics and UX make it something I won’t play today. I got a lot of time out of 5 and some enjoyment from 6. I was excited about the map districts in 6 but you’re right that it requires a bunch of optimization in placement, usually hundreds or thousands of years before it matters. Other games have done the on map building stuff better, especially Old World. Otherwise Civ 6 also ruined the rapid change of industrialization and spread of railroads that I thought all the earlier versions did really well.
Civ 5 was a pretty big disappointment for me; I enjoyed my first game, didn’t really enjoy my second game, and never felt the need to get back to it. If it got better later, it didn’t matter since I was so thoroughly off it that (while this is probably unfair to Civ 5, it’s true) I was just out on historical 4x for a decade or so after that, and never was in a position where I wanted to try Civ 6.
I’ve got hundreds of hours in Civ 4, and around a hundred in Old World, which is more about one releasing my senior year of college and one releasing after I had a kid than any relative judgment on quality. They’re both excellent; I did even reinstall 4 and mess around with it a bit during the pandemic, and I still enjoyed it fifteen years post-release.
I voted for Civ IV, judging each for how I felt about it when it was released. I must have played over 2000 hours of Civ IV, easily. It was my go to game. When I’d get a new game I may put it away for a while but I’d be right back to it.
Civ V’s 1UPT just made the game too tedious and frustrating watching the AI move it’s units back and forth like a dufus. Also the bottlenecks on the map were too frustrating at times. I still did play it quite a bit, around 700 hours. I did enjoy playing the different factions, so it’s not like I hated it, but there were a lot of downsides.
Like others, I thought the ideas in Civ VI were good, but the implementation lacking. I have around 300 hours in this one.
If I got into the mood today to play one of these Civs, I’m not sure which I’d go to. I do enjoy the modern visuals and UI of the 2 recent ones and Civ IV probably wouldn’t be able to garner the same amount of love today. If I could only play one, I’d probably choose IV.
Old World is a different beast that has many similarities. For me, the narrow focus in time isn’t as fun. Also, the character part gets in the way too much. I love the economy, orders, how the game can actually play and control it’s units. There is a lot to like, but when i think about playing I remember getting bombarded with so many notifications about characters and people dying. I know there are settings to adjust that stuff, but I haven’t tinkered with it enough to decide the best way to play.
For me it probably quadruples it. I hate my brain’s indecisiveness.
OMG me too (and the future too).
Great post, and I’m the same.
I think this is an important point. I’m can’t speak for jpinard’s intent, but he did say “Do”, not “Did”. I find it hard to compare games from 15-20 years ago fairly against modern equivalents without injecting nostalgia or “where I was in my life” as part of the comparison. I find the questions much more interesting when finding out that folks play the older versions today in preference to their newer counterparts.
Exactly.
I’m honestly surprised Civ V is beating VI right now…