Best Version of Civ

[Sashimi917]

the only good thing of Civ5 over Civ4 is the new combat system, so Civ4 + Civ5 combat = best of all time.

 

[NolanNZ]

I voted Civ IV + expansions. But I have no doubt that following a bit of patching and expansions Civ V will be the new king.

 

[ExCivFan]

Why is everyone so crazy about modding? Mods have the same problem as civ 5: the ai sucks so bad the game is unplayable! I hope civ 5 plus expansions is going to be better than civ 4 plus expansions, but it's not. Too much is wrong with civ 5 to do anything about except fire that idiot kid that designed the game and try again to do what should have been done in the first place: integrate the best ideas civ 5SUCCESSFULLY implemented with civ 4.

 

[tinstaafl]

Presumably, civ5 will have modding capability as strong as civ4, which will in theory allow anyone to remake the AI from the ground up.

As for the vote. I voted civ4+bts for now. I have only played 2 half games in civ5 on king up to now (i am currently waiting to get a new graphics adapter) so i have only seen a bit of the AI sadness (rome in war sending a string of single archers to my borders), and it's too early to tell how the economic part of the game will hold up to compared to 4, but i'm also worried about the apparently unit-heavy late-game-tech tree.
The flow of civ5 in what i've seen isn't to my taste. Turns to often have me attack barbarian boats with my cities, to the point where i have to attack some boat in 30-40% of overall turns. You have to click on the icons on the right to go there. At the same time, few exciting things happen per turn. Even so, when i was playing, there was some measure of "just one more turn" going on, but it felt less rewarding than any earlier titles.
Actually, it feels like doing somewhat boring work.

I'm astonished that people still vote for civ2 and even civ1, over civ4. Those games had no AI to speak of. Alpha Centauri, which to me was the best civ-game as far as flavor, ideas, immersion in the series if you count it, also suffered from AI.

Of the old titles, civ3 and civ4 are the only games that still pose a challenge to me, so in terms of replayability, they are the best. I like civ4 alot better than civ3.

 

[Merovinge]

SMAC also had significant difficulty on the highest difficulty settings, that is unless I was just too young at the time. I think Lal could semi-cheese out some diplo wins at the highest level, but other leaders had really hard times. All the other positives of SMAC have already been said, I almost want to reinstall it and forget about V until it gets patched up.

 

[tinstaafl]

To be more specific. The SMAC/X AI didn't understand crawlers or the even the less than optimal terraforming pattern of forest everywhere / beeline to treefarms, popexplosion to size 14 in turn 120 - at the latest. My fastest transcendence victory on the highest difficulty was 188 of the 500 turns in the game, and that was on a normal map, not tiny with all a factions puppeted and using trade (the game could presumably be won by transcendence (!) in less than 100 turns on those settings).

I would always run away from the AI in the early midgame.

And I wasn't even a very good player, as i was able to find out when i played a few PBEMs.

 

[Revenant27]

Civ IV BTS, but I think that with expansions and patching Civ 5 will ultimately be the better game. 1upt is just so much better.

 

[Stormbolt]

Bugs aside, probably Civ V. I honestly can't say I miss too many of the things that were taken out.

 

[Zenstrive]

Wow...now I think I need to find a way to procure Civ II...I got a fond memory of playing it....the version of fantasy of it, btw

 

[DarkSchneider]

Within it's historical context Civ I or II would have to take the prize, they were both so ahead of their times. But if each were released simultaneously I would be drawn to Civ IV without question.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

As soon as ciV's AI get's fixed that will be the best.

 

[UrkSpleen]

BtS was definitely the best iteration of Civ to date. Even if you forget about the huge amount of options, gameplay, random events, etc that it introduced, the scenarios that were shipped with the game ALONE would have made it the best.

 

[devily]

I'll go Civ IV+Expansions, though I didn't play CIV I much, It was back in Amiga days so handling those floppies was kind of annoying

I think whole serie peaked with 4th one, and from peak you can only go down. Offcourse, it doesn't exclude that Firaxis will now try hard and improve things in future, or at least fix this one

 

[mr. Y]

My top 5:

1) CIV 4 (+BTS)
2) CIV 2
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3) CIV 1

CIV 3 and CIV 5 don't make it into my top 5.

 

[frkhead]

Excellent post Kaytie!
Voted CIV2 also.

 

[Thalassicus]

The AI gets huge production bonuses and swarms you with units but really cant use the 1upt or land bonuses very well. If you get them in a choke point they will just keep using the Zapp Brannigan method and throw wave after wave of men at you.

I actually thought of this quote when massacring some AI the other day:

Stop Exploding, You Cowards!

Also, my cat Bill puts in a second vote, for Alpha Centauri.

 

[Alsark]

I voted for Civ 4 + Expansions. Civ 5 just isn't as fun to me. I'm not really sure if patches will fix that, but there's quite a few things that I feel would need to be changed for me to really get into the game.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Civ IV+Expansions then CivII+Expansions. So far not a fan of V but maybe once mods + expansions (hopefully) fix the major issues it will rise to the top.

 

[CustodianV131]

For now:

Civ IV + Expansions

But I can see Civ V taking the crown in two years or so, once it has matured and had some expansions and DLC.