Do you think Civ VI is the best in the series?

[bbbt]

Honestly it's so hard to say, as I essentially stop playing a previous version once a new version is out. Like I played the heck out of 1 and 2, but that's like 20+ years ago now.

I've never like combat in Civ honestly. 1UPT is cumbersome micromanagement and stacks of doom were cumbersome micromanagement. I've usually hit up other game for my tactical combat fix (i.e. homm/ages of wonder, battle for wesnoth, rpgs like divinity original sin). I think my ideal would be 1UPT but with a smaller grain map (less bottlenecks) and an actually grouping/management UI. Basically like a RTS ala warcraft/age of empires/etc but turn based.

Civs economics have always been garbage, and I've hit up other games for that.

I really liked some more of the scale of some of the culture things and 4 (like with the villages that grew and the wonders that gained culture over time), but I really like the bespokeness of 6 with unique UAs/city states/etc, and things like the artifacts and great works.

There were cheesy things in all of them (6 with it's rockbands, 1-4 with their friggin sliders).

Honestly, the biggest issue for me with Civ as it's gone on - and this probably because I'm now on a laptop and not a gaming PC, it's frankly I don't want to wait for ever for the computer to take it's turn. And that's gotten worse and worse with each one.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm not sure whether Civ VI is the best game. I terms of gameplay mechanics, I would say no. The gameplay is very rich but many of the idea's (loyalty, world congress, religion, espionage) are poorly implemented and function more like salad-dressing to your chosen strategy of Great Work hogging / Space Racing / Domination.

And yet, I would say VI is definitely better than Civ V, however. I've been replaying that lately (BNW with all the DLCs) and the contrast couldn't be clearer. Civ VI is, by far, the more enjoyable game by my experience.

Which is funny because I feel like the mechanics in Civ 5 work better overall? Religion works better, the world congress is better and the gameplay elements are easier to use by an AI (which I think is CIV VI's actual downside. The AI isn't worse in 6 than it was in 5, in fact. The difference is that the decision-making in Civ 5 is more straightforward than it is in 6, which is something an AI finds easier to handle than a plethora of equally valuable options. CiV VI's gameplay is, ironically, too rich for its own good.)

Anyway, the really big downside to Civ V has always been the early game. Progress is slow because you're not making culture (notable exceptions to this are Songhai, Poland and the Aztecs, the only civs with a meaningful, early-game culture boost), you're bleeding gold if you're not going tradition (in fact on huge maps, you can just give up if you fail to found a religion with Tithe unless you're playing a civ with a massive gold boost like the Inca) or if you're going early warmonger. Happiness is a crippling mechanic that punishes going wide, leaving large swaths of land uncolonised for the entire game. It's tiresome because you're just doing the same round of min-maxing irrespective of which civ you play.

The game offers you a way out with its exquisite social policy trees (which i definitely prefer over Civ VI's annoying card fiddling), as Aesthetics, Commerce and Honor can make a massive difference for the better, but the problem for me is really just the lack of variation in the early-midgame, which, ultimately, is the most interesting part of the game. You will always take Tradition and one of Aesthetics/Commerce and Rationalism. The final policy slots can go to any of the others (and sometimes you can squeeze out two policy trees if you're lucky and your ideology tree doesn't suit your interests).

By contrast, the late-game in Civ V is fun thanks to the artillery's indirect fire and the ideologies spicing up the endgame, and it's a damn shame I have to go through the same motions each time to get there. The early game being slow and tedious also neuters my interest in any civ with an early game UU (most notably Assyria and the Huns, whom I've never done well with) because I never find war to be worth its opportunity cost

On top of that, most of the CUA's aren't good and the few that are, are ridiculous. Japan and Denmark's bonuses are very hard to make use of, it's almost as if they don't exist. Civ 5's Portugal is perhaps the dullest Civ in the entire franchise (appalling city list too which racks my OCD each time they settle more than their Core Four). France stands out as a pathetic joke, going from the best Civ in Vanilla to easily the worst Civ in BNW. On the flip side, Koreaand Poland are laughably broken, as are the Inca (which are an A-tier civ in *every* iteration), as are Songhai if you figure in their very nifty Mud Brick Mosques: +2 culture per city for an early-game building you can get at half price if you take the piety opener and its culture yields stack with Honor's +2 and Liberty's +1 (which you are encouraged to take as Songhai since money is less of a problem) and ofc the religious building of choice.

(No negative mentions of Venice, which is a special snowflake deserving of our love and affection. Don't blame Venice for being bad, Venice tries its best and I will happily share this screenshot of when I won my first and to date only Civ 5 domination victory, as Venice, on a huge Pangeaea map, King Difficulty. Enjoy


(I had to deliberately throw a dip or culture win to get it but, toe-may-tuh / tuh-mah-toe)

I find it ironic that Civ VI took away all of the tedium Civ V had but replaced it with a near-sandbox-like experience. All the systems that were meaningful and fun in Civ V are irrelevant and dull in Civ VI and vice versa. There must be some sort of middle ground here and it should be found if Civ VII is to be any better.

Overall, I think each Civ game had its ups and downsides. For all the praise Civ IV has received and still receives to this day, I've never been that fond of it compared to most other people. Civ 4 was always too difficult a game for me, as I'm still prone to getting beaten on Noble difficulty in 85% of my games.

Now, don't get my wrong: I don't really care about winning and never have, but I hate losing on terms that aren't my own. If Greece beats me in space race, then fine, I've tried my best. But if Greece shows up on my border, with a 30 unit stack of doom, despite spawning on the *other side of the bleeping huge map* with several weak enemies between myself and them, and then declare war, and then capture five cities, razing three because they cannot handle the cultural pressure and/or maintenance, and the same thing happens at least twice in every three games I play, then it becomes super easy to enter Worldbuilder and spam Modern Armor in my cities with reckless abandon. I don't think I've ever ragequit my Civ games as often as I have in Civ IV. I don't mind getting attacked if I neglect my military, but to me the Civ 4 AI's ridiculous bloodlust always felt like a huge middlefinger towards peaceful builders such as myself (and Civ IV is THE builder game in the franchise. Its terraforming and wide range of buildings and wonders is some of the best found in any strategy game) and that realization has bled into my opinion of it. What a sad waste of perfectly good infrastructure.

So, I arrive at my personal conclusion that the best game in the franchise, in my opinion, is probably Civ III. Civilization 3 was simple and straight-forward, but still challenging enough to meet a satisfying end. It never really got dull since late-game warfare was a thing ever AI happily engaged in and so did I since there's little else to do. The only real problems I had with it were, well, form-related. The civ colours and city lists, both of which can easily be modified, which I have done. The game itself is a breeze and remains addictive and replayable. It is the only game in the franchise where I really feel like playing One More Turn after winning (or in Civ IV's case, being beaten).

It's definitely between that and VI.

 

[oedali]

You should add a poll to OP so we can vote

 

[twansalem]

Reading through this thread I see I'm not the only long-term Civ player who only recently got Civ VI for free from Epic Games. This of course means I haven't had it long, and my opinions of VI are completely based on the vanilla version.

First of all, from the 10 or so games of VI I've played, I can't see any reason to ever play V again.

Before I get into gameplay, I want to mention performance. I was hesitant to try VI because my computer has issues with V on big maps and/or late game. But VI runs smoothly and never glitches. The loading time at the beginning of games or when loading saves is ridiculous, but once loaded it runs smoothly. The same can't be said for V. How does a newer game actually run better on an old system?

In general I felt like every major change instituted by V was a bad idea (minus the hexes vs. squares thing, I don't really care one way or the other). One unit per tile in V sucked. It created terrible bottlenecks, and for me the "carpet of doom" aspect of V was way worse than stacks of doom in IV. I hated how the optimal number of cities in V became so small. How are you supposed to have a grand empire composed of 4 or 5 cities? The terrain didn't matter. Tile yields were so low, and only minimally improved by improvement. Grassland, tundra, hills, who cares where you build your city? It's not like one kind of terrain makes a difference for food or production. No slider. It just feels like I'm more in charge of things if I get to direct where my resources are going, and this was an important aspect of the game going back to at least II (maybe I, I never played it). Now it was just gone, and it seemed like there was very little I could do short-term to re-balance the relationship between science and economy. I should note that I do have all expansions and DLC for V. Some of the scenarios in V are kind of fun, and I was disappointed that VI didn't come with any.

Now for VI. I figured it would probably suck, and I'd be lucky if my computer could even run it. I was pleasantly surprised on all fronts. The game runs fine. I can't explain why, but 1UPT no longer seems like a major handicap (although it still causes me headaches from time to time). I thought I'd hate districts, but I kind of like them, at least for a change of pace. It does bother me when I really need to add a district and the only reasonable tile left is one of my higher food farm tiles, but so be it. Making a difficult choice is sometimes a part of games. The splitting the tech tree into separate tech and civics trees is weird, and not my personal preference, but I'm getting used to it. The warmonger penalty is a pain in the you know what however. I don't see how my conquering of a civ that declared war on ME (making them the warmonger in my opinion) in like 100 AD makes everyone still hate me in 1850 AD. Religion is a bit tedious if you want to keep your religion dominant and you have an AI bound and determined to spread their religion everywhere. It's not that hard to deal with, but any aspect of a game that is best described as tedious probably needs to be looked at. I'm torn on builders. I hate having to keep producing them, but it is nice that the improvement is built instantly. In V it took forever to build improvements.

So VI is clearly better than V in my opinion. I'm probably going to uninstall V one of these days, as I just can't see ever going back to it.

But Civ IV will always be the king. I haven't played it in a couple of weeks, but I'm already starting to miss it and will certainly go back to it. I just don't see how VI can replace IV as my go to Civ game. No unnecessary graphics to bog down loading and turn times, but still visually appealing enough that it doesn't feel outdated. Everything just works and works well. Tile yields matter significantly unlike it V. It makes a real difference if you build cities primarily on grassland vs. plains. I can build things. In V and VI, it just takes forever to to build units and buildings. I like the worker system. Multiple units per tile means you can stack 4 or 5 workers and get improvements cranked out quickly, but they don't disappear after a handful of builds like in VI. You get close to the quickness of builds like in VI, but the permanency of the unit as in V. Map appearance/fog of war etc. is so much easier to interpret. My biggest gripes with VI deal with map visibility. Once you explore an area but move out of it, the whole map goes sepia toned. While you can still scroll over any previously explored tile and see the terrain type, you can't just tell at a glance like you can in IV where it just darkens the colors a bit to indicate you're not actively viewing the area any more. It's much easier to plan future expansion in IV than in VI because of this. This just seems like poor design to me - in both cases you have explored the region and know the terrain, but in VI you have to go to more effort to check on it, for reasons that I assume are purely aesthetic and not game-play based. Lenses in VI. I hate, hate, hate the settler and religion lenses. I want to see the map when making decisions, not big blobs of color that obscure the map. The wonders seem to be more meaningful, and you don't have to worry about destroying improvements or preventing future improvements to build them. At heart I've always been a builder, and limiting how many wonders I can build is definitely one downside of VI. Also, I really don't like how long it takes to build settlers later in the game in VI. The cost of settlers increasing based on the number of settlers you've already build seems strange and non-intuitive to me. At some point it becomes more effective to start a war to increase territory than to peacefully expand into unclaimed territory, and this seems wrong. I like that you have more control of your religion in IV. If you don't want the AI spreading their heathen beliefs, switch into theocracy and bam, problem solved. I guess I could keep ranting, but in the end, it just comes down to enjoyment. I've just flat out gotten more enjoyment out of IV than probably all of the other versions combined.

An important shout out to Civ II: Civ II was the first version of the game I played, and there's still something about it. I'd still rank it ahead of V for the immersion quality alone. The Civ II wonder videos are still far and above the best of any version. I stop watching the wonder videos/wonder splash screens with any other version maybe the second or third time I build a wonder. I watched the Civ II wonder videos all the way through, every. single. time. They're just that good. Also, something about the wonders and the effects in Civ II just seem, you know, more wondrous than in other videos. When you built the Great Library or Leonardo's Workshop in Civ II, you really felt like you accomplished something. In newer versions of the game, half the time when I build a wonder I start thinking about how that production could have been put to better use. The throne room had no real purpose, yet I liked it and it certainly added something to the immersion aspect of the game. Similar thoughts on the high council. There's nothing quite like the military advisor arguing with middle ages version of Elvis. Did it have any real gameplay purpose? Of course not. But it was amusing and made the game fun. And if it makes a game more fun, then I guess it does have a purpose.

I don't have a lot to say about Civ III, other than I played a lot of it, it bridged the gap nicely between Civ II and Civilization Call to Power (Say what you want about Call to Power, officially civ or not, it was a civ game, and I had more fun with it than I'd like to admit). I think it was better than Civ V, but man did corruption suck.

So my order that probably no one will agree with:

1. Civilization IV - by a mile
2.a. Civilization VI -objectively a better game than Civ II
2.b. Civilization II - possibly the best in the series at immersion
3. Civilization III
4. Civilization Call to Power (not technically a civ game, but if you played it, you know it was just unauthorized civ)
5. Civilization V

I never played Civilization I so I'm not including it. I appreciate it's existence because it started the whole thing, but I have no basis for judgement.

 

[AlanC9]

agree with a lot of what twansalem says, so I won't be repetitive and post my own version.

One thing that really bugs me about VI is how disassociated some of the systems are from each other. Unless I'm playing for a religion win I don't need to pay any attention at all to religion. Culture is marginally better, but when a serious player can say "just run Meritocracy , beeline what you need, and ignore everything else," something isn't right.

 

[seancolorado]

I have only played 4, 5 and 6

My ranking goes 5 as my favorite, followed by 6. 4 I didn't care for

 

[KayAU]

Since people are making lists, this is mine, based on memory of how each game:
1. Civilization V
2. Civilization VI
3. Civilization IV
4. Civilization III
5. Civilization
6. Civilization II

Note that I think all of these games are great, and I don't dislike any of them. It might seem like I'm criticizing Civ 6 a lot, but that's probably just due to it failing to deliver some of the things I loved in Civ V. Even though I come up with a different conclusion, I agree with much of what @Lord Lakely writes. I think the point about Civ V and VI having almost inverted strengths and weaknesses is especially apt. I would certainly not mind starting out with Civ VI's strong early game, and then gradually transitioning into Civ V's far superior late game.

Oh, and if I were to include Vox Populi and Alpha Centauri in the list, it would look like this:
-1. Alpha Centauri
0. Vox Populi
1. Civilization V
2. Civilization VI
3. Civilization IV
4. Civilization III
5. Civilization
6. Civilization II

 

[Morningcalm]

For me the order goes:

1. Civ IV (the best gameplay wise. All the systems work well, except for some spying/corporation stuff and some random event stuff--but the random event "quests" are great, as is the diplomacy victory, vassals, the way the UN/Apostolic Palace diplomacy works, competent AI (compared to the other Civs anyway), great quotes by Leonard Nimoy, excellent scenarios built by fans, including a tactical shooter-ish horror game, a fantasy scenario, a space scenario, etc)
2. Civ V (Not as sophisticated gameplay wise as Civ VI, with lots of one-trick pony civs, but I prefer the aesthetics and respect the team for making the leap to fully interactive, atmospheric leaderscreens, which are now the gold standard, and a decent narrator whose awesome Electricity quote still sends shivers down my spine)
3. Civ VI (Great ideas and more inclusive civs overall, with broader civ bonuses, but the aesthetics are still not to my liking--everything from the blue plastic main menu, to the lack of the Civilopedia in the Main Menu, to the fact that leader interactions involve smudged dark backgrounds and cinematic clips rather than real-time interaction. Moreover, whoever wrote those tech/civic quotes needs to look beyond Google, as many of them are too negative/sarcastic for a game about human achievement)
4. Civ III (Awkward animations, and some of the mechanics are clunky).

Not played much of Civ I or II at all, so I don't rate them.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I will just say that I disagree with KayAU about Alpha Centauri's inclusion. Alpha Centauri is in a league of its own. (and I definitely agree that, despite my usual dislike for all things sci-fi, it's a brilliantly designed game firaxis should *liberally* pilfer ideas from, starting with Social Engineering and its tech tree design).

 

[KayAU]

Well, at least I gave it a negative number designation to set it apart from the rest. I It is truly remarkable how often, when I try to think about examples of how things could be improved, my thoughts go back to Alpha Centauri. The game is well over 21 years old now (and by coincidence, I just learned that it was released on my birthday), but to this day, I have yet to see a 4x match it in so many key areas. Social Engineering (Government) is indeed one of the foremost examples. Another would be, in my opinion, the Planetary Council and diplomacy in general.

 

[Venger]

I played and modded III for over a decade. I still like to play a game now and then to clear my head when I hit a roadblock modding VI.

Same here - Civ3 was the last "casual modder" friendly game. I added Civs, resources, all very easily. In a game with excellent entries in the series, III can get left a bit behind simply because it isn't the first, isn't the excellent CivII, isn't the fantastic Civ4:BTS... it's like being the cute girl caught on the same flight as the Swedish Bikini Team. It's not that you are unattractive, you just aren't a member of the Swedish Bikini Team...

 

[RavenousX]

I started with Civ2 and played a lot of that. It was a great game and in many ways I still think it's a better game than a lot of the later entries. Civ3 had a lot of great ideas but the overall game just didn't flow for me. Civ4 is by far the best game imo - probably played that game more than any other ever. Civ5 I bought at launch but I really didn't like it. I never bought the expansions.

I downloaded Civ6 for free the other day so I only have the vanilla version and I would say game mechanic-wise it's much more interesting than Civ5 vanilla. I've enjoyed learning new mechanics but it's not very deep. In fact, in my 6 or so games I've learned it's better to just ignore pretty much everything but science/money/units and have a little culture to rush important cards/corps/armies unless I'm specifically trying to do a culture or religion win. Seems better not to worry about amenities, great people, religion unless it's to get a specific buff to increase production and only worry about granaries or a few extra farms as far as housing.

The problem with Civ6 is the AI. It just ruins the game imo because the game isn't about beating the other civilization army or outsmarting it in anyway it's about staying close enough to the AIs tech because of their bonuses that their city walls + ~1 defender don't decimate your army each time because you're hitting the walls for -10 while they're 1-shotting a unit or three each turn. I mean I'm playing on immortal right now and the dangers are 3 barb scouts seeing your city before turn 10, and runaway AI teching before you can intercede. That's it. Essentially it's a race to kill the idiot AI before they go to space.

Say what you want about stacks of doom but the AI in Civ4 is 100x superior, the happiness/health system is much better than the current amenities/housing silliness and the economy management system in Civ4 by itself puts on another level than Civ 5 or 6. The diplomacy, the promotions system, I could go on forever. I mean can I blame Firaxis for going the Elder Scrolls route? No, but it's still disappointing.

So I hadn't played since I posted this last message and decided to try a deity game. I learned that the AI can't even even go to space if you destroy their spaceports because they don't fricken repair them EVER. I'm sorry but this AI is so bad it's just wrong to call this a strategy game. An AI on another continent was literally 20 techs ahead of me despite me focusing almost completely on science but a couple of spies and it's no problem. Kill the rest of the AI and wait till I'm strong enough to rush their capitol. Whoopee!

And I'm not trying to be a dick or act cocky. I'm honestly not that good at Civ4 compared to most of the players on the Civ4 forum because I play fast. I can win about 60-70% of games on immortal but I don't like deity because you have to be too precise with each turn. I'm also very happy if you guys get joy out of Civ6 and find it interesting. My main criticism is towards the developers because the AI issues have been there since day 1 of Civ5 and they've literally done nothing and it's actually getting worse which is just sad.

 

[AntSou]

Ranks! I like ranks. Here's mine, by amount of fun had and hours invested:

1. Alpha Centauri
2. Civ VI
3. Civ IV
4. Civ V (loved it. Ranking is misleading.)
5. Civ III

Tried Civ III only after Civ IV but I felt it was nowhere as good as IV, and distinctly worse than Alpha Centauri, which I played a ton of.

We so desperately need a SciFi Civ with the same TONE present in Alpha Centauri. You could feel the isolation and loneliness in space from the soundtrack. The planetary entries (or whatever they were called) would send shivers up my spine, the recorded lines for the techs, the recorded lines for the faction leaders. The Personalities of the leaders of those 7 factions has been unmatched by anything I've played since in the genre.

For the love of God, just remake it and call it Proxima Centauri or Beyond Earth 2.

I tried Beyond Earth but didn't like it. Never played Rising Tides which I'm told is very good.

 

[TomTorres]

When I first discovered Civilization (1) as a teenager in the early 1990s, I was completely fascinated by it. The ability to build my own civilization, enjoy its development and success, balance its income and expenditure, to explore a huge world, was something I had never experienced before. You can only get a feeling like that once, and from that point of view, Civ I was the best Civ game (for me). I am much older now, and I no longer get that excited about anything, sadly.

Exactly my thoughts....Nothing will ever beat the feeling playing CIV1, the original Colonization, NHL94 and SSI´s Panzer General on my 386DX-PC back in the days

 

[Jimdigriz]

Just remembered another reason why I like Civ VI so much now - it doesn't crash. Ever. Unlike previous Civ's...