Best Civ game

[rah]

CIV 1 Simplistic game but it was the hook that grabbed me.
CIV II Easy to beat after a few games. (don't forget caravans) But it's best feature was the beginning of the MP community. It was a LOT of time spent well with many friends.
CIV III Better designed but I stopped playing it before they fixed the corruption issues so it always left a bad taste in my mouth.
CIV IV BTS A decade later and I still consider it the best PC game ever designed. MP was even better.
CIV V I stopped playing it before it was released due to how bad the AI (and the goto command) handled 1-UP (and they took everything special out of the game). And I was able to beat deity the first try. That should not be possible. I still can't beat CIV IV deity every time.
CIV VI I hear the AI still sucks at 1-up. I'm sure I'll give it a try someday when they're practically giving it away.
SMAC I didn't play till later but it was a lot of fun and held up pretty well. I'd still play it before another game of V.

 

[inthesomeday]

I guess if you play single player Civ, 5 isn’t that good, but the AI sucks in every single iteration, so multiplayer is way better. And Civ 5 is MUCH more balanced than 4, especially for multiplayer. There’s no more “whoever has most cottage tiles wins”. And combat is ten times more interesting. Stacks of death are super boring.

 

[Lexicus]

And Civ 5 is MUCH more balanced than 4, especially for multiplayer. There’s no more “whoever has most cottage tiles wins”. And combat is ten times more interesting. Stacks of death are super boring.

No, instead Civ 5 multiplayer is "whoever has the most ranged units and clicks their attacks the fastest wins"

I think there is much more distance between the top- and bottom-tier civs in Civ 5, vs the top- and bottom-tier civs in Civ 4. That is to say, Civ 4 has a narrower distribution of how powerful its civs are, because the trait system is just less differentiated than the Unique Abilities.

 

[rah]

They had issues with mp in testing so I never really got much chance to play it in V, but can't imagine moving that many units in MP with whoever moves faster has the advantage, it was bad enough in IV but at least with stacks it was easier.

I remember mentioning that the maps were boring and cookie cutter, and not the WOW I got great land like in IV.
Specials weren't really special. The only thing good was rivers. When we complained about the lack of feel (special) only to be informed that a lot of effort went into making it that way. HUH. Wonders didn't feel wonderful. Great people, not so great. It went from "JUST ONE MORE TURN" to "not another turn" Diety wasn't special.

 

[Synobun]

If you're going to play against other humans in Civ 5, you turn off simultaneous turns. Then it's not whoever clicks the fastest as turns are in order. Hybrid turns makes it so you take your turns simultaneously during peace but turn order during war.

 

[Lexicus]

If you're going to play against other humans in Civ 5, you turn off simultaneous turns. Then it's not whoever clicks the fastest as turns are in order.

Yeah but then one game takes approximately 1,714,929 centuries.

To me the point of Civ has always been single-player, I don't actually know people who are willing to play multiplayer sessions and I'm not interested in playing with randoms online, so I judge the game by how it is in single player.

My younger brother and I used to play games where we would be the only humans in a tacit alliance against the AI, that's about the extent of my Civ multiplayer experience.

 

[BenitoChavez]

If you're going to play against other humans in Civ 5, you turn off simultaneous turns. Then it's not whoever clicks the fastest as turns are in order. Hybrid turns makes it so you take your turns simultaneously during peace but turn order during war.

Then wouldn't whoever goes first have an inherent advantage? That doesn't seem fair

 

[Synobun]

Then wouldn't whoever goes first have an inherent advantage? That doesn't seem fair

No more unfair than any other turn-based game.

Yeah but then one game takes approximately 1,714,929 centuries.

Tru dat. I don't like playing against other people. Play with, yes. Play against, save me from this mortal coil.

 

[rah]

Yeah, with that many units to move, i'd hate to go turn based.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If you have ten minutes a week for the rest of your life that you are willing to commit an e-mail based hotseat game can be fun, but otherwise multi-player doesn't interest me...and at my age I assume I'd have to demonstrate that I had a rightful heir who would take over for me before I could get anyone to play with me.

 

[rah]

WE used to get a IV MP game in, in a single evening. With enough booze and whatever, it was usually quite fun. Actually the diplo aspect was probably the most interesting.since we played with generally the same group with different' temp pairings each game.

 

[warpus]

Civ4:BTS is the best Civ game ever made, in terms of game dynamics, balance, immersion, and experience. I like Civ 6, but I hate the "spam settlers as fast as you can, always" dynamics that are always present in games

I don't do roman numerals

 

[inthesomeday]

No, instead Civ 5 multiplayer is "whoever has the most ranged units and clicks their attacks the fastest wins"

Not really. There are eras of strategy to consider; early war loses to long-term infrastructure assuming there are at least 3 players in your game.

I think there is much more distance between the top- and bottom-tier civs in Civ 5, vs the top- and bottom-tier civs in Civ 4.

Maybe, but ultimately the civilization itself has little effect on the outcome of the game. In Civ 5, a marginally better player with France will always beat a marginally worse player with Babylon, assuming all other factors are equal. Same thing in 4, but balance goes way beyond civilization choice. Neither game has balanced technology choices or government choices, so instead we look at terrain, where 5 takes the cake by far. Good terrain in 4 has a much wider distance to bad terrain than it does in 5; this is much more important to the outcome of the game than civilization strength.

 

[civvver]

Civ 5 is more balanced because your decisions in civ 5 don't matter that much. Everyone's mediocre. It sucks sometimes getting a bad roll in civ4 with the map but that's kind of the fun too to overcome that. Or just roll another map!

 

[Perfection]

Civ V because of the Giant Death Robots

 

[Birdjaguar]

Civ V because of the Giant Death Robots

Be proud!!!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Civ 4 is the best strategy game ever made after you spend a few years learning the secret game mechanics.

 

[rah]

Civ 5 is more balanced because your decisions in civ 5 don't matter that much.

Ding Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner. That was my biggest issue with V. Even at Deity, winning was inevitable. It was just a question of how many times you hit enter. The only thing that added to replay-ability was paying for more content. In IV, a couple of bad decisions and you were going to find things very very difficult.

 

[Takhisis]

Civ V because of the Giant Death Robots

In your case I'll not only forgive this but also commend you for your values, yet I voted for Civ 3 nonetheless. And Civ3 might not have GDRs in the epic (vanilla) game but there's certainly tons of mods that do.

 

[Narz]

I've only played Civ 2 and i declare that it is superior!

Seriously though.
If you want to know why it's still kicking, check out the scenario league forum. we needz new blood.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ2-scenario-league.428/

I'd play if I could get a working copy of civ2 for $5 or less