CIV 5 vs CIV 6

What version are you playing & which is the better game?

  • I’m playing CIV 6, although 5 is overall better

    Votes: 13 20.0%
  • I’m playing CIV 6, as it’s the better game

    Votes: 33 50.8%
  • I’m playing CIV 5, it’s a better game.

    Votes: 19 29.2%
  • I’m playing CIV 5 (for nostalgia?), CIV 6 is the better game

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    65

sprintonwater

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 28, 2013
Messages
39
Location
Australia
I came into the CIV series with CIV5, and have recently started playing the game again. Somehow I’m just not convinced by 6, but a fair number of ppl seem to be playing it.

Do I need to re-adjust my thoughts here, which is the better game?
 
I think civ 5 is better because it almost never crash, meanwhile civ6 is a nightmare of bugs.
 
I think from a game design perspective, Civ5 is the better designed game of the two. It's more balanced, the features are more well integrated in each other, and it feels like there's been payed attention to the game to work as a whole - which is not saying that it's a flawless game by any means.

I do play Civ6, however, because I think it's introduced some new features that makes it hard for me to go back to 5 (districts in particular). I do think Civ6 is the only civ game that has somehow felt more complete at release than it does at the end of its lifetime - the expansions have been decidedly hit-and-miss in their content, and many features feel both poorly designed and poorly integrate (and don't get me started on vampires and zombies and other BS).

As I see it, Civ7 has potential to go in two ways: Either they will manage to pick the best from 5 and 6 and make an awesome game, or they will continue making all the bad decisions they did with 6 (expansions), and 7 will end up being even worse.
 
I came into the franchise with Civ2, where founding dozens of cities was expected. Yes, @Ita Bear , I feel old too.

I play Civ5 to get a victory with each leader. It's both a personal goal and Steam achievements. Civ5 is integrated well, but consciously and explicitly pushes the player to have fewer than 8 cities, with fewer than 5 cities in the early and mid-game. That feels constraining to me, having come from hundreds of hours playing Civ3 where my empire had at least 15 self-founded cities and dozens more that I conquered.
I do like the idea of districts in Civ6, along with armies/corps and the large array of leaders to choose from. Building an empire with more cities is possible again, which is good. building roads by using limited-quantity trade routes is less fun. I didn't buy NFP so I don't have first-hand experience with all the modes. But I appreciate that they made a conscious design decision to have "ice cream toppings", features and modes that are added one-at-a-time, or combined, as the player sees fit. In other words, looser integration. It's a feature, not a bug.

Most days, I'm playing Civ3 or BERT, trying to make time for Old World or learn GalCiv3.
 
Idk.... civs 5 and 6 are good... they really are it's just that there are good things left out of civ 6 that 5 used to have that kinda downgraded it but it's evened up by the addition of the obvious things.
 
Haven't touched CIV 5 since over 5/6 years, only played civ 1 in between (never got around to play the other iterations). The moment CIV VI came to the Nintendo Switch I knew I had to get it. It wasn't too hard to get used to CIV VI, the forum helps a lot to learn new stuff and maybe I shifted from vanilla to full dlc too briskly (that's when I joined the fanatic legion)...but I can't go back! Sure sometimes it drones through turns...but you know what, so did civ 1 for me! It's not a perfect CIV game, i don't know what a perfect CIV game is, maybe the original is perfect because it's so simple compared to modern iterations. I think there will never be perfect "modern" CIV because of all the mechanics and flavour they add. But some of the flavours are so good!
 
I think from a game design perspective, Civ5 is the better designed game of the two. It's more balanced, the features are more well integrated in each other, and it feels like there's been payed attention to the game to work as a whole - which is not saying that it's a flawless game by any means.
This right here.
Civ 5 is a very good game, but what it lacks is viability for anything other than cookie cutter gameplay.
The game in general is more polished and contains far less powercreep compared to civ 6, but god, 4 city tall tradition does get tiresome after a while.
(Yes I know you can play other styles as well, but that's where the cookie cutter problem comes into play).
 
Civ 6 feels so complicated to me yet simultaneously feels as though none of the new additions actually make any difference. It's hard to explain. Sort of like "try this feature...okay that was fun for a while...try this feature...okay that was fun for a while...etc".
ex. sometimes I played games without even promoting or even choosing governors.

I tend to prefer Civ 5 but its color palette is a little bland nowadays for my tastes.
 
This right here.
Civ 5 is a very good game, but what it lacks is viability for anything other than cookie cutter gameplay.
The game in general is more polished and contains far less powercreep compared to civ 6, but god, 4 city tall tradition does get tiresome after a while.
(Yes I know you can play other styles as well, but that's where the cookie cutter problem comes into play).
I agree, perhaps I should specify that I played with some rather heavily modded policy trees, which made it so that wide gameplay was actually viable if you opened with Liberty, and made Rationalism not the universally best follow up - plus I had reduced policy costs overall, which allowed you to earn more policies, which in itself granted larger room for experimenting.
 
Where's the, "both games are bad, I'm playing Civ IV" option? :D

Seeing Civ V and nostalgia in the same sentence makes me feel old...
I've recently pulled out IV as well. It's amazing how well it holds up. Even the stacks of doom bad with BTS.

Is it better than V or VI? I'd say overall, I like the features of IV but miss the modern interface and graphics of V and VI.

In regards to the poll, I tried playing VI again but went back to V. Civ VI isn't a bad game. It's good but I prefer V.
 
I think from a game design perspective, Civ5 is the better designed game of the two. It's more balanced, the features are more well integrated in each other, and it feels like there's been payed attention to the game to work as a whole - which is not saying that it's a flawless game by any means.

I do play Civ6, however, because I think it's introduced some new features that makes it hard for me to go back to 5 (districts in particular). I do think Civ6 is the only civ game that has somehow felt more complete at release than it does at the end of its lifetime - the expansions have been decidedly hit-and-miss in their content, and many features feel both poorly designed and poorly integrate (and don't get me started on vampires and zombies and other BS).

As I see it, Civ7 has potential to go in two ways: Either they will manage to pick the best from 5 and 6 and make an awesome game, or they will continue making all the bad decisions they did with 6 (expansions), and 7 will end up being even worse.
Hit the nail on the head! Civ V was harmonious and despite being simplier, was streamlined and through that more immersive. Civ VI has some flashy features that do indeed make it hard to go back (I like the leader bonuses, most attributes of districts, and GPP much better) but it just feels…hollower. It doesn’t feel cheap exactly but it’s just a hollow experience comparatively.

I remember SO MANY of my Civ V (And even Civ IV) games-particularly the MP ones with my buddies. That memorability is just not there for VI despite it being newer and me now having more hours in it. Maybe it’s pure nostalgia but…yeah storytelling is important over just min/maxing everything.
 
I agree, perhaps I should specify that I played with some rather heavily modded policy trees, which made it so that wide gameplay was actually viable if you opened with Liberty, and made Rationalism not the universally best follow up - plus I had reduced policy costs overall, which allowed you to earn more policies, which in itself granted larger room for experimenting.
I'm curious to know how many would stay with Civ 5, over Civ 6, if Civ 5 did not have all these mods sometimes overhauling the whole game?
 
I'm curious to know how many would stay with Civ 5, over Civ 6, if Civ 5 did not have all these mods sometimes overhauling the whole game?
By the way, civ 5 is way more easier to put Moods than civ6. Another point to civ5.
And civ5 is easy to find a full game for free on the internet, meanwhile I need to pay to have a platinum civ6 and don't have all civs.
 
And civ5 is easy to find a full game for free on the internet, meanwhile I need to pay to have a platinum civ6 and don't have all civs.
I mean it's their latest product so its expected to still be making money until they decide to release Civ 7.
 
I tired hard to like Civ 6, and played it quite a bit. I like the districts concept a lot.

Unfortunately, I feel the game just has too many different kinds of choices to make that don't make much impact on gameplay. A lot of the game feels like busywork to me, with choices to be made that have little or no effect on the long term outcome. I also think diplomacy (city-state and civilization) is a large step backwards from V - I thought that system was great as it is (especially combined with the Ideologies of the late eras).

Hoping Civ7 keeps some of the innovations of Civ6, but dials back all the different systems and choices that make that game more busywork than meaningful and interesting choices. I also hope they bring back a diplomacy system more similar to V than VI.

We'll see what happens.
 
I think from a game design perspective, Civ5 is the better designed game of the two. It's more balanced, the features are more well integrated in each other, and it feels like there's been payed attention to the game to work as a whole - which is not saying that it's a flawless game by any means.

I do play Civ6, however, because I think it's introduced some new features that makes it hard for me to go back to 5 (districts in particular). I do think Civ6 is the only civ game that has somehow felt more complete at release than it does at the end of its lifetime - the expansions have been decidedly hit-and-miss in their content, and many features feel both poorly designed and poorly integrate (and don't get me started on vampires and zombies and other BS).

As I see it, Civ7 has potential to go in two ways: Either they will manage to pick the best from 5 and 6 and make an awesome game, or they will continue making all the bad decisions they did with 6 (expansions), and 7 will end up being even worse.

this is pretty much where I'm at. i can't get past the horrific AI of 6, but still have more hrs there than 5. I also will never forgive them for not releasing the .dll for 6 so that modders can really get their hands under the hood, and maybe make an AI that maybe develops at least one tile per city pop as an example. honestly, i'd come back for 7 simply b/c gaming and civ are synonymous for me, but they're some other, GOOD 4x games out there. i don't think civ can rest on its laurels any longer.
 
In some ways I like 5 more, but there's also the problem that in 5, I feel compelled to play basically the same way every time, because the optimal path in 5 (approx 4 cities, focus on science, tradition into patronage/liberty and then into rationalism) is so much better than any other path that it's basically pointless to do anything else. 5 needs a rebalance, but 6 needs more of a total overhaul, at least with the AI being basically unable to play it.
 
I'm curious to know how many would stay with Civ 5, over Civ 6, if Civ 5 did not have all these mods sometimes overhauling the whole game?
Not many, probably. But I also play a rather heavily modded 6, although the lack of released .dll is a downer, as mentioned by others. So I don't see that particularly tipping the scale in either game's favor.
 
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