Rank each Civ edition from best to worst, in your opinion

[cephalo]

Civ IV , II , I , III , V.

Agreed, although by 'worst' I'm saying it's the worst among my favorite game series. It doesn't mean I don't like it, just not as much.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If someone plays V/Civilization from that viewpoint -- I think it's entirely legitimate to say III beats V.

OK, fair enough.

I'm a builder in general, and that's of course my biggest complaint about V so far. I think all of the other things will be fixed with time, but it still remains to be seen what gets added/changed on the builder side. You're right that it's way war-heavy for my taste.

Concepts like culture, etc., added in III were really neat ideas (I was super excited to hear about them during the months leading to release), but in practice were pretty clunky. The best playing practices were still to just "outwit" the bad AI and its dumb/nonexistent diplomacy techniques.

 

[Peng Qi]

For me it's IV, III, I, II, V

It was a little difficult for me to choose which was the worst, either V or II, but I chose V as the worst because it was a step backwards IMHO. Charging road maintenance for the first time killed it for me.

Wow. You're insane. II is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time. I even occasionally went back and played it instead of BTS.

Anyway, if I rank final version after expansions I say V, IV, II, I, III.

If I rate initial release I say V, II, I, IV, III.

If I rate them in the context of the era in which they were released instead of in retrospect I say II, I, V, IV, III.