Civilization games overview

- Mainline games

Civilization:

Never played this myself but I believe everything about civ2 applies to this too.


Civilization II:

The game was huge at the time and probably would still hold up in isolation, but the UX is very dated. The series didn't go through any really major changes at least before civ5 so unless you specifically want to experience the old versions, you should just play civ4 instead.


Civilization III:

A massive leap forward visually, with civ2 having been released in 1996 and civ3 in 2001, in an era where graphics improved faster than ever. The game itself felt clunky though, for reasons I can't fully articulate, having played this as a teen and not a ton. It's probably not that bad overall but even moreso than civ2 suffers from civ4 being the same but better.


Civilization IV:

This is the final entry in the series that simply got bigger and better, before any bold changes. Definitely holds up and it's a common opinion that the series peaked here. It's the first of several entries on this list that I would consider not obviously better than another, but rather better than each other in some ways and worse in others. In very simplified terms I would frame it as a tradeoff of some versions having more nuance in gameplay, but also more annoying micromanagement along with it - like if one game has twice as many relevant decisions, but takes twice as long to play out, isn't that a wash compared to just playing two games of the first one in the same time? To me the mainline games 4-6 are all up there as valid choices to pick, with civ4 at the heaviest micromanagement end of the scale.


Civilization V:

Introduced some major changes, changing square grid to hex, changing unit doomstacks to a one-unit-per-tile system, making cities able to defend themselves and eliminating direct tech trading for perhaps the most notable ones.

As an interlude here, I'll note that the game is very complex and its AI has never been very good, leading to difficulty levels being balanced entirely by how much the AI cheats. The middle difficulties where it plays by the same rules as you or with minor handicaps one way or another are very easy for a seasoned player, and on the highest difficulty (Deity) the bonuses it gets are absurd. I've beat Deity at least once in the games to prove I could, but I don't particularly enjoy the amount of micromanagement involved in playing to win; managing everything manually, constantly adjusting, and especially moving armies. Rather I tend to play on those middle difficulties, treating the game as a sort of a comfy SimEmpire.

Personally I like civ5's direction, but the new unit system isn't without its issues. Moving more than a few units around really is a pain. It's annoying for yourself, and the AI struggles to grasp it at all. Building a big pile of units and mashing it into the enemy in civ4 wasn't all that complex, but in civ5 where positioning matters and you have actual ranged attacks, you can run circles around the AI unless you're completely outmatched. This isn't much of an issue for me as I deal with units as little as possible anyway, but I can see why Deity enjoyers would have an issue with it (and it isn't the only gripe there from what very little I've come across from that crowd).

Overall it's a good game but divisive among the series' fans. Having put the most time into civ6 myself and recently played a bit of civ4 and civ5 again, this is what I would recommend as the entry point. Not that it's a huge difference, if you have any specific one lying around from a giveaway or a big sale then sure, go with that.


Civilization VI:

In a less drastic update, civ6 feels largely similar to civ5 but with some added mechanics. The most prominent change is cities getting fleshed out from points on the map with everything crammed into that one tile to using the map more, placing wonders and improvements on tiles, the latter not bythemselves but via a new concept of districts, which also add adjacency bonuses as a new wrinkle to city planning.

I was initially a big fan of the changes, but after some time I found the added micromanagement more or less counterbalances their positive additions to the game, ending up pretty much a wash. Gun to my head I'd name civ6 as my favourite, but it's very close.


Civilization VII:

Where civ5 and civ6 had a ton of buzz in my circles which pushed me to getting into both on release, civ7 has been crickets and had I not had it wishlisted I probably would have missed the launch entirely. The reviews have been mixed, but with little first-hand knowledge I'll leave it at that.



- Spinoffs and mods

Alpha Centauri:

Released between civ2 and civ3, The Civilization in space was highly acclaimed at the time. I missed it then though and when I briefly tried it later, I couldn't get past the awkward UX, being used to the later titles, similar to how civ3 ruined civ for me as it somehow wasn't all that enjoyable overall, but still made civ2 feel bad too as it raised the bar for visuals and UI. On paper I'm very intrigued by the idea of Civilization, but with freedom to add mechanics that wouldn't neatly fit into the theme of world history progression. Like the first mainline civs, Alpha Centauri should be interesting as a historical curiosity, but for casual play I don't think you want to go this far back.


Fall from Heaven 2:

Civilization games have healthy mod support which I haven't looked into much, but one that got enough buzz for me to have heard about it is this civ4 fantasy mod. Fantasy gives you even more freedom than scifi and again I love it on paper, but after playing a handful of games I had to conclude it wasn't for me, as a decent chunk of the cool stuff ends up grating when forced into the civ4 UI. This game has a place on the 4-6 continuum I mentioned before, ending up even further past 4 into more interesting stuff and even more annoying micromanagement.


Civilization: Beyond Earth

A spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, implemented on civ5 engine. This one I did play a lot with high hopes from its background, but it didn't really deliver. I liked it better than the middling reviews it received, but it's pretty much just civ5 in a different skin. The main downside to detaching from the history theme is you lose the incredibly strong cues to what's what, so instead of finding iron, gold and wheat, which are pretty obvious in what they do, around your starting location you get blobs of different colours, and instead of researching granary and library you research scifi thingies with weird names and abstract icons.

The game was exhausting to play for the first few runs, then once I learned what's what it was... ok. Civ5 but with some cool things and some dumb things. The story and faction theming isn't great, the win conditions feel bad, but you do get a neat tech web with more freedom to choose your direction than usual. The expansion adds aquatic cities which are neat but feel like they exist as a novelty and again don't add too much. The most interesting part to me was thinking about why some of the odd features are the way they are, like oh, the odd affinity system for units exists so you can't just beeline into some strong unit and break power progression.



- Similar games ouside of the series:

Freeciv:

An open source clone of the first Civilization that has been around for three decades now. I played a few games at some point as some friends wanted to do multiplayer, and my vague recollection is it was very similar to civ2 and broadly fine. Briefly tested it again for this and despite three decades of development, it has stayed surprisingly grounded. It's still civ1/2, and felt more clunky than I remembered and even more clunky than the original civ2, though it may have been at least partially an issue with the version I picked since the game has multiple UI implementations to go along with the game engine. Didn't feel like something I should recommend as the first game to try in any case.


Civilization: Call to Power:

Between civ2 and civ3 there was a legal dispute over the rights to the Civilization name, and this was the one game Activision got to release using it. It got poor reviews and I'm really only mentioning it here as a curiosity and as a warning in case you stumbled upon it.


Humankind:

A Civilization clone by a completely unrelated developer. I've heard some people saying this is better than civ, while reviewers seem to rate it as slightly worse. It was free on Epic at some point and I've played it for a few games, and just found it extremely similar with no strong opinion on the comparison. The same studio had previously made Endless Legend and Endless Space as very similar 4x games with fantasy and space themes, of which I had Endless Legend lying around on Steam from somewhere, but when I tried that one I just found it basically Humankind but clunkier.

Humankind does have some of its own mechanics that set it apart, but overall it's really just civ, except such and such being different in such and such way. Visually it looks basically the same as civs 5 and 6. I'd say I slightly prefer civ but it maybe just familiarity speaking, and I certainly can endorse this game too.