Current Events > whats the best civ game

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i wanna get into civilization but i dunno where to start. i have civ 5 bought for some reason already but the internet seems to all say its bad. where should i start?

I got civ 6 on sale days ago and am having a blast, Ive played a handful of hours of stellaris but outside of that nothing really

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Because of Civ 4, I initially thought of Beyond the Sword whenever I read the name BTS.

MarcyWarcy posted...

i wanna get into civilization but i dunno where to start. i have civ 5 bought for some reason already but the internet seems to all say its bad. where should i start?

You already own 5. Just play it and form your own opinion.

6 imo

I played a ton of 5 too but 6 is more enjoyable.

I don't know what part of the internet you're reading where Civilization V is bad.

Assuming you are wanting a modern one: Civ VI. Civ II/III are what I'd argue are the best in the series, but by and large they are very dated and you have to really want to play through some of the jank. Civ IV is also excellent, but really only so when you have both of the expansions where II/III just need the base game. V is good, but VI is really just a better V in most ways. The first one is completely eclipsed by the second and about the only reason to care about it is because you want to see the history of the series.

As for why you are hearing that V is bad... it's mostly because it's after IV and IV was just better once you factored in expansions (though the same could be argued about V and it being dramatically better with its expansions). They did a lot of changes that fundamentally altered how the games played and there was a massive contingency of people that have a fit any time something is changed. You really won't have that issue if you aren't used to IV and before and otherwise I'm pretty confident that most of the relevant bugs that early players complained about have been patched to the point where the base game will be fun enough for you.

Stormvale12 posted...

You already own 5. Just play it and form your own opinion.

Honestly. 5 is awesome. I think people like 6 because it adds some layers of complexity. I think 5 might be better for someone new to the series. Okay 5 for now, then grab 6 when it inevitably goes on sale.

5 is my favorite. What kinda sweaty's are telling you it sucks lol

I only put serious time into these Civs

1 and 5

I have played a small amount of all the others except 6. 5 is really good. I always remembered it being massively popular back before 6 came out. 5 even got mentioned on an episode of Law and Order SVU

Stormvale12 posted...

You already own 5. Just play it and form your own opinion.

dont wanna take the time to learn a complicated strategy game if theres better options in the series to learn instead. But the consensus in this thread seems to be that V is actually good so Ill give it a try

yeah might as well try 5 if you already have it. it's similar enough to 6 that if you buy 6 you'll be able to figure stuff out pretty easy

Civ 5 with Lekmod is one of my favorite games

Test of Time is my personal favorite. Love the fantasy scenario especially. I don't know how you could go about playing it nowadays but it's a gem of a game.

Maybe I didn't git gud enough at 5 but it actively discourages you from building many cities. From what I remember, 4 cities was optimal, and you'd run into problems later if you built more. The happiness system makes it difficult to found more and more cities. Civ 6 on the other hand let's you conquer the entire world if you want and the loyalty system is easily mitigated to help you keep cities from rebelling.

Idk about you, but if I'm playing a 4X city builder type game, I'd want to claim as much land and build as many cities as I wanted to.

5 is way better than 6

GuerillaGorilla posted...

Maybe I didn't git gud enough at 5 but it actively discourages you from building many cities. From what I remember, 4 cities was optimal, and you'd run into problems later if you built more. The happiness system makes it difficult to found more and more cities. Civ 6 on the other hand let's you conquer the entire world if you want and the loyalty system is easily mitigated to help you keep cities from rebelling.

Idk about you, but if I'm playing a 4X city builder type game, I'd want to claim as much land and build as many cities as I wanted to.

Its been years, but I remember in my America campaign, I had a lot of cities. Because I went on a warpath and wiped out all other civs. I kept all the conquered cities. But I was playing on an easier difficulty

ellis123 posted...

Assuming you are wanting a modern one: Civ VI. Civ II/III are what I'd argue are the best in the series, but by and large they are very dated and you have to really want to play through some of the jank. Civ IV is also excellent, but really only so when you have both of the expansions where II/III just need the base game. V is good, but VI is really just a better V in most ways. The first one is completely eclipsed by the second and about the only reason to care about it is because you want to see the history of the series.

As for why you are hearing that V is bad... it's mostly because it's after IV and IV was just better once you factored in expansions (though the same could be argued about V and it being dramatically better with its expansions). They did a lot of changes that fundamentally altered how the games played and there was a massive contingency of people that have a fit any time something is changed. You really won't have that issue if you aren't used to IV and before and otherwise I'm pretty confident that most of the relevant bugs that early players complained about have been patched to the point where the base game will be fun enough for you.

alot of good points here, but I gotta come in and defend V lol! Now VI does do many things right, but I still think V exceeds in some very key areas. First off is art design. I think V just looks better and has a better overall aesthetic. VI looks good, but it's much more...cartoony. V feels like a video game when I'm playing, VI feels like I'm playing a board game digitally. Which, isn't bad, I just prefer the style of V. Also the spy system. I don't think either handle it particularly well, but at least with V I can just have my spy protect my capitol. In VI you have like 6 options for every city to protect and it just feels like...pointless. Both suck with the spy systems but V I feel sucks less lol.

And lastely are the cities themselves. In V every city you build is important and strategic, as you go tall not wide (at least in order to be successful...most of the time). In VI you just spread like a plague, but then with the district system you need advance knowledge of what each tile does and what each improvement will do to each tile and what wonder will fit where in order to get maximum efficiency from your cities. Which can add more strategic options, but once you learn the district system in VI, there's really only a few options on what you want to build and where.

I've put hours into both and think both are great games tho. Many hundreds of hours between the two!:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/1/3/AAUMC0AAEFmZ.jpg

Civ 5 is the best one

https://youtu.be/vtHh9eVQ7oI

Both V and VI are really good. If you already have Civ V, give it a shot.

https://youtu.be/8ggaEKQ_HoI

Civ2 will always have a special place in my heart.

started a game as persia because they appear to be geared around beating everyone up, and i thought that would be a good first introduction. pretty fun and surprisingly intuitive

Civ IV BtS was the peak of the series.

DigitalCamera posted...

alot of good points here, but I gotta come in and defend V lol! Now VI does do many things right, but I still think V exceeds in some very key areas. First off is art design. I think V just looks better and has a better overall aesthetic. VI looks good, but it's much more...cartoony. V feels like a video game when I'm playing, VI feels like I'm playing a board game digitally. Which, isn't bad, I just prefer the style of V. Also the spy system. I don't think either handle it particularly well, but at least with V I can just have my spy protect my capitol. In VI you have like 6 options for every city to protect and it just feels like...pointless. Both suck with the spy systems but V I feel sucks less lol.

And lastely are the cities themselves. In V every city you build is important and strategic, as you go tall not wide (at least in order to be successful...most of the time). In VI you just spread like a plague, but then with the district system you need advance knowledge of what each tile does and what each improvement will do to each tile and what wonder will fit where in order to get maximum efficiency from your cities. Which can add more strategic options, but once you learn the district system in VI, there's really only a few options on what you want to build and where.

I've put hours into both and think both are great games tho. Many hundreds of hours between the two!:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/1/4/AAUMC0AAEFma.jpg

I mean, you don't really need to defend Civ V from me. I kind of have also sunk a couple of hours into it. :V

That said, what you are talking about are reasons to like Civ V over VI, but not really reasons that I would call "things that make it better." Art direction is a turn off for some, but as shown with stuff like Final Fantasy IX you cannot discount a game just because you dislike the visuals. Similarly while I can completely understand why you dislike the spy change, the reality is that for most people that will serve as mostly a small footnote in their disliking VI versus V and really isn't going to come into play when talking about a person trying to get into Civ in the first place. As for Tall versus Wide... I feel like PotatoMcWhiskey has given enough videos on that sort of topic for me to say pretty definitively: yes there is a somewhat optimal way to play the game, just like how there was in Civ V, but that does not mean that you cannot beat every difficulty doing practically whatever meme nonsense you can come up with. Wide is certainly better in VI, but you can very much go Tall and beat anything. Similarly, I don't view this as something that is particularly damning for a new player as they will have no actual context for either and really doesn't apply to TC's needs.

V is the pinnacle game in the franchise but with that being said these days I pretty much exclusively play VI.

Autocraticus posted...

https://youtu.be/8ggaEKQ_HoI

Civ2 will always have a special place in my heart.

My dad was still playing this just before his death in 2012.

I like 3

Your favorite Civ game is usually the second one you play - I started with V but I learned Civ VI enough to play on the hardest difficulty. If you already have V though, its perfectly fine to start with that.