So which one's best?

[Tony]

As of now which one do you remember fondly or get most enjoyment out of?

- 5 with all DLCs
- 6 with all DLCs
- 7

[Evrach]

That's not easy because we can't know exactly what you loved in 5 and what you don't like in 6.
The two games are great, but they have a very different mood.

[FoolMonty]

4, 5, 6
I'm most familiar with 6 so its generally what I play.
in their time though 2-5 were all great for what they were and when.

It's reached that time when my poor cpu is rendered it useless playing civ7
That and its an expensive franchise to buy into. imo. much like Warhammer 40k.

[SLG]

4 (all DLC's)
5 (all DLC's)
6 (all DLC's)
I have 7, but having launch issues so I can give an opinion.

[Beermachine]

Alpha Centauri

Despite having graphics that are complete ass, it's one of those rare unique games that I always gets a hankering to play every few years despite being so old.

Why was Beyond Earth so bad in comparison

[AbSlayer]

I all so 4. . Not to mention stacks of doom! And at least other country's attacked once in awhile
Not like 5 and 6 just sit back build a air-force and they are done

[AbSlayer]

Originally posted by ayrtep:

6+DLCs, but 4 is missing from your list. 4 was better than later civs in may ways.

7 needs to mature a little before I would rate it above 6.

I agree 4 was best by far

[snowdawn]

Civ 5 with all DLCs

[pitonsnaboca]

6

[Thor II]

I played Civs 2, 4, 5 and now after the 90%+ discount, Civ 6 and honestly they are all great in their own way.

The gameplay of 4 is still great, the only thing that is lacking is its graphics. 5 is a perfect alternative to 6, both in terms of graphics and gameplay.

I still miss some mechanics from some old Civs. The way you invade your enemy culturally in the 4 ( To me it seems that cultural victory of 4 and tourist victory of 5 and 6 should be different things), much more effectively and dynamics than in 5 or 6. The way happiness works in the five, ancient effects (since the 2) of the Great Wall and wall graphics throughout you empire, the more dynamic way that relics and archaeological finds worked in Civ 5, old effects and treaties of diplomacy, anyway, even if the new one works and are cool, we still miss the old functions and sometimes think they could work in conjunction with the new ones.

One of the things I miss the most are the special modes in 4 and 5. Civ 4's space colonization mode (the best), 5's Steam Punk mode, The Civ 6 zombie mode game (and all the others) may be good but they are not that different. The space colonization mode in 4 is a completely new mode, I would have preferred an evolution of this mode as a game of its own than Civ Colonization or Beyond Earth.

[Wormerine]

I remember 5 with all DLCs most fondly - the expansions that game got were transformative making me really fond of the game by the time Brave New World dropped (I also just really liked the "tone" of the expansions).

That said, I would play 6 over 5 now, but it is mostly due to city unstacking mechanic that I really enjoy. While I thought base game was brilliant, I wasn't blown away by neither of the expansions - both ages, and climate just left me indifferent.

I have no opinion on 7 at the moment.

[Grimarr]

What 4x games really need is an AI opponent that can win without resorting to cheating. We have had chess engines that can scale and even beat grandmasters. Why can't we have something similiar here. It wouldn't take a supercomputer to beat me. If a game came out like that, it would be a top seller as long as it had good graphics. Instead the game development seems to get lazier and lazier.

[Centipede]

I don't think it's that profitable to make good AI and I doubt the mainstream players want to play on higher difficulties.
It's not so easy to make a game AI as it is to make a chess AI. You can make a basic one of those yourself if you study a little, we had 'chess AI' as a college homework project.

[DOOMed]

Still civ 4 for me. 5 was ok, but after dumping over 1200 hours in 6 since it released, on a standard speed game, it just feels like a rush. You want to spend time building up speciality units, but you can't because you need to be building other stuff for eurekas and whatever the culture one is called. Not to mention city placement can be good for yields for the city tile but then you get shat on for district boni. I get that they wanted more consequence to choices made, but yeah standard speed games feel like a tech and civic rush, and it kinda negates speciality units and buildings to an extent.

Edit: I've been playing since Civ on the Amiga, played them all up to 6, not committed to 7 yet.

[Backler]

Can I choose 6 without the DLCs? I bought them but they mostly just add bad mechanics like loyalty and the AI becomes so stupid that they'll give you everything they have for a single luxury.

[Thor II]

Geez, but the Diplomacy of those AIs from other Civs games and other strategy games that never make deals with you and only offer you a pittance in treaties they are also not very nice, they make diplomacy useless because you can't negotiate anything with them. And this is true for practically any difficulty.