Sid Meier's Civilization Tier List | Ranking Civ from 1 to 6 

I have been playing Civ4 for 15 years and still play all the time. Its so good that I struggle to play anything else.

Alpha Centauri really should've been on this list. It not saying "Civilization" in the name doesn't matter. It's absolutely a Civ game and one of the best 4Xs ever created.

>Alpha Centauri isn't a Civ Game >Includes Beyond Earth and Revolution anyway >Ranks Civ 1 and Revolution in the same category "Grey Tide has denounced you!"

Revolution was the first Civ game I ever played. I had it on the DS and I was so addicted as a kid. Definitely hooked me on the series but also made it hard going from a simple experience to something so complicated like Civ 6

So glad you put 4 as S teir!! Having spent thousands of hrs from 3-6, 4 is the GOAT! still play it all the time. Every time I play 5 and 6 (which I also love) I'm always shocked to remember that they dont have things that 4 does!

Anyone here remember Civilization 2: Test of Time, which introduced some alternative game settings, such as a fantasy and sci-fi setting, along with the ability for some units to shift between planes, such as going between the surface, underwater, sky, and underground layers in the fantasy setting, and going between the main Earth-like planet's surface, orbit, a barren planet's surface, and a gas giant in the sci-fi setting?

I proudly own and played for many years Civ 2, with its original box package, manuals and content. I just love it

Civ 3 forever. Started with Civ 2 in late 90s, but the 3rd one is the best of all afm. Nothing unnecessary and without cartoon grafics like in the next ones.

I believe the problem with Beyond Earth, wasn't really 'straying too far' from the historical model (I mean: it has a futuristic premise!) but straying from the excelence model of Alpha Centauri, wich was not only fun to play but a really good sci-fi piece, period.The lore, the characters, their personality, the critique and insight of the conversations, technology and wonder descriptions, was really ahead of its time (or more precisely, it was truly timeless), whereas Beyond Earth really lacked content despite its improved gameplay (it is decades more modern after all)

One point missing for CivII - It encouraged widespread modding via the Fantastic Worlds expansion. Arguably that is where the Civ modding scene started, which took off in CivIV.

Now I feel old…. I don’t believe I ever heard ‘MS-DOS’ pronounced as all individual letters. We called it /M.S. DAW-S/, where the ‘O’ had an /AW/ sound and the S was an unvoiced S (like in the word ‘hiss’).

I love civ 4 and 5. I go back between the two frequently. When I want a quick game I play 4, when I want a long in-depth game I play 5.

Civ-1, the original, just one more turn, addiction game. I remember starting a game Friday after work. It's 6, I'll just play til 7 and get dinner. Look up, it's 8. Well, there's still restaraunts open til 9, just play til I get Steel. Look up it's 10. Well, nothing's open now. I'll just play to midnight. Look up, it's 3am. Oof. 😂

My personal ranking based on the enjoyment I had with these games: 1) CIV 4 The gameplay just feels so natural and organic, it feels like you are actually growing a civilization, music is great. 2) CIV 5 Most realistic map, solid features, not too gamey. 3) CIV 2 Amazing game for it's time, the wonder videos really emersed me in the history. 4) Alfa Centauri Great innovative gameplay, Terraforming!, the leaders have a lot of character, did not like the mind worms though. 5) CIV 3 Felt constricting, ugly leader portraits, music okay. 6) CIV 6 Not too bad, but feels excessively gamey, absolutly hate districts. 7) Beyond Earth If you look at the game isolated then it's not a bad game, but it's almost impossible not to compare it to the other games, especially Alfa Centauri. Was very disappointed in the lack of terraforming features. 8) CIV 1 Fine game for it's time, but a bit cumbersome and buggy, haven't aged well, only play for nostalgia. Don't play console/mobile games, so I have no opinion on Revolutions

Just for reference, during interviews leading up to the release of Beyond Earth, the developers were always keen to inform everyone that it was NOT supposed to be taken as a successor to Alpha Centauri.

Civ 2 (Civ 2 Advanced) was AMAZING. Back in the day, it was a huge refinement of Civ 1, and for it's time it was supremely intricate. It had mini movies on the CD Rom for wonders and stuff, a virtual encyclopedia of history. Very easy to learn but difficult to master. I still think it's the one that impressed me the most, and sucked me in. I love Civ 5 + 6 but never had that intense willingness to improve and restart over and over just to see what percentage I could end with.

Ah, Civ IV. My personal love and joy. A tad buggy and a very annoying Vassalage system, but to each its own, it's a masterpiece for its time.

I do go back to civilization revolution for quick games when bored but also want to mention how impressed I was as a kid with civilization 2's videos from the council. I still have those quotes burned into my brain decades later. "Give me more units noble leader!"

Fun content. I've been playing games by Sid for 30 years, and always welcome well thought out opinions on the relative value of his works. Well done.

Civilization 1 & 2 are solid S tier for me.

Civ 1 for life!!! Also, Colonization is an often overlooked gem.

Civilization VI bugged me because it was incomplete when it was released. You couldn't even name your cities and still can't name your leader. Plus, it left out medieval and revolutionary malee units, so you went from Legionnaires to Musket men to Infantry. They've since fixed that by adding pike and shot, men-at-arms, and lineman. But that was pretty bad for a start.

for me civ 3. the first one I started off with (over 15 years ago), the most nostalgia, and I have found it oddly replayable. was still playing it a couple years ago

Civ 6 has been a rollercoaster journey for me. At first, I didn’t like it much. The district concept was weird and the graphics were off putting. I thought there was no way I’d ever enjoy it as much as Civ 5, which was and still is my most played game ever (except for maybe Oblivion and Skyrim across all platforms). But I really came to love it, especially after all the DLCs launched. And now when I go back to Civ 5, I always think the areas around my cities look like a lot of wasted space. I find myself wishing I could build a campus in the middle of that valley, or a harbor next to those coastal resources, or a dam-aqueduct-industrial zone triangle on that river. But I can’t. It’s all mines and farms and it just seems like my cities should be doing something else with the land. Civ 6 has really stuck with me, and I do think it’s only a matter of time before my play time in 6 passes my time in 5. Only about 200 more hours till that happens.

I hav played civ for 29years now. Civ 6 is great etc but civ 1 was chockingly good the first time i played it. I have also played The 1980 avalon hill civilization bord game that it was loosly based was also great

I mostly agree with your rankings. I have to put Civ 2 in A class. Was just too good of a game when it came out. I agree not playable now so misses S tier but a clear improvement on Civilization. I wholeheartedly agree with 4 & 5 being S tier and 3 & 6 being A tier. Never played Civilization Revolution so cannot judge. The dumbed down play would probably have me say it was either C or F tier. I'd put Civilization Beyond Earth as a C tier game. To me it was fun and I liked the futuristic aspects but it was disappointing when compared to Alpha Centari. To me Alpha Centari is the greatest Civilization(like) game ever made. They ripped up the storybook and created a futuristic game with fantastic factions to choose from. The maps were wonderful and so was handling the fungus and native units. If I rated Alpha Centari in the Tier system, easily S tier.

I feel like you only put I and II at B because you never played them.

2023 and Civ 4 is still my go to of the franchise. I thought Civ 2 was a fantastic game as well; doesn't hold up as well as Civ4 now, but it was a huge step up back in the day.

I remember playing Civ I for the first time and being completely lost for the first few run throughs. Still playing Civ IV currently, and loving it.

To this day, I still hold Alpha Centauri with high praise. I can never get enough of it. Civ 4 & 5 are my faves.

11:41 Heresy!!! Civ5 belongs in A-Tier, not S. Civ5 is good, sure, but much of its popularity was due to the rise of Steam making games much more accessible, so it was most people's "First Civilization Game" that people imprint on like baby birds. My first Civ game was Civ2, and so I remember it as being much better than it actually was. I carry a grudge against Civ5 though, because it overshadowed Civ4 in the minds of so many newcomers, who simply assume "Sequels are better, and the old graphics suck, so clearly it's worse" It's like if somebody watched "Return of the Jedi", and never bothered to watch "The Empire Strikes Back".

The thing I liked MOST about Civ V and following is the removal of Unit Stacks No longer could the Computer stack 50 spear-men into one space and kill a tank

I was getting ready to post a comment saying you should've put Civ IV as S tier, and lo and behold you did! Civ IV is THE best version of Civ. As someone who played every version of Civ (and all spinoffs) for hundreds of hours each :) Civ I deserves to be S tier too. None of this would have transpired without the OG. No way Civ V deserves an S tier, or the best of the franchise. Civ VI deserves to replace Civ V's slot on S tier.

i have 3+ years logged on civ iii - it's the greatest game ever made

Very cool video, thank you! I have been playing Civ 3 for almost 20 years now from time to time. It is so relaxing. Recently I tried Civ6, but the transition is just too big for me (the music is splendid though). I'll try Civ4 first and I'm glad it got a good review in this video

civ rev was just iconic as a teen. can still vividly hear all the country leaders babbling 😂

I remember playing Civ1 circa 92 and how it blew my mind… then came civ2 and that was pretty much all I played for a couple of years.

I started playing Civ back with Civ 1. Played all basic games with probably Civ 3 and Civ 5 played the least. One thing I remember fondly about Civ 2 was the terraforming element.

You should really spend more time with Civ 4. It's not just one of the best civ games--it's one of the best games period. The later entries are great (especially 5), but nothing scratches my brain like 4.

So like, civ 6 was my first entry into the modern civ world. Comparing it to watching civ 5 gameplays, I couldn’t see how people could prefer 5. Having played about 300 hours of 5 now, I get it, and I think I prefer civ 5 to 6. There’s just something about it that really works, and civ 6 doesn’t -quite- get there.

I know this might not be a popular opinion, but for me, Civ 1 did a bunch of cool things that the series has mostly abandoned, and for that reason it would be my lone S-Tier pick. My arguments for the supremacy of the original Civilization: 1. Nations: In Civ I and II, the various nations had no special perks--they just gave you a different leader and a different pre-assigned player color. Nations having unique attributes wasn't a thing until Civ III, where the nation that you picked would determine which techs you started with and would give you one unique unit. Then later they added unique buildings, special powers, etc. For me, lack of innate nation differentiation is a feature rather than a shortcoming. The thing is, it's gotten to the point where the nation that you pick effectively dictates what victory you should pursue, or at least narrows your options considerably. You can pursue a cultural victory as Scythia in Civ VI, but you're giving yourself a significant handicap, and you are at a distinct disadvantage against other nations that get culture-oriented civ bonuses. At the same time, the nations aren't so asymmetrical that the game feels wildly different based on who you play, so it's not like you are getting much in return for being forced into a specialization right out of the gate. On balance, I feel like the game would be better if civilizations were a purely aesthetic choice. Let the player develop any of the civilizations however they want, and then differentiation would happen entirely based on the choices you make in-game. Or at most, give nations some very minor perks or starting techs (ala Civ III) that don't necessarily channel you into any specific style of play. 2. Victory Conditions: Speaking of victory conditions, remember when "victory" in Civ I was merely surviving until the end of the game? If your nation was still standing when the game ended, that was considered a win, and you would log a score in the hall of fame. Winning the space race or conquering all the other nations gave you a score bonus that might well put you in first place but were not otherwise mandatory. In hindsight, I kind of prefer that system. In the moderns Civs, the game mechanics push you quite hard toward specialization, right from the moment you select which civ you want to play. In Civ I, you could dabble in different things. Civilizations in any of the more recent games are all highly specialized, out of necessity. I really think that Civ I had the most thematic victory mechanic of any game in the series. The binary win conditions introduced in Civ II (space race or domination) were more game-y, and in some ways more constraining. There's a reason why a lot of modern board games employ a victory point system rather than a race to a singular win condition. Victory point systems can give players a wider range of possible paths through the game, including hybrid strategies that mix and match different point-scoring activities. It's kind of counter-intuitive, but the more victory conditions they add, the more strategically constrained the gameplay becomes. There are now five different victories in Civ VI (plus a legacy score victory that is basically broken and shouldn't be used), which seems like it should add more variety? But in practice, the path to any one of them is awfully narrow, so in the course of a single play-through, you actually have less variety. In Civ 1, by contrast, you'd earn points in a bunch of different ways. Wonders? Those earn you points. Citizens give you points, but only if they are happy or content (with more points being awarded for happy citizens). Fighting pollution? Well, that prevents you from losing points, which is basically just as good as earning them. Each Future Tech researched? Points. Each turn that the world is at peace? Points. (I particularly like that one). I'll conclude by noting that other developers seem to have come to this conclusion, too, and have gone back to an old-school score system for victory. Old World and Humankind both do this, and it's a marked improvement over Civ's laundry list of victory conditions, in both cases. 3. Research: Civ 1 has the best research system and tech tree of the entire franchise, full stop. For example, it had a system kind of similar to Master of Orion in which research options were semi-randomized. You were never shut out of any particular tech forever like you are in MOO, but each time you selected a new research project, your choices (typically five or six) were randomly picked from the pool of techs for which you had met the prerequisites. This means that you can have a plan and work towards it, but sometimes the game throws you curve balls, and you'd have to deal with that. You might want to do a Legion rush, but then the game doesn't offer you Bronze Working, and you'd have to reconsider your plan. Another really neat facet of the original Civ research system is that advances didn't have fixed costs. The cost to research something was a base cost (determined by the difficulty level you had selected) multiplied by the number of advances you had already researched. So every time you research something, all of the unresearched advances get more expensive, no matter where they are in the tree. This forces you to make some hard choices--every time you decide what to research in a given tier, all the other advances in that tier (and *every* tier) become more expensive to research. And there are a lot of other advances in each tier, because Civ 1's tech tree is very wide. This means that eventually it makes more sense to push forward in the tree rather than hoovering up all the low tier advances that you skipped, because if you reach a point where your options are The Wheel or Gunpowder and it costs the same to research both, then you are going to say "Screw the Wheel." So in games of Civ 1, it was really common to skip techs, and you might even choose to skip entire branches of the tree, based on your strategy. Modern Civs don't work this way, and it's a shame. In Civ VI, each advance has a fixed research cost, and the costs get higher and higher as you move up through tiers of the tree. You don't skip over a lot of techs in the first place, because the tree is quite narrow (3-4 advances in each tier, on average, compared to 7-9 per tier in Civ 1), and you will eventually pick up the ones you do skip over, because as your research output ramps up they become increasingly trivial to grab. So maybe you skip Sailing at first, but eventually your research output has grown to the point where you can research it in one turn, and at that point you are just going to grab it because: why not? If you skip Horseback riding in Civ 1, though, you might not ever pick it up, because eventually it will be too expensive to be worth learning. For my money, Civ VI has the worst tech tree(s) of the franchise. The main research tree is *so* narrow, there are hardly any real choices to be made. Then they added a second tech tree that you move through via culture, which makes the game more fiddly without really broadening your options, because you move through both trees simultaneously. Seriously, they could have combined all the advances in those two trees into a single, wider tech tree, and the game would have been much better for it. Anyway, there's more, but those are the main three reasons why I think that Civ 1 is still the best Civ. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Shame you haven't explored Civ II. The mods are still by far the best mods ever in Civ. And no Alpha Centauri? It's a classic.

Civ 4 also had built-in MOD support. The excellent scenarios are a very strong feature that I think made it the most popular of the series. Alpha Centauri is on the top 100 selling pc games of all times.

Civ4 beyond the sword is not only the best civ of them all. Arguably one of the best games in the world

CIV4 is the best. Still playing it. Current game, I am waiting for tanks with my 22, state property, caste system, workshopped, cities of the great Zulu empire with Ikandas everywhere and factories and coal plants ready to mass produce and crush them all.

I grew up on civ 5, was 9 when it came out and played it so much. I remember being proud of playing settler and winning a score victory with mongolia I got civ 6 and at first, i found it better. Then i started playing civ 5 for the first time in 3 years and see why i think its better. Less is more. Civ 5 feels real, relaxing and compelling at the same time. Your options of dealing with issues aren't forced, they make sense. I am playing as Babylon and felt a roleplaying esque-feel i haven't gotten from a civ game ever.

Civ 2 was the best civ until Civ 5 released its last DLC and became the new king of civ....

I love Civ 6 and I play it a lot. But Civ 4 is Civ 4. Irreplaceable 🔥

Civilization revolution is where i first started playing, my friends and I had it on our xbox 360s and we would compete against each other to win. After a while I decided to buy civ 5 cause my friend had it on his pc and it has been my favourite video game ever since

imho civ 4 is the best heads and shoulders above the rest. It is so much more immersive and the mechanics are so well thought out. The mods are so good that some of them kick the game up to an even higher tier like S+ or something. Civ 5 vs 6? 5 had some underdeveloped ideas compared to 6 and the balancing was atrocious, there were specific techs to beeline, but the gameplay of 6 overall doesnt feel as good, there are too many fringe mechanics that you have to juggle and the entire culture victory type needs a college course worth of tutorials to understand. overall id say its 4>3>5=6>2>1 Alpha centauri would also be S+, the gameplay is janky as all fuck but the narrative is probobly the best scifi in videogames

I personally can't rank Civ5 and Civ6 above D tier. They were such a step back from Civ4 that I feel like I'm being generous placing them above F tier, for my own taste anyway. The fact that the AI had no idea how to handle one unit per tile really made Civ5 a failed game imo.

Solid video! Completely agree with the ranking

Sadly, I'm old enough to have been playing Civ since the launch of Civ 1 - God know how many hours I've spent playing the franchise during my life. I completely agree with your summary! I might have put Civ 4 slightly above Civ 5, but Civ 4 is an old game now and Civ 5 just pips it because it's newer. Enjoying your videos.

Civ II was my introduction to the Civ games. I really got a kick out of the animated advisors.

Agreed for the most part. I'd downgrade Civ 5 to A-Tier because I think its UI was a downgrade from Civ 4. Civ 4 gave you all the information you needed about your empire and no decision was made blind. Civ 5 made a deliberate choice to hide some info, particularly diplomatic info, to make the player feel like they were playing against a human rather than an AI, and I really didn't like it (they slightly backtracked on this design choice with one of the DLCs and gave an indicator as to why a Civ likes or dislikes you). I also really liked that Civ 4 would let you minimize the diplomacy screen when a leader was offering you a deal so that you could look at your various information screens and decide whether that deal was worth taking; namely, if a Civ offered to team up in a war against another Civ, I could see at a glance whether that Civ has allies. That feature wasn't in Civ 5 or 6 (I never accept a joint war deal in Civ 5 or 6). I think my ideal Civ game would basically be Civ 4 with a few upgrades (hexes, limits to unit stacking, ideological systems from Civ 5 BNW, Civ 6's "play-the-map" gameplay philosophy). Also, Civ 5 BE was okay. I wouldn't put it in F tier; maybe C or even B if I was feeling generous. In fact, I think its UI, especially after the expansion, was pretty good and I liked what it did with the various factions and the tech web. Its only real downside was that many of the campaigns felt very same-y after a while.

Civ Revolution was the best man. Can't believe you put it in a C. If they combined the in depth of the pc civs and the gameplay of civ rev it would be perfect.

I agree with all your rankings. But I will say that Civ VI has challenged me more than the others and I like that.

Thanks for the info. Cool video.

Civ revolution was what got me into a life long addiction of strategy. I'll always love it for that alone.

Civ 3 was my first as a kid. Didn't know what I was doing really. Just build up military, randomly lose the game for some unknown reason to me and continue the game and I loved it. Then I just recently got into civ 5 and 6. Maybe I'll have to try 4 one of these years.

Civ 4 has the strongest non military opportunities. Civ 5 best addition was city states, but losing trade options, capitulation/vassalage, and reducing spy functions hurt the value of five's gameplay. Currently I am working through a Civ4 Caveman 2 Cosmos modded game (more techs/civs/units/government options that you can easily count) that has been going on for months. I haven't touched 5 or 6 for over a year.

Played since Civ 1 and my yearly go-tos are Civ BE, then Civ 5, then Civ 4. The take on Civ BE is so idiotic it's like hearing a politician struggling to fill the time slot about some exotic subject. The DLC didn't "improve it a little bit", it changed it radically from being a sci-fi reskin of 5, to bringing specific mechanics like floating moving cities and overhauling of affinities etc. It's clear you haven't played most of the games on the list or maybe barely and being dismissive by prejudice.

Civ IV has Fall From Heaven. Sadly, no Civ game can compete with it as long as that masterpiece of a mod is unplayable anywhere else.

Oh wow, you acknowledged CivRev. I used to play that on iOS as a kid.

the fact that your leaders outfit changes with the era make civ3 my favorite

I used to play Civ Revolution all the time on Xbox 360 I loved it. A week or two ago I started thinking about it and watching videos on it and looked it up on steam and sadly it wasn't there. But in a weeks time I bought Civ 5 and sunk around 80 hours in it already lol along with your videos I've been having a blast. I give Revolution an S just for Nostalgia and making me get into Civ again (: love the videos and the list man keep it up

Idk having Elvis as an advisor will always make Civ 2 S tier for me

My ranking: Civ III hands down no doubt. Been playing since i was 7 years old. Civ IV beyond the sword and the in game worldbuilder are godly Civ 5 loved that they toned down the cartoony stuff. policy trees are sexy Revolution not a fan. Its a slimmed won walmart brand civ 4 Civ 6 barely played. Not a big fan Civ I & 2 couldnt get into them. I miss all the stuff ive grown to love. Wouldve loved them as a kid Edit: the soundtrack for civ 3 is unbelievably good. I still listen to it in my freetime

Civ 4 is honestly my favorite. I liked 3 a lot. But 4 was just grand! I still play it..... for me personally, 5 and 6 were both steps down FOR ME.

One thing I think _Civilization V_ deserves credit for is the happiness/population growth mechanics which made it possible to win a game with a small empire. Earlier Civ games always had this frantic scramble for territory: beating the game simply meant controlling as much ground and having as much cities as possible, but Civ V changed this and made it more about how you handled the territory that you have. Also, _Civilication II_ is the best Civ game for me, though mostly for nostalgic reasons because it was my introduction to the franchise.

CIV III is all I ever play now. Much more enjoyable than the later entries. Don't understand the hate it gets.

Great list :) Civ6 ftw! I enjoy them all, but putting nostalgia and initial release aside, its the best and most rich experience in my opinion, for multi platform and younger ages. Adds loads (natural and man made stuff) and is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Would like to see more options for pacing of the game though and map icons, since modding consoles is a pain.

Civ III is the best game of all time

That Civ Rev rating is criminal. Civ rev is my childhood. That shit is, admittedly "dumbed down" and "simple" but, it is the real shit.

Cudos for making such a bold list, I myself would prolly rank the Civ series in the order they came out (with "Beyond Earth" not even making the list) and comparable to each other instead. But then I never did play Civ3 nor Civ Revolution so my personal list wouldn't be complete. Civ 6 is by far my favorite but I hold Civ5 very high. And now we got Civ7 otw how cool isn´t that? :)

Civ 4 is the best in the franchise, Civ 1 is the best nostalgia trip.

thanks for the powerpoint presentation

I’m still playing Civ5. It was a shame that I never got into Civ6, because on paper all the mechanics of it are better. I want the mechanics of civ6 but in civ5.

I've played all of the main series 1-6 and to be honest loved them all. I'm sure some are better than others but each one got numerous play throughs from me

my first civilization game was revolution on the Xbox 360 and I loved it after playing it I decided to save up money for a gaming pc rig to play the others and now I've played all of them and personally I find civ 5 to be the best one

I actually liked CIV Beyond Earth, it's a nice spin-off from civilization, it needed a few tweaks here and there and it felt like there was room for a lot more features, but it was a nice idea that could become a new series. I think the problem is that people compare to CIV V which was the best game on the series imo, but civ was almost a 20 years game that improved a lot while Beyond Earth was a new concept and of course was still raw.

Civ 3, Civ 5 and Beyond Earth- Rising Tide are the best!

Civ3, while far from perfect is still the best of the series. Civ4 interface messed things up badly and the graphics, who cares if the 3D gfx is "real" when they provide a much worse overview! It's the game that almost caused me to quit the series. Yes it had a lot of innovation, but it didn't use those well, instead ending up with "overcluttering" the game to the point where you essentially need to have read the manual to have a chance of understanding what's happening and what you need to be doing. Civ1, 2 and 3, you could work out the interface by sheer logic and you could instantly jump into playing the game. Civ6 basically has the same problems as Civ4, but much better handled. S: Civ3 A: Civ2, Civ5 B: Civ1, Civ6 C: Civ4 Never played the other 2.

I totally agree I still play and absolutely LOVE civ V

I spent thousands of hours play civ 1,2,3,4,5,6. Civ 1 2 were a tier, Civ 2 was definitely better than civ 1, now they are dated b tier, civ 3 was b tier not nearly as good as civ 1 or 2, now civ 3 is c tier, civ 4 was s tier its still solid a tier, civ 5 is a tier. Civ 4 and 5 are the sweet spot and you can pick them up on sale for cheap. civ 6 was f tier upon release and for several years following because it didnt ship with a map of earth good luck simulating the civilizations of earth in a game with no earth maps nor were the modding tools developed to enable players to rapidly develop a map of earth it took years after release till there was a map of earth years, but now civ 6 is an A tier thanks to modders and steam workshop downloading convenience, but I wouldnt recommend anyone buy civ 6 cause the developer/publisher is nuts, they released civilization 6 without a map of earth, or decent modding tools to create a map of earth, civ6 is purely a graphics cash grab, now after many years and updates, and great efforts on the part of modders its much better but why support such a horrible development cycle, I doubt if I will ever buy another civ game civ 6 was such a disappointing absolutely horrible experience from the start with no earth map not even a crappy tiny earth map, not one scenario shipped with the game of a map of earth. beyond earth and alpha centari are garbage games, like someone modded civ 4 and civ 6 with spacy graphics and horrible gameplay, there is no story for either space game, civ 4s space scenario mod that ships with the game is much better than beyond earth or alpha centari.

Civ IV, awesomeness! Civ V pretty damn close...Civ II- Build DaVinci's Workshop and railroad on every tile---> win game

Civ 2 Test of Time was a different game that had worse tiles but neat features and expanded tech tree and units.

Civ 1 on SNES was absolute gold! That was my first Civ game.

Player Civ 3 when it was released and had a blast. But I have not touched the series after that. Planning to check out civ 7 later this year though, if they releases it this year though (2024) :)

civ rev is lowkey underrated. it was the first civ game I ever played and has a lot of nostalgic value to me. I would confidently say it is not a great civ game but it's quite nice if you want a civ game with a lot less complexities and if you want a more casual civ experience you still have the four victories though they're a little different(domination requires the capture of capital cities, science requires you to build spaceships that build a bigger ship which flies to alpha centauri, culture which requires 20 wonders, great people or converted cities, or the economic victory requiring 20,000 gold and the world bank wonder). it doesn't have the cool diplomacies of civ 4 or the religions of 4 but it was a great experience for when I was a kid and now I get to watch my younger brother have a lot of the same joy I had with it growing up :)

Civ revolution certainly wasn’t that great but I think it got a lot of people into civ that wouldn’t have played it otherwise. I might be biased because it was the first civ game I played but I think it was a pretty good entry point for new players.

I usually only play civ 4. I've never even beaten the game on emperor but i love it. I tried civ 6 once on deity. I built 3 warriors and had the biggest military in the world. I kept building military units and i just won. I played it multiplayer once with a friend. The tech beelining is insane, I think I had rocketry without gunpowder or something and was doing tanks whilst my buddy had like pikemen. And for some reason i never hear people talking about that sort of stuff. Has the gaming community really gotten that much dumber that nobody notices exploits like that anymore? What a shitty game and how shitty the internet has become.

Have only played 1, 2 and 3. Love 3, but forts should be stronger, and they should've kept sticky zones of control and 'We Love The King' population explosions.

Civ 5 with dlcs expansions is my favorite of all civ games plus awesome mods.

Civ Revolution was my first experience with setting cities to produce science/money/etc... which makes that game one of my favorite entries into the series. I know unpopular pick

Civ 4 was my childhood.

Playing original civ6 after playing civ beyond earth+rising tide felt like eating at a school canteen after dining for a few years at a michlen star restaurant. Such a plane boring and repetitive experience of civ 6 with the same nations, same technologies, same units, same cities. Now with a lot of super expensive dlcs it's probably a tastier game, but for me beyond Erath still is a best, most interesting, most fascinating, most unique civilization game. Maybe I only enjoy the incredible Sci-fi element of it, but not the civilization formula as a whole, but even in that sense I feel like it is such richer game with amazing ocean cities, diversity of the tech web, quests system and so much more.

When beyond earth Has some of my favorite components like being able to develop leader traits and war score n such. Hoping they bring the good stuff from beyond earth into a future civ

No mention of Civ 1 on the Amiga 500! 😭 Loved playing it although my fav is Civ 3.

Played them all since the beginning 1. Civ 1 is C-tier by modern standards. However for its time it was S-tier. 2. Civ 2 is B-tier by modern standards, as it was a noticeable improvement over the first game. (And for _its_ time it was also S-tier.) 3. Civ 3 is C-tier, as it felt a bit like differences for difference sake without really resulting in the same strategic depth. 4. Civ: Call to Power is F-tier. Understandable it wasn't included in Jumbo's vid heh. 5. Civ 4 is A-tier, and one of my all-time favorites. Granted, I think it was B-tier before the expansions, which really fleshed out your options. 6. Civ Revolutions is F-tier, due to being so shallow. 7. Civ 5 is C-tier, mostly due to the AI not even working for many of my early playthroughs. I often love when devs redesign things from the ground up, but the approach to cities for "tall vs. wide" playstyles really wasn't executed well in Civ 5. I really do think Civ should figure tall vs. wide out at some point: Civ 6 didn't even try, and just had going wide be _pure advantages_ and I think it's better if a game offers cool options for playing "tall". 8. Civ Beyond Earth is C-tier, but only because I was so desperate to enjoy it (it probably deserves F). The writing and balance were bad compared with Alpha Centauri. It's a shame because the UI was well done and the game was generally very nice to look at, it's just that the strategic depth wasn't there. For example once you chose an Affinity, you'd often just plunge that Affinity for the rest of the game to max its bonuses, rather than feeling like you were balancing a lot of different considerations. It's the sort of thing a balance mod could've fixed, so I kinda wonder if something like that might exist. 9. Civ 6 is S-tier. It's the second Civ that I've gone particularly hard at (Civ4 being the other) and it's just really satisfyingly deep at this point. I do think it's just like Civ4 where at launch both games were a step below where they are now (in fact at launch I'd probably have put Civ6 B-tier; it felt _really_ similar to Civ5 to me), but with those expansions it's awesome.