Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 (2010):

Sid Meier’s Civilization 4 (2005):

A more enjoyable, worse game

I haven’t played Civilization 5 until this May 2025 because when it originally released (15 years ago… time flies…) I kept hearing that it was a FAR worse game compared to Civilization 4. Years passed and following the DLCs release I started to hear that it might have become finally good, and might even surpass Civilization 4.

After doing research to find a Civilization game to “go back to” (I haven’t played a Civilization game in at least 10 years) I ended up deciding to do a play-through of 4 (with every DLCs), followed by a play-through of 5 (with every DLCs).

From the surface, I don’t disagree with the premise that Civilization 5 surpassed Civilization 4.

The Good

Civilization 5 compared to 4 is more enjoyable to play:

  • the UI/UX is better (though it’s missing a UI for the space victory which was in 4: a UI that shows your progress in the space victory by showing you which spaceship part you have and which you don’t. In 5, you have to go through a highly unclear menu, and, from what I found, do the math yourself for the number of boosters)
  • the way it looks is more enjoyable
  • hexagons instead of squares is genuinely better
  • the unit “stacking” being gone is genuinely a good thing (even if the AIs get worse because of it)

…but it’s also a far worse “game”.

The Bad

While discussing it with friends, something came out of the discussion: Civilization 5 is a better “video game”, while Civilization 4 is a better “game”.

Civilization 4 feels better in a ton of ways, it’s a far tighter game, it has problems, but overall feels more “interesting” because the choice you make have more “weight”.

Civilization 5 main problem is that it’s diluting everything:

  • the number of research and building has augmented, diluting their bonus into more of them - The addition of so much research and building is genuinely pointless, it’s just padding, it doesn’t add anything, it’s just “stuff” added between the interesting parts of the game.
  • the number of world wonders has augmented, they are so common now that they have basically become as common as normal building but with long build time and the fact that only one civilization can build it (there’s like 100+ of them, they don’t feel unique) - The number of world wonders is genuinely stupid, they have become so meaningless that I was genuinely building them in random city when I had nothing better to build
  • the number of military units has augmented and they have been split into “ranged attack” and “melee attack” types, it’s adding micromanagement… but it’s shallow - The military units being split into “ranged attack” and “melee attack” types is a good idea in theory, but they don’t get any “bonus” for being one or the other (outside of where they can attack), the core difference is still amount of movement they can do and attack strength

Those problems are added on top of the problem of every Civilization games (and 4X games in general): the mid-game and end-game aren’t good, the mid-game is you waiting for things to be available, and the end-game is when you have everything available, but no use for it.

Conclusion

All in all, Civilization 5 isn’t a bad game, but it’s really mediocre. It’s better in some way compared to Civilization 4, but it adds too much fluff to be actually enjoyable.

In the end, Civilization 4 remains superior, it’s just “rougher”.

Post-Scriptum

  • Civilization 6 is Civilization 5, but with mechanics copied from the game “Endless Legend” (by Amplitude), but they did it worse, so it ends up being bad.
  • Civilization 7 is Civilization 6, but with mechanics copied from the game “Humankind” (by Amplitude) (mechanics that no one liked to be clear), but they did it worse, so it ends up being bad.

Rating and Recommendation

Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 (2010): 6/10 - Not Recommended

Sid Meier’s Civilization 4 (2005): 7/10 - Recommended