Sid Meier's Civilization® V Reviews

This is peak Civ, nothing comes close. For an even deeper experience, download Civ V: Vox Populi mod on civfanatics forums. Do not waste your money on the simplistic and nonsensical abomination called Civ 7.

I really love civ five in particular, witch is why its so sad that i can't play cause it won't launch on windows 11. wtf, glad i didn't buy this game full price originally. feel bad for anyone who did. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!! (at least not right now)

Civ V is a masterpiece of turn-based strategy game and strikes the perfect balance between complexity and enjoyment. While the base game is already excellent, Civ V truly reaches its full potential with the Gods & Kings and Brave New World expansions. These add critical elements like religion, espionage, trade routes, and ideological conflicts, vastly improving the depth and variety of gameplay. Whether you're a seasoned strategist or a newcomer to the genre, Civ V is a game that will keep you saying, "Just one more turn."

I have played 1000 hours of Civilization V and now I can't play it on my PC or my MacBook because it keeps crashing after 20 minutes in the game since the new update. Great.

One of the greatest games of all time. Fun, Endlessly repayable and guaranteed to work on almost any system. And its not CIv 7, which is horrible, boring and tedious. For that alone, you should buy it now, to remind Firaxis that it can do the right thing when tits not designing games by focus group / for the iphone.

Activist forum moderators censor EVERY criticism of their recent games, banning everyone who do not shill for them. A civ 7 buyer was complaining that the game "isnt what he expected", I told him its his own fault for buying this early, when firaxis is a known developer that releases bugged games with cut content to be sold as DLC. They banned me from the forum for a month. Absurd what power trip these greedy corpos run these days.

BEWARE! FRESH INSTALLS ARE MOSTLY BROKEN! This is the videogame equivalent to pushing a busted update to the production server Friday evening and going home for the weekend. Except it's been over two months. It is also not lost on me they bricked the game right before Civ VII's launch... 2K managed to turn a positive update into a game-breaking one. I was originally tickled pink by the 2K Launcher removal update. The launcher never bothered me but I was VERY impressed they properly retired it and used Steam's built-in alternative for DX9/11/Touch rather than deprecate a 14 year old game. They seemingly had handled the situation perfectly and handled it way better than Activision-Blizzard, Rockstar, and other tier 1 studios that fumbled the ball with old titles and remasters. However, I unwittingly re-installed Windows and didn't bother backing up my Steam library because I have gigabit internet and the game is small. You cannot launch new installs. The game says launching and then it stops without anything happening. The closest I ever got it to launching was via the .exe's in the install folder but I got a generic DX9 and DX11 error. In order to get the game to function, you either need to spend hours redownloading the game and backing up the .exe's when you finally get functional ones or you need to run a script to do it for you. I spent almost 3 hours troubleshooting before I gave up. My physical copy of the Complete Edition arrived in the mail the other day and I'm not planning on purchasing any 2K or Firaxis games in the future. I was planning on purchasing Civ 7 at launch but am now unlikely to buy it at all cause of their ham-fisted Civ 5 update. I play my 4X games quite literally for decades and I don't want them to break it in a decade and then completely forget about it in favour of whatever their new titles are. There are lots of 4X and grand strategy games that have *significantly* better AI than Civ 5 and 6. Go play Age of Wonders, Hearts of Iron, freeciv, Europa Universalis, Stellaris, Humankind, Pax Nova, Crusader Kings, or literally anything else.

Sid Meier's Civilization® V – 10/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Just one more turn..." Civilization V is an absolute masterpiece in the turn-based strategy genre, perfect for both newcomers and veterans of the series. Developed by Firaxis Games, it refines the core mechanics that made Civilization famous, offering an incredibly deep and rewarding empire-building experience. Why It’s Amazing: ✅ Accessible Yet Deep – Civ V removes some of the complexity of previous games (like Civ IV) but still maintains immense strategic depth. The introduction of hexagonal tiles and the removal of unit stacking make combat more tactical and enjoyable. ✅ Endless Replayability – Each game plays out differently thanks to randomly generated maps, AI opponents with unique personalities, and multiple victory conditions (Domination, Science, Cultural, Diplomatic). The expansions, Gods & Kings and Brave New World, add even more variety. ✅ City-States & Diplomacy – The introduction of city-states adds an interesting diplomatic layer, allowing players to form alliances, wage proxy wars, or dominate through sheer influence. ✅ Incredibly Addictive – The "one more turn" phenomenon is real. Games can stretch for dozens of hours, and every decision—whether it's expanding your empire, researching a technology, or declaring war—feels meaningful. ✅ Mod Support & Community – The Steam Workshop is filled with custom mods, scenarios, and civilizations, ensuring that the game never gets old. Minor Drawbacks: ❌ AI Can Be Unpredictable – While the AI is competent, it sometimes makes bizarre strategic decisions, particularly in warfare. ❌ DLC Dependency – The base game is great, but expansions like Brave New World are almost essential for the best experience. Final Verdict: If you love strategy games, Civilization V is a must-play. It's one of the most engaging and replayable games ever made, perfect for casual players and hardcore strategists alike. Be warned: once you start, you may find yourself playing until the sun rises! ⭐ Rating: 10/10 🔵【Highly Recommended】

They "updated" this recently to try and break it on modern systems right before VII released. POS developers. That won't make people buy VII, it will make people buy other games from better companies.

After playing Civ 7 for a bit, it made me further appreciate Civ 5 with the Vox Populi mod as the best in the series by far. A shame how Civ 7 is a regression in many aspects from Civ 5, a game released 15 years ago....