Recs.
Updated
Civilization V is a 4X game where players lead their civilization to achieve a number of victory conditions.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Large assortment of win conditions that allow the player to experiment
The included win states of the game are diplomatic, scientific, cultural and time.
Diplomatic allows the user is done through cooperating with other city states, forming trade routes for caravans. This allows the player to amass a large amount of money through cooperation, which tends to be an easier method to win the game.
Scientific places challenges on the player depending on what nation they choose to use. Mainly though, you can build out large population cities with science as their main research technology. This way beating others in science, thus most likely being the first to launch a spaceship (the win condition for a science victory).
Cultural wins are often a bit tricky, especially in the vanilla game, where they were often left vague, but basically, the beginning of the game you want to build as many wonders as possible, in order to get a lot of tourism late game. Often a cultural win is a late game win that may require the timed win state to be turned off.
Lastly, timed wins are won by having the highest score at the end of a timed game.
All of these different win conditions allow for the user to experiment greatly whit the mechanics of the game, making for a deep game that can change throughout play depending on what the player would like to focus on.
Pro Among the most beginner friendly 4X games
Civ V is among the most beginner friendly 4X games. It doesn't overwhelm you with options right from the get go, but slowly eases you in. The tech tree, resource and production management, movement, policy decisions, diplomacy and all the UIs for them are pretty easy to wrap your head around. It can be a great gateway 4X game.
Pro Endless scenarios and replayability
Civilization V has a large assortment of nation leaders to choose from that have an even bigger assortment of scenarios that are able to play out for said leaders. Each game can be quite unique in this way as each leader allows for a different nation to be controlled.
Pro Customization through policies
Policies are used as a tool to gain a variety of customizations that benefit ones society. There is a branching tree of policies that will allow the user to pick certain aspects that will suit them best such as adding law or religion to ones society which will give gains in certain aspects.
Cons
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con No stats on other Civ attitudes
Unlike past Civilization games there are no longer stats on the attitudes of the players surrounding Civilizations. This allowed one to see how each other nation felt about the player, but now that it is gone one has to guess, which is definitely not as helpful.
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con No Steam workshop support on Linux
The Linux port currently does not support steam workshop, and as the mac port made by the same developers has not received workshop support despite having been out for several years, it is unlikely that it ever will.
Though there are unofficial workarounds to get the mods working.