When comparing Time Rifters vs Civilization V, the Slant community recommends Civilization V for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Steam with a level editor?” Civilization V is ranked 11th while Time Rifters is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose Civilization V is:
From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is quite a beautiful game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. Even when on lower graphical settings the game looks lush and well animated.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Rarely seen gameplay mechanic that combines multiple playthroughs
Each level is played through multiple times with every new playthrough adding previous playthroughs alongside current one. This is done 4 times trying to complete as much of the level as possible. It essentially creates a solo co-op experience and allows for lots of strategical planning forward.
Pro Vibrant aesthetic
The game has simple, clear, blocky levels and uses bright colors. There's an Iron Man inspired hud, but that can mostly be ignored unless you want to check out the score. Important information such as enemy count is displayed on the walls of levels and there's no need to keep track of health or ammo.
Pro Good weapon variety
The game has 6 different weapons that each has a progression system associated with 5 upgrade categories - Spread, Focus, Rapid, Punch and Acid. It adds another level of strategical depth as weapon upgrades have to be planned for.
Pro Level editor and Steam Workshop support
You can create your own levels to challenge yourself and your creativity. It feels really cool playing through levels you made, although you know what to expect.
Pro Beautiful graphics
From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is quite a beautiful game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. Even when on lower graphical settings the game looks lush and well animated.
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.
Pro Fantastic tactical combat
Civilization V has a great combat system that feels very tactical over previous versions as there is no stacking of troops, but with the new hexagonal grid players can surround enemies as well as allow for better tactics when planning attacks.
Cons
Con Abandoned support
Currently the game does not work with the retail version of the Rift, a DK2 (beta Rift model) and older drivers will be necessary to play the game. There has been no word from the developer if this will be fixed.
Con Short
While there's definitely potential for multiple playthroughs to try and get a better score, the base game has just about 2 hours of gameplay.
Con One unit per tile
Civ 5 restricts you to having one unit per tile, but has an AI unable to handle that restriction well, and doesn't even have decent pathing for units. Late game becomes a slog of ordering each unit individually due to poor pathing.
Con Most victories won by timed or military victory
It can be pretty difficult to win by diplomacy or culture which does add some challenge to the game but it can get tiresome if one keeps winning by only military or timed victories.
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.
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.