When comparing Alpha Centauri vs Civilization V, the Slant community recommends Civilization V for most people. In the question“What are the best PC 4X games?” Civilization V is ranked 2nd while Alpha Centauri is ranked 13th. 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
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Pros
Pro Gameplay really differs from faction to faction
Pro Great hard sci-fi storyline and setting
Pro Memorable faction leaders and philosophies
Pro Simultaneous multiplayer
When playing against an opponent in the game the players can make moves simultaneously, which means there is no waiting around for each player to take their move, which saves time as well as makes the game more immediate.
Pro Great multiplayer balance (with exceptions)
Most factions can be successfully played in multiplayer and are great on certain maps with certain strategies e.g. Builder (population or money or tech), fast attacker, hybrid, Each is unique and has it's own advantages. Only few are truly useless.
Pro Custom (modular) units
You create units yourself out of parts
Pro Deformable landscape and weather patterns
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 Looks dated
The game was originally released in 1999 and it shows, the graphics are subpar compared to newer games, though the gameplay still holds up.
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.