Sid Meier's Civilization Games, Ranked

Thirty-five years of telling yourself it is 11 p.m. and you will stop after this turn.

Entries
10
Category
Games
Updated
  1. An ancient Egyptian obelisk awkwardly fitted with a Mongolian yurt on top, standing on a hex tile in an empty museum.

    10. Civilization VII

    Firaxis Games (Ed Beach) · 2025

    Critics gave it a 79. Players got a game that makes you swap civilizations every age, a UI that hides everything, and a tech tree that ends around the 1960s. Steam reviews sat at Mixed and concurrent players fell from 80,000 to under 5,000 by May. Egypt becomes Mongolia. Sure.

  2. A beige landing craft on a pale alien plain under a ringed planet, alien trees made of crystal in the distance.

    09. Civilization: Beyond Earth

    Firaxis Games · 2014

    The spiritual sequel to Alpha Centauri, made by many of the same people, with an affinity system and a tech web. Critics called it fine and a bit regressive next to late-era Civ V. It is Civ V in a spacesuit, and the spacesuit is beige.

  3. A game controller resting on a couch cushion beside a bowl of popcorn, a tiny glowing globe hovering above it.

    08. Civilization Revolution

    Firaxis Games (Sid Meier) · 2008

    Sid Meier personally squeezed Civ onto the Xbox 360, PS3 and DS, with games that finish in an evening instead of a fiscal quarter. It scored in the 80s and became one of the top-selling iPhone games of 2009. Civ for people who own a couch.

  4. Painted borders slowly spreading across a parchment map from a small city, iron and horses icons scattered on the hills.

    07. Civilization III

    Firaxis Games (Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson) · 2001

    Introduced culture, national borders and strategic resources, so you finally knew whose land you were stealing. Debuted at No. 1 in the US and shipped buggy enough to need a run of patches. It is the middle child of the series and behaves like one.

  5. A thick spiral-bound manual and a stack of 3.5-inch floppy disks beside a CRT monitor showing a blocky green and blue map, sunrise in the window.

    06. Sid Meier's Civilization

    MicroProse (Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley) · 1991

    Built on lessons from Railroad Tycoon, with a manual and Civilopedia Bruce Shelley wrote himself. It invented the one-more-turn sunrise. And no, Gandhi never nuked anyone because of a bug; Meier's 2020 memoir confirmed it was made up. Gandhi did that on his own.

  6. A bright cartoonish city of distinct colored districts spread across hex tiles, a campus, a harbor and a theater square each on its own tile.

    05. Civilization VI

    Firaxis Games (Ed Beach) · 2016

    Districts unstacked cities across the map, so a capital now sprawls like Phoenix. Sean Bean reads the quotes and, for once, survives. Over 11 million sold by 2023, the best seller in the series. People mocked the cartoon art style and then played it for 4,000 hours.

  7. A tabletop of hexagonal tiles with exactly one tiny bronze soldier standing on each hex, rolling out to the horizon.

    04. Civilization V

    Firaxis Games (Jon Shafer) · 2010

    Swapped squares for hexes and allowed one unit per tile, ending the 40-tank doomstack. Launch AI was so lost even its designer admitted it. Gods & Kings and Brave New World turned it into the version people still swear by. Gandhi was set to maximum nuke on purpose.

  8. An old beige computer monitor glowing on a cluttered desk with an isometric map on screen, a calendar curled with age pinned behind it.

    03. Civilization II

    MicroProse (Brian Reynolds) · 1996

    Isometric view, modding support, PC Gamer's game of 1996 and about 3 million sold. In 2012 a Redditor posted his decade-old save: three superpowers in permanent war, basically Orwell's 1984. Ten years. One game. Nobody won.

  9. A crashed colony pod in red alien soil beside purple fungal growths glowing faintly, two suns low in a green sky.

    02. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

    Firaxis Games (Brian Reynolds) · 1999

    Seven ideological factions land on a planet that slowly turns out to be awake and annoyed. PC Gamer gave it 98%. Critics compared the writing to Clarke and Herbert. It sold the fewest copies in the series, which is how you know it was the good one.

  10. A 3D globe on a pedestal under warm light, surrounded by small temples, a scroll of parchment and a vintage microphone.

    01. Civilization IV

    Firaxis Games (Soren Johnson) · 2005

    Leonard Nimoy reads the tech quotes, seven religions spread by missionary, and the whole thing runs on Python you can mod. Its theme, Baba Yetu, became the first video game music to win a Grammy. The Lord's Prayer in Swahili, over a menu screen. Fair.

Honorable mentions

  • A wooden sailing ship unloading barrels of sugar and bundles of fur onto a colonial dock, a quill and an unsigned parchment on a crate.

    Sid Meier's Colonization

    MicroProse (Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier) · 1994

    Civ narrowed to the New World, 1492 to 1850: fur, sugar, Founding Fathers, then declare independence and fight off the Crown's expeditionary force. It sold 350,000 copies and fans still maintain a free open-source remake. Taxes have never been more motivating.

Dishonorable mentions

  • An underwater dome city on the seafloor next to an orbiting space station, both slightly askew, like a toy set assembled wrong.

    Civilization: Call to Power

    Activision · 1999

    Activision's Civ without Sid Meier, running to the year 3000 with sea colonies and space cities. IGN gave it a 4.8 and GameSpot nominated it for Most Disappointing Game of the Year. By the sequel it had lost the right to say Civilization on the box.

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