On their release date, the best games in the franchise would be between Civ 3 and Civ 4.
Civ 5 and 6 are so different that it is difficult to call them successor games anymore. It's Civ meets Settlers of Catan or something, no longer a true Civ game.
The movement limitations in Civ 5 and 6 don't make sense. The biggest battles in history have been what Civ 5+ players dismiss as "death stacks".
Think of the Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of Stalingrad, Siege of Baghdad (1258), Fall of Tenochtitlan... all concentrations of multiple units on one area.
I mean, historical accuracy is not exactly a Civ feature. For that I’d recommend Paradox games. And game play wise, I find death stacks simply lame, so I’m happy they aren’t there. There are tons of things that don’t make sense for IV either, but I still don’t call it Uno.
Civ is heavily rooted in a certain "classical" view of history, in which generals' tactical brilliance is what determines history.
So I understand why they wanted to make room for actual tactics.
If that comes at the cost of archers being able to shoot a bunch of gatling gunners across the English channel without them having the reach to shoot back, then so be it.
Gatlings are just a borked unit. A simple upgrade completely changing the unit-type raison d'etre is simply a Bad Idea, I honestly don't understand why they did it like that.
Civ 5 and 6 are so different that it is difficult to call them successor games anymore. It's Civ meets Settlers of Catan or something, no longer a true Civ game.
The movement limitations in Civ 5 and 6 don't make sense. The biggest battles in history have been what Civ 5+ players dismiss as "death stacks".
Think of the Battle of Trafalgar, Battle of Stalingrad, Siege of Baghdad (1258), Fall of Tenochtitlan... all concentrations of multiple units on one area.