I realized that I wrote I bought "Civ IV" when I meant "Civ IV." I had Civ IV in high school, but my computer couldn't handle it so I had to use my little brother's computer, and then he started playing it and I never got to play it at all after that.
I've finally started Civ V. The learning curve is much shallower than EUIV, but it seems to be about as complex: much better peacetime mechanics, somewhat worse military mechanics, slightly worse diplomatic mechanics, and noticeably worse immersion. I also dislike that Civ V seems to have only one, all-purpose map mode. (And I'll note that EUIV's Paradox-sponsored wiki is much worse than Civ V's Wikia wiki, though the Civ V tutorial and help menu are better; Paradox basically outsourced information on the game to players.) I will probably get bored of it much quicker than I get bored with EUIV.
One thing that strikes me though:
FreeCiv does or attempts some things that Civ V still hasn't implemented. And while I don't know whether Civ VI has these, it's striking to me that Civ V:
- Doesn't have plagues
- Doesn't have immigration
- Doesn't let you queue production
- Doesn't have a macrobuilder
- Has fewer options for customization
This last issue may be a balance and/or AI problem; Paradox has talked about this in relation to EU4, the more options you have the harder it is to balance the game and train the AI around them. You see this in FreeCiv. The AI is designed around a smallpoxing strategy (building tons of small cities as close together as possible), and if you change the rules to undermine this strategy the AI goes from intimidating to pathetic. The first two might be similar issues: if a lot of players don't like them, it's hard to balance around options to leave them out, so you just get rid of them. I see no justification fro not having the QoL improvements I mention in a paid game, though, when FreeCiv has had them for years.