Civilization II to VI: What Each Classic Entry Changed

Civilization has been around since 1991, and in every entry you lead a civilization through history while handling its economy, politics and military. Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley designed the original. Since then the series has had an unusual habit: almost every main entry has a different lead designer. According to PC Gamer's history of the series, that tradition started out as a coincidence. Here's what each game from II through VI added, who led it, and how to play the classics today.

Civilization II (1996)

The official Civilization site lists Civilization II's release date as February 1996. Brian Reynolds led Civilization II at MicroProse. He told PC Gamer that its working title was Civilization 2000, and that he built much of it after moving to North Yorkshire in England, using a long list of features players had requested on Usenet groups.

What it added, according to the official Civilization site and PC Gamer's history:

• The isometric (angled) map view that later games kept, plus a map editor.
• Hit points and firepower for units, so era mattered in combat. Reynolds wanted to end the days when an ancient phalanx could hold off a battleship.
• More diplomacy: diplomacy ratings, alliances, espionage, and peace treaties that made rivals pull their units out of your territory.
• 23 civilizations and a timeline from 4000 BC to the year 2020. You won by conquest, by being first to send a spaceship to Alpha Centauri, or on score.

Two expansions followed. Conflicts in Civilization added 20 scenarios, and Fantastic Worlds added 19 more plus a scenario editor. Reynolds told PC Gamer that MicroProse's new owners didn't market the game much, but word of mouth carried it, and that it had sold 2.5 million copies by the time he left. In 1996, Meier, Reynolds and Briggs founded Firaxis Games, the studio behind Civilization III through VI.

Civilization III (2001)

After a stretch of legal fights over the Civilization name, the license changed hands more than once before Firaxis could make the next game. Steam lists Civilization III's release date as October 30, 2001.

Reynolds was originally meant to lead it. He left to start Big Huge Games, so Jeff Briggs took over. Briggs told PC Gamer he worked in thirds: one third the same, one third new, one third improved.

According to the official site, Civilization III introduced:

• Culture, which pushed your borders outward, plus culture and diplomatic victories.
• Strategically important resources.
• Unique units for each civilization, meant to reflect that civilization's historical peak.
• Additional forms of government.

Multiplayer wasn't ready at launch. Briggs also told PC Gamer he wished he had dropped the corruption system, which made spread-out empires hard to manage. PC Gamer describes Civilization III as one of the more divisive entries among veteran players, though also another success for the series.

Civilization IV (2005)

Soren Johnson, who had worked on Civilization III, led Civilization IV. Steam lists its release date as October 25, 2005. Johnson told PC Gamer his rule was that "we weren't going to do anything by default," meaning no feature carried over from earlier games without being reconsidered.

Highlights from the official site and PC Gamer:

• Religions that spread across the map.
• Great People with abilities based on their type.
• More than one leader to choose from for some civilizations.
• Corruption removed, and unit upgrades borrowed from other games.
• A new 3D engine, which was a first for the series, plus easier modding.
• Multiplayer built in from the start. Johnson says the team played multiplayer games in the first months of development.

The game was dropped by its publisher halfway through development and sold to Take-Two, which owns the series today. PC Gamer also notes Civilization IV became the first game to win a Grammy, thanks to Christopher Tin's theme song, "Baba Yetu."

Civilization V (2010)

Jon Shafer was 21 when development began in early 2007, according to PC Gamer. Steam lists Civilization V's release date as September 21, 2010. It made two big changes to the map:

• Hexagonal tiles replaced the square grid the series had used since 1991.
• One unit per tile. You could no longer pile a whole army onto one square, so where you placed units suddenly mattered a lot.

The official site also credits Civilization V with city-states, ranged bombardment, and more distinct civilizations through unique units, buildings and leader abilities. Shafer later told PC Gamer he was ambivalent about one unit per tile and thought a stacking model might suit a game of Civilization's scope better. He still considered the combat more interesting than in earlier games. Ed Beach led the game's two big expansions, Gods and Kings and Brave New World. Brave New World introduced the tourism system.

Civilization VI (2016)

Ed Beach went on to lead Civilization VI. Steam lists its release date as October 20, 2016. Its headline feature is districts: cities now spread across the map, with specialized districts on their own tiles that gain adjacency bonuses from the terrain around them. Beach, who also designs board games, told PC Gamer the goal was to make players put their mark on the map tile by tile. The idea goes back to Civilization V's Spain and Inca scenario pack.

The official site also highlights:

• A civics tree, so culture unlocks progress the way technology does.
• Rival leaders with agendas based on their historical traits, and some leaders with multiple personas.

After VI

Civilization VII launched February 11, 2025, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, Mac and Linux, according to the official site. This guide sticks to II through VI, but if you jump from an older game to VII, the history above shows how the series got there.

Playing the classics today

Here's what we found when checking the major PC stores in October 2026:

• Civilization III Complete and Civilization IV are both on Steam and GOG (GOG sells Civilization IV as The Complete Edition).
• Civilization V and Civilization VI are on Steam. Their store pages list Mac and Linux versions by Aspyr alongside Firaxis and 2K.
• Civilization II didn't turn up in Steam or GOG store searches. The official Civilization site still has a page for it, along with every other entry.

If you've been away since II or III, here's a hypothetical example: you load up VI expecting to stack your army and build every improvement inside your city walls. You'd find units spread out one per hex and your city sprawling across districts instead. Bridging that gap is easier once you know which game introduced which change.