Tauto: Never tried any Civ games,bit of an Anno person.They just don't look that exciting and of course I could be way off base:)
It's hard for me to be unbiased since I've played every actual Civ game (including the spin-off Civ IV colonization, plus Alpha Centauri). But between them I'd wager I have spent thousands of hours. Beyond Earth is the only one I thought was a dud (from the demo) and never sunk meaningful time into.
Anyway the joke (and Beyond Earth being the other joke) is that one of the victory options in every iteration is to win a scientific victory by launching your spaceship to colonize some other planet.
That said, if you were starting to play Civ now you'd be doing it without nostalgia, and you'd get strongly competing views on which version you should play for the "true" Civ experience. Can't recall if I played any Anno (even as demo).