Civ 1 is rough. The fact that it was popular enough to warrant a sequel is a miracle. If you've ever played SMAC, you've played something close to Civ 2, and as such should know what a massive improvement later games are.

I think for it's time and the limited screen resolution it was quite genial how the Civ 1 interface made such a complex game accessible. But of course today Civilization 2 or Alpha Centauri are much better entries to the series.

Unfortunately Civ 2 is not on GOG. But if you are still interested in the series grab Alpha Centauri when it's on sale and try that out. It makes it much easier to understand the base mechanisms of the Civilization games.

Before Civ 5 could even be considered there has to be a release of Axiom Verge first.

I've actually just reinstalled Civ 5 (after playing a game of 6 and not enjoying it much), I'd say it's up there with 4, while at the same time being quite different. My earlier recollections were accurate (though I've not got to flying units yet so I'm still not sure how they work) and it's definitely better than 6. I'd have to play a game of 4 to be sure but I think I generally prefer the 1 unit per tile as it means conflict is less drawn out and doesn't require as much micromanagement.
I'd imagine it's even better with the expansions (which I believe add things like religion and possibly espionage or more advanced espionage) but the base game is quite fun.

I'm hoping they do release a complete edition here, I'd definitely re buy at a reasonable price for the expansions rather than buying them on Steam.

It's probably completely futile to think that a rejection of one game on GOG speeds up the release of another game.

No no no no... Before there could be Civ 5, there had to be the Age of Empires III first.

It's anything but. Think about the most generic "Civ in space" and you're probably closer to the truth than you'd be comfortable, considering.

BE, especially with Raising Tide is... playable. About as much as you can say of it, really.

It's nowhere near the genius of Alpha Centauri (which was the brainchild of Brian Reynolds, by the by, and Sid's name just got put there because franchise recognition).

Why play Civilization V when you can play III instead?

FTFY ;)

There are a lot of improvements of the game mechanics between III and iV.

At least in my opinion.

Civilization 5 was amazing. I loved it more than 3 and 4. I hated 2.

Civ1 is still my favorite in the series. I played it probably for million years :)

Unfortunately I haven't played either of the first two games for many, many years. I don't remember much about the first Civ, but I do remember that I really enjoyed the sequel. The worst part was the ugly looking map after the invention and construction of rail; the crowded maps really looked poor.
I've played both III and IV, from Gog. My laptop is unicore, however, and quite old so I can only play games for about two dozen turns before they become irritating. :(

I really like Alpha Centauri, too, except for the nauseous colour scheme.
edit: typography

Thanks for another answer! If there still would be any need to convince me to buy Civ 5 you would have succeeded. :) And you of course made me curious about the one unit limit as all Civ games I've played so far did not have that limit.

I also hope for a complete edition.

And of course before AoE 3 even could be considered they would have to release AoE 1 and 2 (with add-ons)! :P

Having played both, IV has better graphics by far, IV also scraped the "choose your government" option from III (I think, been a while since I have played IV). IV also added tribute states and gives the option of seperating cities, because of cost, and making the civilization that comes from them into a tribute state.

But most importantly, before there could be any of those, there had to be Rise of Nations first.