Though much better than Civ VI, I would still not recommend this game without mods. The single player experience is awful, because the AI is not even decently designed. On difficulties where the AI doesn't get a bonus, it's a snoozefest to trivial victory. On the highest difficulty, the AI gets unfair bonuses but does not get any smarter, making victories feel cheap when you get them, and losses feel completely unfair, as there's usually rarely a way to win even if you play your cards right. As a multiplayer experience, desyncs are constant and the netcode overall is about as glitchy as you can get for a turn-based game (turn-based multiplayer is the easiest to code...). If you have friends, and are willing to put in effort to gather up good mods for this game, and are willing to play 5-6 hours to finish a single frickin' game, THEN you may consider Civ V.

Though much better than Civ VI, I would still not recommend this game without mods. The single player experience is awful, because the AI is not even decently designed. On difficulties where the AI doesn't get a bonus, it's a snoozefest to trivial victory. On the highest difficulty, the AI gets unfair bonuses but does not get any smarter, making victories feel cheap when you get them, and losses feel completely unfair, as there's usually rarely a way to win even if you play your cards right. As a multiplayer experience, desyncs are constant and the netcode overall is about as glitchy as you can get for a turn-based game (turn-based multiplayer is the easiest to code...). If you have friends, and are willing to put in effort to gather up good mods for this game, and are willing to play 5-6 hours to finish a single frickin' game, THEN you may consider Civ V.