I've played every Civilization since the first one, I believe. I think 4 was my favorite, especially since it had the best music. I sing old music professionally, and it was such a treat to enter a new era and hear some of the best musicians in the world singing actual music of the era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g7jOKLUus8

(the music in that video is by John Sheppard, a decidedly Renaissance composer (not Medieval, as indicated by the game), but the music is so good that I can absolutely forgive that inaccuracy).

Lately I've been wavering from the series though. My biggest complaint is that every game is so long and requires so much micromanagement in the mid-late game. Even at the fastest setting, a full game seems to take at least 10-20 hours. Sometimes I just want to go through the tech tree in a different world without having to spend such large amounts of time on it.

I still haven't played VI, despite both owning it and the Civ series being one of my favorite games (all the way back to I).

I really hate micro (ADHD and tedious repetitive tasks don't mix well) and usually automated my workers as quickly as I could. I heard that this isn't possible in VI. That, along with the huge time commitment increase and the terrible AI have so far made me unwilling to bother playing.

Is it worth a shot? I'm torn between finally playing that, and the fact that CK3 just came out.

NO!

I've played VI 6 after it was free on Epic store.

It is the worst game experience i have ever had!

You can play in full 3D (lame as hell) map, or strategic (2d map). Both of them give you a really bad view of the map, no matter what.

The UI is full of bugs and things you need to click twice, and full of pitfalls (pressed space but an event was just jumping on the screen? too bad now your worker just moved next to that barbarian and will be lost next turn)

The graphics completely destroy your GPU even though it is a freaking Civ game! no matter if you play on 2D view, your GPU will smoke just the same. no idea how they screwed that up.

Then, even without considering graphics performance, my i5 top of the line was taking a whole 30s between unit moves in the later rounds of the game, and a full 3+ minutes for the CPU players turns.

Avoid that game like the plague! unless you have a multi thousand dollars gaming PC. then just play it to laugh at all the times Gandhi will declare war on you on first contact.

Edit: oh and i tried to play on the Surface. Despite being impossible because of performance, the UI is unusable without mouse over, and there's no way to show the mouse overs windows with the touch mode. Complete disaster of a game. I'd be ashamed to have my name on the credits.

edit 2: I actually had lots of fun with https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv on the surface.

and for newcomers to the series, play the original ones or even the Nes one on an emulator.