Sid Meier's Civilization V

Sid Meier's Civilization V is a simulator game developed by Firaxis Games and released in 2010. It was published by 2K Games. It is available on Linux, Mac and PC (Microsoft Windows). It runs on Firaxis LORE.

It is played from a bird view / isometric perspective. Its themes are 4x (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate), fantasy, historical and science fiction. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component. Available modes: Multiplayer and Single player. There are 286 achievements to unlock.

Sid Meier's Civilization V is the 26th of 41 entries we hold in the Sid Meier series. It arrived a year after Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. The next entry was Sid Meier's Pirates! in 2010. Its critic score of 87 is 5 points above the series average of 82. The highest-rated entry is Sid Meier's Civilization IV at 95.

See all 41 Sid Meier games in release order →

Sid Meier's Civilization V holds a critic score of 87 out of 100. That places it above 90% of the 2,881 rated simulator games in our database, which average 71. Games released in 2010 averaged 70, so it scored 17 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 86, across 1,173 votes.

The main story runs about 53 hrs. Completing everything takes closer to 511 hrs, roughly 9.6 times the length of the critical path. At its current cheapest price of $6.44, that works out to about $0.12 per hour of the main story, or $0.01 per hour if you finish everything.

The minimum specification calls for Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz, 2GB RAM and 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics. At 2GB of RAM, it will run on essentially any working PC — that is below what a budget laptop ships with today. Install size is roughly 8GB. Both tiers are compared side by side on the requirements page, and you can check your own parts against them without installing anything.

Full requirements and PC checker →

The cheapest verified price right now is $6.44 at Fanatical, 79% below its usual price. Storefront pricing varies enormously by country: Brazil is the cheapest region we track at R$44.99 (about $8.93), while Germany pays €29.99 — 3.8 times more. In Pakistan it is priced at Rs 23 on Steam, which is about $22.99.

Full price comparison across all regions →

Sid Meier's Civilization V launched on 21 September 2010, within three weeks of Halo: Reach, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Pokémon Black Version and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. It reviewed better than 1 of the 4.

Released around the same time: Halo: Reach, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Pokémon Black Version, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

We have tested and published 3 cheat entries for Sid Meier's Civilization V — 3 console commands. Each one lists the platform it applies to, the exact input, and whether it disables achievements.

All 3 Sid Meier's Civilization V cheats →