The ideal sequel would be "Civ 1, with new graphics and better automation". Then iterate on that every few years.

[0] https://polytopia.io/

I'm not sure the civ guys can come up with something to compete with it. The recent games were so bloated and everything dragged on to the to point you'd just lose interest mid game, or quit before an inevitable victory/loss in the late game.

Also I'm not sure what you could do to improve Polytopia to make it a better game, except adding multiplayer team games.

Just because new players didn't know how to scout and/or that artillery does collateral damage to stacks...

Other sequels were meh, the only good feature is borders creep that prevents other players from building cities on your territory.

Literally the only turn based strategy I like

There are very, very few games out there that have something to say about philosophy. Alpha Centauri is a tour de force. It lets you explore many different philosophies of government and societal ethics. It continues the conversation that began with Plato's Republic, a multi-millennia-old debate about what constitutes an ideal society. It lets you experiment and build your own vision of utopia, while clashing with other visionary founders and their competing ideas.

It's absolutely fascinating and addictive stuff! I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys thinking about philosophy, as well as anyone who enjoys 4X games.

Same for me, though I couldn't exactly pinpoint why - maybe its the simplicity?

On the contrary, they add a whole new strategic dimensions to the game. In Civ I you had what, two victory conditions (Domination and Science)? In Civ V, you have also Cultural Victory (producing much more tourism than every other civilization's culture) and Diplomatic (getting most of the city states on your side). This is not "crap to micromanage", but more like changing the game from 2D chess to 3d chess.

Not to mention, the one unit per tile limit in Civ V makes combat much more tactical and interesting (combat is no longer just about quantity).

Those "crap" to micromenege are the different aspects brought in that form essential context of a civilization left out before, all thing like commerce, culture, religion are of an essence normally but left out due to simplifications before. Yes, they make the game complex for some and takes time learning how those affect the outcome and how to find the balance in a particular situation (geography, civ characteristics, opponents, mistakes made earlier, etc.) but it very well worths the effor in each, it is a good game tinkering with aspects other than how to hit opponents hard, leveraging other characteristings than pure power.

Not all changes are welcome by me either throughout the years, the top view of 1 is well enough for this game, the video card eating cirlcling seagulls over fishing boats in 3D are a bad joke, laughable, and all such like animated time delaying combats, waste of efforts for superficial nothings bloating the game unnecessarily. Not all aspects work too well either, like spying in 5, could use some improvements.

All changes brought in some good and interesting. And it is good if can turn off some if you feel so (and one can).

I stopped at 5. The 6 I found just weird (probably feeling the same like you did with all after the 1). Going back to 1 is sooo booring now!

Will be curious what the 7 brings, but cautiously, first looking at gameplay of others, not buying if it is obviously not my cup of tea.

Since owning lots of cities essentially comes at relatively little cost in the older Civ games, towards the end the AI will have spammed cities in just about every nook and cranny. (The addition of sea bases in SMAC seems like an interesting addition at first but accentuates this problem.) In SMAC the relationships with some of the AI leaders also tend towards more or less perpetual war which, with the high number of cities, I find frustrating since striking down or conquering a chronically belligerent neighbour requires capturing (or razing) a ridiculous number of individually insignificant cities.

Shifting the maintenance costs of units from individual cities to gold paid from the treasury also reduces micromanagement of those unit costs. Having cities defend themselves at some level without having units stationed also reduces the need to micromanage their defences in some cases.

I haven't played the first Civ that much but I played a lot of Civ II, and I think it suffered from some of those issues as well.

It's true that some of the changes in later Civs do also add further micromanagement. The archaeologists added in Civilization V: Brave New World require going all over the world (and generally hand-holding them), and the entire mechanic seems like a bit of an odd but more or less compulsory detour in the game. And optimizing the great works stuff in general quickly turns into micromanagement. Dealing with e.g. city-states and their quests also introduces some of it, although they also add another (potentially interesting) strategical conduit to the game.

With that said, I still find SMAC to be one of the best games in the series, and there will always be a place in my heart for Civ II.

I really didn't like that about Civ V. It totally destroyed the mood of the game. No longer was it about building a great empire. It essentially became turn-based Warcraft.

I want a game that lets me build even larger empires with more cities than Civ 1. To cut down on micromanagement the game needs smart tools for automation and delegation.

It seems like with Civ V onward they pushed the game farther and farther away from SimCity and toward The Sims. That's fine. Lots of people love The Sims. But I prefer SimCity.