FiniteBanjoTBH 6 was kind of a downgrade from 5
Everyone shits on 6 but never actually gives a reason other than “5 iS bEtTeR!”. The mechanics in 6 are a massive improvement on 5; civics tree > social policies, city loyalty > happiness etc. It has a bigger and better roster of civs/leaders. Combat and religion are more fleshed out. I love both games but I can’t think of anything that 5 does better
Civ 6 was made much more to be a digital board game. The combination of little to no multiplicative bonuses and generally small adjacency bonuses means you have to micro manage city planning all the time. It bombards the player with so many individual decisions that each make little impact.
Civ 5 felt much more like an empire simulator. The biggest bonuses come from making “big” decisions, like which policy tree, who/when to war, which ideology. As the game progressed, there was typically no need to micromanage.
The combat in civ 6 is atrocious after they removed the ability to build roads offensively for war until you unlock military engies (way too late in the game). Civ 5’s road system took ages to get up and running, but the payoff was immense.
The civics tree system is better, but the policy card system is broken. It gives players too much flexibility, so everyone ends up running the same/similar set of cards every time. Tradition + Rationalism is a meme in Civ 5, but it did offer more esoteric strategies with different trees.