Humm, I have Civ IV lying around here would like to play. Buying Civ III came to my mind aswell. Which part in the series is the best and why?

I've never been an OCD level player of Civ (and if you really get into it, you'll see what I mean), so take my comments with a grain of salt. But, in my opinion, unless you're an OCD-level type of player, you're going to find many of them very, very, very similar. An OCD (obsessive compulsive) person will love to point out every minute difference of course, but...for instance...I played Civ 4 and 5 exactly the same and honestly, that made 5 a big disappointment for me, since it felt like I was playing 4 with updated graphics.

It's been years since I've played 3, but I remember thinking similar things when I first played 4.

Just my two cents.

Civ 2 is a lot of fun. Civ 4 takes a lot of the fun forward. I strongly recommend Civ 4. Good mechanics, AI, diplomacy, trading, loads of fun mods! And cultural boundaries actually are useful.

Civ 3 was a lot of micromanagement. And pollution. AI not so great. Diplomacy and trading blew. Battles had weird results sometimes. Ugh. Not recommended.

Civilization II was always the best of the series for me. It was a great example of the "simple-but-deep" mechanic that Extra Credits on the Escapist talked about several weeks back...I have so many fond memories of playing epic games as the Chinese, engaging in titanic battles culminating in an all-out nuclear war with the English and the Vikings.

There are many such discussions around the civfanatics and apolyton forums.

Here's one.

As for where to start, while the debates in the Civilization community are heated around Civilization V, few can argue that it is certainly the most accessible of the PC titles.

If you have a Nintendo DS, xbox 360 or PS3 however, Civilization: Revolution would be my choice for an introduction to the series. It manages to capture the feel and strategy of the series while boiling it down to it's bare essentials. That games also only take 2-3 hours aids learning as you can experiment more quickly.

The only real drawback to that approach is that CivRev heavily promotes a warmongering strategy, and the pacing can be a little too quick where it's easy to fall behind in the higher difficulties if your attention starts to wander.

However, my personal favorite is Civ IV: Beyond the Sword with the BAT Mod to spice up the graphics and interface. There is a steep learning curve if you go that direction straight away though, so if you make that choice be sure to spend some time at The Civilization IV War Academy.

You could try Freeciv, which is a clone of Civilization 2, free and open-source and very good.
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Definitely Civilization IV + Beyond The Sword...

Though IMHO the best of the Sid Meier 4x type games wasn't even in the Civ series... I lost so many damn hours to Alpha Centauri...

Agreed. Coincidentally, a friend and I just LANed Civ IV again today after a few months of not playing. There's a ton of fun to be had here.

Bigs is right, IMO.
Civ IV is the best in the series when using thee Beyond the Sword expansion. And I also agree that Alpha Centauri is the best game in the "Sid Meier's" 4X genre. i think it's the best strategy game ever.

I agree that Civ IV has the most balance and polish of all the games. They're all nice... save for Civ Rev and Civ V.

what the hell please start from civilization 2 & 3 and skip to 5, civilization 2 & 3 were total opposites to each other and it was and is still awesome fun to play them in order, you might find 3 a bit challenging but thats what civilization brings, i never liked civilization 4 it was a throw back to other games, at least civilization 5 is playable for its simple interface & good graphics,decent gameplay it was meant to bring more people into the civilization series. civilization 4 well, a lot of people have suggested it, im sure you will run back to the civilization 2,3 or 5 after being brainwashed in civilization 4, its extremely complex and is not something for the causal players

I love Civ II because it was my first Civ game. It was simple to learn, hard to master, and had an epic feel. I also love the simplicity of the graphics as well as the wonder movies.

As someone else mentioned, Sid's Alpha Centauri is also a worthwhile game, and maybe the best of all Civ games. Of its many great features, rather than just getting new units with tech advances, you instead could retrofit old units with new technology or build new types of units by combining your different technologies.

Civ 3 is not as stylistic as the other Civs, but it is solid, and if you find it too bland, there is no shortage of fan made mods and conversions, many of really high quality. I still play it when I travel because it runs so wonderfully on my laptop.

I am in the minority when it comes to Civ 4. To me, it was actually a little too easy to play and a bit cartoony. Civ 4 is one of those games that took advantage of advances in graphical capabilities even though cutting edge 3D graphics do not really have much to offer in a 4X TBS game like Civ.

I love Civ 5, mainly because I love the move to a hexagonal grid and the elimination of unit stacking. I do think, however, that it lost some the micromanagement opportunities I crave in these games. And I will say that there are still a lot of players complaining about instability issues, and I can confirm that I've experienced a few questionable crashes myself.

Civ4 is the best for me, though I really do love Civ5's combat.

I never played the original or Civ2 though.

Civ2 and Civ4. Civ4 had a buttload of content and is fun as hell.

I have not played V, but I have played I through IV and I will place my vote in the camp for IV + Beyond the Sword. Really cannot recommend these games highly enough if you have any inclination towards 4x gameplay.