Civ V For Mac

Civilization V Mac Game is a turn-based strategy Game. With ultra realistic graphics showing lush landscapes ready to be explored, battled over and claimed by the victor. With ultra realistic graphics showing lush landscapes ready to be explored, battled over and claimed by the victor.

Civilization 6 on Mac can’t be considered new anymore, yet this turn-based strategy game is still one of the best strategy games for Mac available today.

Civilization games are famous for their deep strategy. Looks have never been their forte and you might be wondering why even bother asking if you can run it. After all, turn-based games have simple graphics and are easy to run, right? Not so fast…

Civilization 6 has beautiful graphics and while it might not be as sophisticated as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, it still requires a ton of horsepower to run.

In this review:

So let’s see how demanding this game is and whether your Mac has what it takes to run it.

What’s new with Civilizations 6 on Mac?

Civilization 6 received its newest Expansion, Gathering Storm, on February 14, 2019. As well as the expected additions (such as new civilizations and units), the game also received a completely new gameplay feature: Global Warming.

For consumer customers in China, India, and Japan, Office 2019 suites will be available in the next few months. Outlook for mac 2018. Commercial volume-licensed (trusted) customers can access Office 2019 starting today. Availability. We see the on-premises version of Office as an important part of our commitment to give customers the flexibility they need to move to the cloud at their own pace. Office 2019 is now available for and commercial customers.

You can read more about it below.

Metascore

Civilization 6 is, without a doubt, one of the finest strategy games available, especially for turn-based games fans. Civ 6 looks great, plays great and is easily the best Civ game to date.

First things first, is the game any good?

Released in late 2016, Civilization 6 has more than proven itself to be a safe purchase. The reviews all agree: Civilization 6 is a beast.

PC Gamer, for example, didn’t spare any compliments and gave it 93/100 score, concluding:

Sight, sound, and systems harmonize to make Civilization 6 the liveliest, most engrossing, most rewarding, most challenging 4X in any corner of the earth.

With an 88 Metascore, Civ 6 gets dangerously close to the Masterpiece status, usually reserved for games with a 90 Metascore or more:

As usual, users were, on the other hand, more critical. The game has 70% Positive reviews, which isn’t bad, but not great either. I don’t want to downplay the opinion of the average gamer, but always take Steam reviews with a grain of salt.

For instance, among the game’s more than 37,200 user reviews (which is huge by the huge), there are people with over 145 hours of playtime that still don’t recommend it because it has paid DLC…

A new Expansion: Gathering Storm

Rise and Fall, the game’s first major Expansion, dared to make significant changes and enhancements. Most notably, it introduced the Loyalty system, Golden and Dark ages, improved Alliances and more.

Essentially, it made Civ 6 more rich and complex.

Now Gathering Storm, the game’s second Expansion, takes Civ 6 to the next level. With the introduction of a new World Congress and a World Climate system, the game delivers a more dynamic and rich experience, especially when you reach the end game and start seeing the real consequences of your earlier choices.

While expensive for an Expansion ($40), Gathering Storm makes a great game even better.

Cross-platform multiplayer

For a while, Civ 6 on Mac suffered from receiving late updates, disabling cross-platform Multiplayer with Windows users.

The situation is much better now, as Aspyr finally made cross-platform multiplayer possiblein 2018:

Cross-platform multiplayer is now available between Mac and Windows on Steam. That’s right! Download the latest update of Sid Meier’s Civilization VI and conquer together online now!

Bottom line

I used to think Civ 5 was perfection. I even wondered how Firaxis could make it any better. Well, they did. Civilization 6 feels familiar, yet both gameplay and graphcis are superior.

This is one of the best strategy games you can play on your Mac.

Civilization 6 Mac requirements

We like testing the waters and see if unsupported machines can run a game, but you shouldn’t. Before going any further, you should make sure your Mac meets the game’s minimum system requirements:

OS: macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) and 10.12 (Sierra)
Processor: 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 (4 cores)
RAM: 6GB
Hard Disk: 15 GB
Graphics: 1GB Radeon HD 6790, GeForce 775M, Iris Pro or better

Civ 6 officially supports the following graphics cards:

NVIDIA GeForce 650M, 675MX, 680MX, 750M, 755M
ATI Radeon HD 5750, HD 5770, HD 5870, HD 6750, HD 6770
Intel HD Graphics 4000, 5000, 5300, 6000, Iris, 515

If you don’t have one of these cards, I’m afraid this game isn’t for you…

Into Strategy games? These are our favorites:

Game	★ Best Overall	Best for MacBook	Best Value
Game	Genre	Turn-based	Turn-based	Real-time
Release date	2016	2018	2015
Metascore
Our rating	★★★★☆ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review
Requirements	High	Low	Low
Check Price

The Test: Can you play Civilization 6 on Mac?

So the game is great and all but can your Mac run it? To give you a proper answer, we did what we do best and tested the game on as many Macs as possible:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017): 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, Intel Radeon Pro 560 (4GB)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
iMac (5K, 27-inch, Late 2014): 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X (2GB)
Mac Mini (Late 2014): 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012): 5.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 (1.5GB)

Notice the 2016 MacBook Pro, 2014 Mac Mini and 2012 MacBook Pro do not meet the recommended system requirements, but more on that below.

Why these machines?

The purpose of these reviews is to help as many of you as we can which is why we test our games on machines as different from each other as possible.

Hopefully, one of these Macs will be close enough to yours to provide results you can use really at home.

These are the settings we used to run Civilization 6’s internal benchmark :

1280×800 (or equivalent 1344×756) resolution
Medium Preset
Anti Aliasing: MSAA 2X

Using the in-game benchmark tool, we tested the game on all Macs using the same settings.

The Results: Civ 6 shouldn’t be this demanding

The results were much lower than expected, but there’s more than meets the eye here:

Keeping in mind that we aim for 30 frames per second (FPS) or more, most of the results here are poor and suggest that Civilization 6 is unplayable on anything other than a high-end Mac. But things are a little more complicated. 10-15 FPS is unacceptable for a racing game or a shooter, but for a turn-based strategy game?

Also, the in-game benchmark is particularly demanding because it takes place very late in the game when lots of units are on screen. Let’s look at the different scenarios and see what can be realistically expected from the game.

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

Can my Mac run Civilization 6?

If you have a recent Mac with a dedicated graphics card, Civilization 6 will run just fine: smoothly and with no perceivable stutters. In fact, even older models can handle it, provided they have a powerful graphics card.

That said, getting barely 30 FPS on our high-end 27-inch iMac is disappointing. After all, I can easily play Rise of the Tomb Raider on it. How can it barely run Civ 6?

The issue is most certainly coming from the fact Civilization 6 does not support Metal and has to run on the aging OpenGL graphics engine. This explains why we’re seeing similar performance compared to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s, a much more graphically intensive game that runs on Metal.

But luckily, Civ 6’s gameplay is much more forgiving (and acceptable at 20-30 FPS) than Mankind Divided’s. More on that below.

Can you play Civilization 6 on a MacBook Pro?

If you have a MBP with dedicated graphics, you should be fine. Our test 15-inch MBP runs the game at a decent 27.75 FPS.

But what if you have a MBP with only integrated graphics? This is where it gets tricky. If we look simply at the results from our 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro, I would seem Civ 6 in unplayable on a 13-inch MBP (13 FPS on average). But Civ 6 benefits from a very particular type of gameplay: turn-based strategy. This means you don’t need super-fast frames to enjoy it.

I played this game for a few hours while on a trip and had a great time. You can have fun playing it on a similar Mac too, but you’ll have to compromise.

Running the game at the same 1280×800 resolution as before, but with settings set to Minimum and Anti-Aliasing off, it ran at an average 22.70 FPS.

While playing the game around turn 137 (with a decent quantity of units on screen) we got 26.3 FPS. Still low, but more than enough to enjoy such a game. This is far from ideal and I would not recommend it to those who need 60 FPS at 4K to enjoy a game, but this is decent enough to play this baby on the road.

But what if you have an older Mac?

Unlike Mankind Divided, you can still launch the game on machines that do not meet the system requirements, such as our 2012 MacBook Pro.

But running at barely 9 FPS on a 2014 Mac Mini and 6 FPS on a 13-inch 2012 MBP, you should stay away from this game unless you meet the system requirements. Macbook photo booth.

You can always test the always popular and slightly less demanding Civilization 5 or the excellent Into the Breach.

PS: These are our favorite accessories for playing/testing games on Mac!

Game	★ Best Mouse	Best Controller	Best eGPU
Game	Why we love it?	The G502 is Logitech's most accurate gaming mouse yet. Plus, it has a plethora of buttons and a killer design.	The official PS4 controller just works on Mac. It's wireless, it's precise, it has an excellent grip and it's durable.	The Razer Core X turns your MacBook or Mac Mini into a killer gaming machine by adding external graphics support.
Mac compatible?	✅	✅	✅
User Reviews	★★★★☆ 326 Amazon reviews	★★★★☆ 9,678 Amazon reviews	★★★★☆ 74 Amazon reviews
Price	From $56	From $39.99	From $299.99
Buy from

Download Civilization 6 for Mac

Civilization 6 is available from most digital stores and prices are stable across the board. You can really get it from your store of choice.

The real question is what version you should get and whether or not you should get the Expansions separately or as part of a bundle or special Edition. In the end, it will depend on how bad you want extra content such as previous Expansions, Packs, new Civs, etc.

Metascore

Civilization 6 is, without a doubt, one of the finest strategy games available, especially for turn-based games fans. Civ 6 looks great, plays great and is easily the best Civ game to date.

$59.99

Civilization 6 Mac Review

Civilization 6 is, without a doubt, one of the finest strategy games available. It looks great, plays great and is easily the best Civ game to date. Too bad the game's performance requirements are so high.. You will need a surprisingly powerful machine to properly run this turn-based game.

Editor's Rating:
4

Disclaimer: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission (this is how we pay the bills). This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

While most Civ fans are busy playing Civilization 6 and its latest expansion, thousands of gamers with older machines continue to enjoy the still popular Civilization 5 on Mac.

Believe it or not, Civilization 5 remains an extremely popular game, almost as popular as the latest Civilization game. In fact, according to Steam Charts, Civ 5 has in average 19,644 concurrent players on Steam compared to the 21,979 on Civ 6.

How can that be possible? How can a game from 2010 be as popular as one of the best strategy games currently available?

In this review:

Civ 6 may have better graphics and a more fine-tuned gameplay, but Civ 5 remains a more affordable choice that happens to run great on older Macs (something that can’t be said about Civ 6). But can your Mac run it?

First things first, is the game any good?

Civilization 5 was a good game from Day 1. But that didn’t prevent Firaxis, the game’s developer, from releasing several expansions that further improved the game, sometimes drastically. Brave New World, the second and final expansion, included new civilizations, new Wonders and new units and buildings to play with.

But more importantly, it vastly improved trade, culture, and diplomacy, making Civ 5 a much better game.

Civilization 5 had great success in front of both its audience and professional reviewers. The game currently holds an outstanding 90 Metascore and 95% Overwhelmingly Positive Steam reviews from over 87,000 users.

I completely agree with Gaming Excellence‘s review:

It’s very hard to describe a Civilization game in great detail without starting to ramble. If you take nothing else from this review, know that Civilization V is more inviting, fun, and engrossing than any lengthy description can truly convey.

On top of that, Brave New World was a game-changer because it solved the one weakness Civ 5 had: a stall end-game. Normally, when you would get to the final stage of a game, all you could do was wait and see if the strategy you chose early on would work.

Without going too much into the details, the introduction of trade routes (which also propagate religion!), all-new tourism-related mechanics, a revamped role of city-states, and more, make Civ 5 infinitely more fun.

A word about Civ 5 on Mac…

It would be unfair not to mention the great job Aspyr did on Civilization 5’s Mac version. Aspyr is one of the two porting companies with the most experience, and it shows. As you’ll see in a moment, Civ 5 has an excellent Mac version that runs smoothly and with virtually no bugs.

On top of that, Aspyr managed to release the game (and both expansions) shortly after their Windows release.

Civilization 5 Mac requirements

As mentioned before, Civ 5 has forgiving performance requirements. Still, make sure your machine meets the official Mac system requirements below:

OS: 10.12 (Sierra)
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 8 GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 2600, NVidia Geforce 8600, Intel HD 4000
Video Memory: 256 MB

The following video chipsets are not supported: ATI Radeon X1000 series, HD 2400, Nvidia GeForce 7000 series, 8600, 9400 and Intel GMA (950/X3100), HD 3000.

Into Strategy games? These are our favorites:

Game	★ Best Overall	Best for MacBook	Best Value
Game	Genre	Turn-based	Turn-based	Real-time
Release date	2016	2018	2015
Metascore
Our rating	★★★★☆ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review	★★★★★ Full Review
Requirements	High	Low	Low
Check Price

The Test: Can you play Civilization 5 on Mac?

Civ 5 is, generally-speaking, a safe bet but can your Mac run it? To give you a proper answer, we did what we do best and tested the game on a couple of machines:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016): 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Graphics 540 (1.5GB)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2013): 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 (1.5GB)

Why these machines?

We always strive to test games on as many machines as possible. And the more different they are the one from one another, the better. That’s how we ensure these Mac Performance Reviews help as many as possible.

In this case, though, we decided to focus on lower-end machines. We know this is a relatively easy game to run, so why bother testing it on a top of the line 27-inch iMac. This time we decided to focus on older models with integrated graphics.

These are the settings we used to run Civilization 5’s internal benchmark :

1280×800 resolution
Quality settings: Medium (except Texture Quality set to High)
Vsync: Off

Using our in-house benchmarking tool, we ran the game on every Mac using the same settings.

The Results: Finally, a Civilization everyone can enjoy!

As was to be expected from an almost 10-year old strategy game, Civ 5 runs great on Mac:

As a reminder, this is how we describe the different levels of performance:

Below 20 FPS: Unplayable: Laggy gameplay, full of stutters and slowdowns.
20-30 FPS: Borderline: Can be OK in slow-paced games. Still, not optimal.
30-45 FPS: Playable: Acceptable for most (most gaming consoles do this).
45-60 FPS: Smooth: Fluid gameplay, with no perceivable stutters.
60+ FPS: Very Smooth: For hardcore and professional players, a luxury for most.

For the sake of clarity, we always aim for at least 30 FPS, which is more than enough for most gamers.

Can my Mac run Civilization 5?

Of all of our Mac Performance Reviews, this is one of the most straightforward. Can your Mac run it? Unless you have a Mac from 2010 or older, you should be fine running Civilization 5 on Mac.

I know some of you may be thinking “duh, turn-based strategy games can even run on a potato”. But just take a look at the newer Civilization 6. Granted, it’s a good looking game, but for a turn-based game, it’s extremely demanding.

And unless you have a brand-new Mac (or one with a dedicated graphics card), you should stay away from it.

You can read all about it in our official Civ 6 Performance Review.

Can you play Civilization 5 on a MacBook Pro?

Both of our test machines were MacBook Pros and both easily ran Civ 5. Even the 2013 model did fine, running the game at a comfortable 62.8 Frames per second. If you have a MacBook from at least 2013, you can be certain you’ll be able to run Civ 5 without a problem.

But what if you have an even older machine? Based on the official system requirements, Civ 5 supports MacBooks with Intel HD 4000 graphics. The only models that featured those graphics were the 2012 models, meaning owners of MacBooks from 2012 should be safe too.

But what if you have an older Mac?

This is where it gets risky. The oldest Mac models that can support Civ 5 are, in theory, those that can run on macOS Sierra (based on the game’s system requirements). And these are the oldest machines that support macOS Sierra:

MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

In any case, we always recommend staying on the safe side and making sure your machine meets the minimum system requirements before buying this game.

PS: These are our favorite accessories for playing/testing games on Mac!

Game	★ Best Mouse	Best Controller	Best eGPU
Game	Why we love it?	The G502 is Logitech's most accurate gaming mouse yet. Plus, it has a plethora of buttons and a killer design.	The official PS4 controller just works on Mac. It's wireless, it's precise, it has an excellent grip and it's durable.	The Razer Core X turns your MacBook or Mac Mini into a killer gaming machine by adding external graphics support.
Mac compatible?	✅	✅	✅
User Reviews	★★★★☆ 326 Amazon reviews	★★★★☆ 9,678 Amazon reviews	★★★★☆ 74 Amazon reviews
Price	From $56	From $39.99	From $299.99
Buy from

Download Civilization 5 for Mac: What version should you get?

Civilization 5 is available from most digital stores and prices are stable across the board. You can really get it from your favorite store.

The real question is what version you should get and whether or not you should get the Expansions separately or as part of a bundle or special Edition. In case it wasn’t clear before, we’re convinced Civ 5 is a much better game thanks to its last expansion, Brave New World and it would be a shame to experience Civ 5 without it.

For that reason, we recommend going for the Complete Edition, which includes the base game and all available expansions.

Taking into account that the base game is $29.99 and every expansion is $29.99 each, the Complete Edition, which is only $39.99, is a steal!

Civilization 5 Mac Review

Civilization 5 may not be the most advanced Civ game available on Mac. That would be Civ 6, which has better graphics and more fine-tuned gameplay. Still, there's a reason Civ 5 has almost as many players as the latest Civ: Civ 5 is much cheaper and far easier to run, even on older MacBooks!

Editor's Rating:
4