I would definitely recommend Civ 4 over Civ 5, especially if you have Beyond the Sword. It seemed to limited, but it could have just been because I was younger when I played it. Colonization was almost a game of its own, and I didn't really enjoy it. Warlords basically expands on the original Civ 4, and Beyond the Sword is basically and expansion of Warlords. Which expansions? As far as I know, there are three: Warlords, Beyond the Sword, and Colonization. It made it harder to amass a ridiculously large army to massacre one city. I don't remember if they could stack in cities, but I'm almost certain they couldn't on regular tiles. One major disadvantage I found was not being able to stack units. The hex tiles were supposed to increase strategy, but I didn't notice much. I didn't get nearly as much enjoyment out of it compared to Civ 4. I got Civ 5 a couple months after it came out, but I only ever played it for a few hours. I played Civ 4 a lot when I was a kid, and recently my friends and I were playing it again.
