1.
Civ2 still the Best !

I'v tried playing all the four (4) Civs, and by far, my verdict is that
Civ2 is still the BEST in
simplicity, playability, concept and configuration adaptability.

Of course, there is still room for improvement.
That's why here's hoping that there could be a total re-make by Sid Meir or other equally talented gamers, or at least that patches and mods will continue to be constructed, none of which had been published since 2008.

Civ3 was an abandonment of the original concept.
Civ4 was too complicated with culture, religion and the like.
Civ5 does not look promising, because the innovations so far known seem to still make the game too complicated. Furthermore, it does away with spies, which is integral to the game concept. It disallows stacking, so the game area would have to be large and unwieldy. There may be other issues that will surface after this September official release. We'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, this is a call for a renewal of interest in Civ2 and for a more vigorous effort to re-examine it, like improving the AI, giving the players more options to tweak or change the parameters of the configuration, making it a truly universal PC game that could stand the test of time, like chess which has flourished these past 500 years, because it is simple to learn and play but takes a lifetime to master !