This Aspyr port runs on Intel Macs and has been tested on Apple Silicon via Rosetta.
City — the center of activity. Found them, capture them, or lose them to cultural growth.
Conquest — a taken city is yours to annex, leave as a self-governing puppet, burn down slowly or hand back to its old owner.
Unit stacking — a city holds one combat unit, one non-combat, one ship, and up to ten planes.
Territory — expands only through a city's cultural output.
Fit
Civilization V plays well with macOS Spaces. Assign it to its own desktop. Swipe left to check a battle plan, swipe right for mail or a browser. No visual clutter.
Notifications from other apps will pause your turn timer in multiplayer. Keep Notification Center clean. Turn on Do Not Disturb for the desktop where the game lives. A single system preference, set once.
The game folder sits in ~/Documents/Aspyr/Sid Meier's Civilization 5. Saved games, screenshots, and mods all live there. Back it up with your usual tool. Time Machine catches it by default.
Dictation works poorly with unit names. Siri can launch the app.
Option-click mass select
Right-click a tile to queue a worker's next action. The order sticks even if you move the camera away.
Hold Option while clicking a unit portrait to select all units of that type on the current screen. Works for workers, ships, planes.
During city bombardment, click the city name — not the tile — to avoid accidentally moving the garrison.
The diplomacy screen has a hidden clock. Press Esc once to see how long you have been playing. Press it twice to save and quit.
A puppet city pays taxes to your capital. It also grants access to its territory and resources. You cannot choose its production, but it will not increase your policy cost. Keeping a border city as a puppet for twenty turns before annexing it is often the quiet, correct move.
Montezuma's war
You launch the game from Launchpad. The Aspyr logo flashes. The main menu appears in English, though the build includes Russian, German, and French.
You load a saved game. Montezuma declared war last session. Your northern city has a composite bowman garrisoned and walls under construction. Three turns until completion.
You check the city screen. A nearby hill tile is available for 60 gold. You buy it. The extra production shaves one turn off the walls.
An Aztec jaguar moves into range. The city bombards it automatically. Red health bar. Your bowman finishes it. One less problem.
You switch to the diplomacy overview. Ask a city-state ally for a unit. They send a pikeman. You move it toward the front, one tile per turn. Slow. Deliberate.
A great scientist appears in the capital. You use her to bulb Navigation. Frigates will change the naval picture. You queue one in the coastal city, then three more. The queue sits quiet, waiting.
You save. Press Esc. The clock reads 94 minutes. You quit. Tomorrow you will liberate a conquered city-state and return a civilization to the game. The option is there, in the capture dialog.
Multiplayer — the whole game, with other people.
