Unciv

Unciv is a free, open source remake of Civilization V, the popular turn-based strategy game where you build an empire across history. The original Civ V is a commercial game from Firaxis that costs money and runs only on capable PCs. Unciv recreates the same style of gameplay, where you settle cities, research technologies, build units, and compete or cooperate with other civilizations, but runs on Android phones and tablets as well as Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops.

The project is deliberately lightweight. The author is upfront that it lacks the high-resolution artwork, music, and animations of the original game. What it trades away in polish it gains in speed, small file size, and the ability to run on older or lower-powered hardware. The phrase used in the description is that it can still run on a potato. This makes it accessible on devices that would never manage the original Civ V.

One of its strongest selling points is moddability. The game is built so that community members can create and share modifications, adding new civilizations, units, maps, or rule changes without needing to touch the underlying code. There is also an active translation effort, and the project tracks how complete each supported language is.

You can install it through Google Play, F-Droid (an alternative Android app store), Flathub on Linux, standard package managers like Homebrew on Mac or Chocolatey and Scoop on Windows, or directly from the releases page. The project releases updates frequently.

The scope is intentionally bounded: the goal is to reproduce Civ V faithfully, not to invent new features beyond what the original contained. Anyone can suggest ideas, but the clear-cut rule for what gets built is whether Civ V had it. That focus keeps the volunteer-driven project moving forward without scope creep.