Building comparison
head to head
BanishedvsSid Meier's Civilization II
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Banished
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Harsh village-builder; balance population, food, and winter.
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Optimization · Pure Optimization
The 1996 landmark 4X where you guide a civilization from antiquity to the space race.
Banished leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Sid Meier's Civilization II leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
BanishedSid Meier's Civilization II
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 0
Banished leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Banished
no mechanical layer
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Turn-based clicking only
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Banished
no opponent
Sid Meier's Civilization II
AI civs are exploitable scripts, not adaptive rivals
Variance3 vs 4
Sid Meier's Civilization II leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Banished
weather, disease events
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Random maps and hut rolls inject early uncertainty
Optimization9 vs 9
Same score on optimization - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Banished
population ratios and food planning
Sid Meier's Civilization II
City spacing, trade routes and tech paths are deeply solvable
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.