I played a bunch of Civ 1, but the newer ones are just too complicated for me. Like, at some point I tried Civ V (with the expansion pack) and there's just so much _stuff_. World Congress? Civics? Great Missionaries? How am I supposed to fit all of this together into a coherent strategy? I ended up mostly doing random stuff with many of the mechanics, which made the thing eventually not much fun, and I don't think I ended up completing a single game.
Give them a try without any of the expansions/DLC, if you want a "simpler"/leaner experience. One of the big complaints you'll see for every new iteration of Civ is how parts from the previous one are missing, which is usually fixed through DLCs later on. So this might be right up your alley (or at least closer to it).
Several years ago I went back and played a game to fully develop the castle, something I never achieved as a child.