Never played 1, it was before my gaming days, grew up with 2, 3 and 4. The way i saw it, 4 was a collection everything good that was in the previous great games, in glorious 3D of the time. Probably have hundreds of sessions and thousands of hours across the three.

To me 5 feels like a watered down casual play reboot / spinoff of Civ. Yeah, it looks great, and i was happy to see a new title after so long. but i liked my stacks of doom and culture bombing, and it was just to many changes to see it as the next civ game.
I just realized that i only played 5 with part of the DLCs, and never even played 6 as i only got it yesterday (watched gameplay mostly), so i should give it a try, and maybe inadvertently, you've changed my mind.

If you're ever interested in giving 4 a try again, try it with these mods, they make the game a lot better and modernized somewhat:

Advanced Civ
Better AI, Modified game mechanics. Developed over many years, still in progress, and comes complete with an owners' manual.

Final Frontier Plus
Improved version of FF total conversion mod that came with the original.

Good Luck!

Can't argue about playing with friends, but i never saw it as a PVP game.
"play when i am bored and don't have energy for anything serious" - that's really my issue with the newer games, too casual for me, doesn't really feel like Civ. More like a reboot

Congrats and Enjoy!