Civilization V Review - NowGamer

NowGamer reviews the fifth entry into the Civilization series - "There are few series that have such a devoted following that, irrelevant of what any review might state, will rush out to buy a copy regardless. Civilization is one such series. Beyond this, few other names have become so synonymous with top-quality strategy as Sid Meier – interestingly one of few developers who still put their name on the titles of their games."

[Raf1k1]

Awsome, looking forward to playing this.

[ryuzu]

Been playing it for the last few days and my advice is beware! Civ5 is a good game but, in comparison to Civ4 it is very different and gives the impression that it is a simpler game a'la Civ Rev.

There's a lot of whining on CivFanatics about the missing stuff. Personally I think it's just different - not necessarily easier but definitely not Civ4 upgraded. So if you loved Civ4 you'll probably dislike this a lot if you're expecting Civ4+.

Now, to march on Paris!!

r.

[ColdFire]

It's deceivingly complicated. Having played it, I think it seems simpler at first, but as you learn how all the subsystems interact, it's really much more interesting.

[Feckles]

Justification for getting a new PC? Maybe.

[ryuzu]

Doesn't seem that heavy weight a game really - I'm running on an AMD PhenomII (Black) quad core and GTX285 and it's fine but it doesn't look to me like anything that a Civ4 machine shouldn't be able to run. Probably just not well optimised as usual these days :/

r.

[OSU_Gamer]

thats a pretty nice machine though...lol

[swat]

can i use my Demo save in the full game?

[ElementX]

I heard this game is resource heavy once you get further along. I read somewhere that some guy with a quad was experiencing a lot of delay once you hit move 200 or something with multiple enemies.

[Seferoth75]

Game has always been like that since Civ1.

It starts out going good but as more land is exposed more troops are made and sent out by 9 players, the game begins to slow.

[OSU_Gamer]

I honestly could never get into these games

I tried, but somehow I was never very good

[callahan09]

So unbelievably addictive. I go to school full-time taking 18 credits. I'm a Computer Science major, Math minor, and I'm in my final semester (early graduation in December). One of my math classes alone is occupying between 5 and 15 hours per class (and we meet twice a week) for these really difficult and long research projects that we're assigned for homework every single class. On top of all that, I'm also working full-time in the evenings. So the gist of it is that I haven't been playing many games since the semester started because I just don't have the time unless I want to sacrifice sleep. Well, I just got Civ V on Tuesday, and I've already somehow managed to fit 8 hours of play time in. Sleep? Consider yourself sacrificed.

[Triggs]

I've been playing this since tuesday, so far it's still addicting as it's a Civilization game. However lots of things have changed - like we don't have any more control over specialists, research, and tax rates. The only way to provide more science, happiness, gold is by improving tiles and building more structures. The tech tree seems all too linear, but the way it's presented makes it easier to plan ahead. The 1 unit per tile is better in my opinion - and I love it when the other civilizations tell me that my military is massed at the border (threatened) and I have an option to say "I'm just passing" - you can't do this in the earlier Civ games. My favorite way to piss them off is deploying the culture bomb to take a bite of some of their territory. City states can be too numerous, though, but can be useful allies depending on your style of play. "Choose your friends" come to mind here.

I still have not scratched the surface of this game, so I will keep playing until I will get a better understanding of what's changed. Still, if I want Civ 4 experience I can just go and run Civ 4, or Civ 3. But for a new different Civ experience, i think Civ 5 has its own charm.

[TimmyShire]

I agree to everything you've said there.

As for tax rates, I hadn't thought of that change but because of how important gold is now in purchasing extra tiles, I think it would be too easy to spam loads of gold with it.

As for control over specialists, do you mean research and that? You can alter it still with certain buildings (I remember Library being one that lets to add or take away scientists).

[Triggs]

Oh yes I haven't thought about that in that way (spamming gold on land purchases). Good point. Buying plots of land farther from the city costs much more expensive though.

Now I just realized why I was bleeding cash - I still played the Civ1-4 way of building roads on every tile. Roads now cost 1 gold per turn now actually (I gotta print out the manual instead of reading the PDF file on screen. LOL. Probably my next game I can manage the economy way better.

What I meant about specialists is I cannot seem (or don't know yet how to) assign citizens to work on which tile (or are they chosed for us by the game???). In earlier Civs it was easy to allocate how many citizens can be Elvises, Whitecoats, or Taxmen by clicking on their icons (not so in Civ4). So maybe like what you said it all depends on what buildings or wonders to build first that will determine the speed of research or income.

Okay now I can't wait to try out new strategies tonight. Thanks!!!

[TimmyShire]

Oh yeah, you can alter who works what land. There are two ways.

If you click the top right menu in the city screen (Citizen Management or something like that) you can select a type of process you want (concentrate on food/production/science etc.) and the game will choose the best option for you.

Or: you can deselect a tile (the icon with a green citizen) and select the tile that you want them to work. This will also lock it, so any changes the computer makes for you won't change your decisions (this is the method I prefer).