Reviews - Sid Meier's Civilization V - PC

[HEXUS]

Latest entry in the award-winning franchise arrives with a wealth of enhancements and new features ready to conquer your PC.

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[danroyle]

1 question from me though. is it really worth buying if you already have civ 4 and all its expansions from a previous steam sale.

[Shev]

It's got a different feel to it, I've really enjoyed it so far.

A word of warning though, it may be worth waiting for some big patches as the game has a large numbers of bugs in it's current form and the AI is currently horrible at using the game's units and diplomacy tools.

[neonplanet40]

Will there be a more in depth review of this game? Possibly by the hexus crew after playing it for a few weeks so they can comment on all the bugs and the slowness of multi player etc?

[FoxdieUK]

Just to add my comments to the mix. As a heavy single player Civ4 fan. I purchased Civ5 on Friday and gave it a whole lot of hammering over the weekend (much to my gf's dismay). First the hex grid actually reduces you movment options, with the square 8 possibilities are available, with the hex only 6 are available. The lack of stacking causes alot issues with congestion on map bottle necks (for instance egypts/israel border is just one tile wide so as civ's fought across continents they were just queing to get by). The free states add another dimension each contribution something different. However, the militristic ones give you units every so many turns which remove the need to really build your own and work out cheaper. the lack of summary tax/luxury control is annoying as you have to control each city individually. The ability to annex, raise, or pupet a captured city is good. Especially puppet when you want the benifits of its resources and incomes, but without having to control it directly, which is ideal when capturing cities in parts of the world ou are not interested in, however you can choose to annex or raise it at a later date. Religion is gone, which is only a good thing, and they've summarised the social policies and now you can choose multiple perks from different policies to best suit your civ, policies are purchased using culture points which is earned by your cities, or from allying a free "culture specilised" city, or finding ruins. The ability to purchase tiles is not to be understimated, its real game changer and a great addition.
The game runs badly on my 3ghz c2d, 4850, 4gb rig. With processing end turn towards the later half of the game taking almost 4-5mins. Although i was a little optimistic with the graphics, world and number of civs playing at the same time (all set to max).
Overall i do like it, its different from Civ4 and while not as deep as 4, it does have its own qualities which i do enjoy, i imagine in time i will end up switching back to Civ4, however in the mean time im happy to play this for the forseeable future. 87%

[Gerrard]

It's got a different feel to it, I've really enjoyed it so far.

A word of warning though, it may be worth waiting for some big patches as the game has a large numbers of bugs in it's current form and the AI is currently horrible at using the game's units and diplomacy tools.

I came across a major one this weekend with save-games files. It seems if you constantly reload and save whilst in game (for new "seeds"), then they esculate pretty quickly until it takes minutes to load or save a game (assuming it doesn't get corrupted). I've found some minor graphic bugs as well (no cities showing on the map, but are still there; or tiles displaying incorrectly).

I've always found the AI to be a bit predictable in Civ games, but do agree that it could do with a tweak.

[Shev]

It's more the silly things, like the AI continually offering me all their cities bar one to make peace, or a lone city civ attacking my vast empire even while I'm at war with their enemy. Or charging artillery units into close range with the melee units behind.

[Gerrard]

Yes, the diplomacy is a bit odd at times. For example, depsite being vastly bigger and stronger, they make demands. They aren't completely stupid though. In my current game, Germany was attacking one of my ally city-states, so I gave it a couple of my strongest units, and they turned and ran!

[chuckskull]

Pretty sure the "take all my cities, just let me live" bug has been fixed. It was in the patch notes anyway. Not conquered anyone since then, having a 2nd go at deity after getting horribly curb stomped the first time. This ones going a lot better, thanks to having a continent to myself, almost no aluminium or uranium though. So no more Mr Nice Gandhi soon. Well maybe just one more citadel first

The AI seems hit and miss. Sometimes it's rather dumb, but on the harder levels it's gotten a couple of "oh you sneaky little " out of me.

I was a little irritated by the lack of unit stacking at first, but having played some more it works as a nice balancer and adds a bit more strategy to fighting rather than biggest stack wins.

Having had a weekend with it I'd say it's a great addition to the series, biggest criticism would probably be it falling victim to the 'we can always patch it later' mentality, another great game that wont be properly playable until a month or two after release

[Shev]

The "take all my cities" thing is still there, I was the beneficiary of it again yesterday. Just about to start my fourth playthrough though, so that should indicate how much I'm enjoying it even with the faults.