Here, I present to you a guest review written by a friend of mine who enjoys PC gaming, Matt Coughlin.
Civilization has been a staple of my life since the very first Civilization in 1991. The latest one is just as addictive as every previous version. Civilization V is the latest installment in the hallmark franchise of Civilization for the PC.
The Civilization series uses a simple formula of creating a civilization and watching it progress through history. Each iteration brought with it new changes over the previous one and dropped previous features that didn’t work out quite right. This one is no different, but more on that later.
Civilization is one of the few games that can go without a story and get away with it. In a more abstract way, there is a story regarding you and your people and their struggle to power throughout all of history. As with all previous versions, you pick a nation lead your people to glory in one of five ways: Conquest, Diplomatic, Scientific, Cultural and ending with the highest score.
One of the first things you’ll notice is the hexagonal tiles instead of the square ones that have dominated the series. These make combat far more strategic and give the landscape more realistic features (no more 90 degree rivers).
Speaking of combat, you no longer have the dreaded “Stack of Doom” to contend with anymore. Only one military unit may occupy a tile at any time (though workers and settlers may end a turn on an occupied tile and other units may pass through a tile if they have enough movement points), which makes it all the more strategic in terms of attacking or defending a unit or city. Laying siege to a city now requires skill and planning since the cities will fight back with their own defenses. Terrain also plays a large part too, as a mountain may bottleneck your units and prevent ranged units from firing over them. Ranged units no longer attack directly but use ranged attacks.
Diplomacy has changed dramatically as well in this new version. Among the highlights, you only have one leader per civilization to choose from, and most of their policies and relations towards you have remained the same (yes, Montezuma is still a warmongering jackass). One nice touch they added was to have the leaders all talk in their native language (My high school Latin teacher would be so proud until he realizes that Julius Caesar just called him a “wine-swilling Pompeian whore”). Other Civs are far more aggressive and isolationist this time around (no more bugging you relentlessly for open borders), and you are almost guaranteed a war if you so much as have a settler look in the direction of land by their borders.
Sadly, and this put a massive damper on my war financing late-game, you cannot sell technologies anymore. You can however, enter into a “Research Agreement” where, for 250 gold each, both civs will secretly work towards a technology together for x number of turns. At the end of it, you’re given a free tech of your choosing. If you have the cash, its a great way to get ahead or stay ahead of your rivals.
One nice thing you’ll notice as well is that you now encounter City-States that can either give you food, culture points or military units. The City-States also act as a vote in the UN Secretary General elections. Keeping yourself on their good side is a bit of an annoyance because they constantly ask for money.
Culture has changed drastically this time around as well. Your city’s borders will expand when they fill out the culture requirements, but its not a uniform expansion like in previous games, you expand only a certain number of tiles (highlighted by purple rings in the city viewer) every expansion. In case you can’t wait that long to expand your borders, you are allowed to have a city buy certain tiles for a price. Culture points, which are gathered by buildings in your cities (and the rate lowers by having many cities), can be spent on a new feature of Policies. Basically its the civics from Civ IV but simplified and there are more of them. You have ten separate policy trees, each of which can be filled out at any time when you spend culture points. When you fill out five separate trees completely, you can build the “Utopian Project” and get yourself a cultural victory.
Some final changes are resources, strategic resources (those required to build units/buildings) are a finite supply and can only be used for one project per resource at a time. This means that you can now invade America for it’s oil in the most ironic war imaginable. The UI has also been revamped in a way similar to the console versions of Civ IV. The game is more streamlined and easier to get into, especially for new players, but feels like it lacks the depth of the previous game.
Civ V is also the best looking game in the series, which means that it does require some decently mid-range hardware to get the game running smoothly.
The game is also a Steam-exclusive which means that even if you buy a physical copy, you will still need Steam to play it.
The only real complaints I have on the game is that I miss religion and had hoped they flushed it out a bit more. Combat is also a much greater focus of the game than before, as your rivals are incredibly aggressive (even on easy settings). The difficulty levels seem to be much more forgiving than in previous settings. You may have to play one or two levels higher than what you’re used to.
Civilization V is an exceptional game. It doesn’t surpass the bar that Civ IV raised, but it does an excellent job getting there. The game strives for perfection and does come up just a wee bit short in some areas but those should be fixed after the first inevitable expansion. Civ V is a wonderful addition to one of the greatest franchises in PC gaming. If you’re new to the series or a hardened “One more turn…” veteran, Civ V is a must have to any strategy gamer.
