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In a sea of tepid first-person shooting sequels Civilization V shines so brightly you won't realise it's already midnight.
Ups: Changed but for the better. Still addictive as ever. The modifications made to hex structure and unit stacking are an improvement.
Downs: Can bog down on large maps. No Nimoy narration. The AI still suffers from a minor lapse in judgement on occasion.
I dont know why the news hasnt been plastered over the front page of papers and websites all over the world. Sid Meier has built a time machine!
Granted it only works one way propelling the user forward many hours into the future with virtually no control over how much of your life will be stolen but you have to admit thats still an amazing achievement.
Lets get the obvious out of the way. Civilization V still has that addictive magic; that ability to consume you until you are absorbed fully within your newly discovered world. The strategic planning the carefully followed research arc the French. All still there. The mantra of just one more turn will still be uttered by the most devout Civ fans.
That magic is hard to define. Or put down to one thing. All I know is no other game has led me to spend hours patiently waiting girard perregaux ww.tc watch
building plotting purely to have my revenge on a neighbouring civilization that 200 turns ago stole one of my cities. If you take my capital with a spearman Ill remember. And I will have my revenge my sweet searing atomic revenge.
Luckily the game isn't merely Civilization IV presented in high definition. The graphics are updated with a clean art deco feel but they're not just for aesthetics. With the graphics update comes information and presentation tweaks. Taking the lessons learnt from Civilization Revolution on the consoles the user interface has been redesigned to be efficient with incoming information. You can see what you need to see when you want to see it and also easily file information away when you're done with it.
This new approach comes across as more user friendly and intuitive. Long-time Civilization fans will find it takes a bit of getting used to but will almost certainly come around after spending a few hours with it. As some of the info doesnt appear on the surface its easy to assume its been forgotten but dont let the GUI fool you into thinking the game has been simplified. With a few rounds under your belt youll see the logic behind the changes.
Even the leaders of each culture have had a makeover. They'll speak their native tongues and make faces to show their delight or disgust at you. Theyll even turn up every now and then just to say something mean about your progress. It's important to note at this stage that actions speak louder than words and catapults are relatively cheap.
Another benefit to the graphics update is the terrain. Now split into hexes which Ill touch on in a minute the game map now sports a high detail texture system that allows the player to see on the screen exactly how the land lies and what resources are to be found. Civilization IVs strategic zoom is gone however replaced by a mini-map system. I personally found this a bit of a backwards step but its no game breaker. Animations are crisp more detailed and enjoyable to watch.
However the wonders and discoveries are now only announced via a pop-up box or a still image depicting the wonder you had just built. Again no game breaker but I do feel that the animations of the predecessors gave a better sense of grandeur. Leonard Nimoy whos got the sort of voice that could convince me to take up smoking is also gone. Hes replaced by Morgan Sheppard who despite being a voice actor for many games movies and films is just not as good. If you ask the internet Morgan Freeman would have been the best replacement. After all hes already played god several times.
Graphics are of course the obvious change and the easiest to accept. Coming to terms with Civilization Vs new found hexuality was a little difficult at first. Gone are the squares and the slightly quirky movement they invoked. With a six-sided system movement is slightly more fluid. What really changes though is the way you move your combat units in to attack cities. Combining these hexes with a one unit per tile system constitutes the biggest change in the game.
No longer able to put twenty tanks on one tile and simply tankenstein my way across the map I was initially bereft of strategic cunning. Once used to it however I saw the light. In order to accommodate tile unit limits and hexes I learned that diversity in units and strategy paid dividends. Ranged units are especially useful damaging melee opponents long before they can reach your front line. Carefully choosing an army that has range and melee strengths is essential but equally so is how you choose to place them. Attacking a city on a peninsula is far more realistic as you realise the single tile is fast becoming a bottleneck. Your infantry units are taking heavy bombardment from the city while your artillery cant get within range because your front line has to attack single-file.
Oh yes cities can bombard now. Rather than having to stack units into your cities you fight out in the open with your city able to perform ranged attacks on enemy units. Weak at first but with the right upgrades such as castles and walls cities can fend off a unit or two before succumbing.
Another significant new addition can be found with the City States; single city civilizations that occupy parts of the world. They play a role in diplomacy and your path to victory. Favour with City States is won through providing them with resources they request defending them from attackers or simply buying their friendship. As your friend or ally a City State will supply you with culture or units or access to resources. Become good friends with a militaristic city state and it will supply you with a military unit every twenty turns.
Speaking of culture this has been changed and combined with the governance system to create a Social Policy' system. Accumulate enough points and you can unlock a Social Policy. Unlock five in a specific subset and you get points towards the Utopia project. Build this before the end of time and you win a cultural victory. Social Policies allow you to have a broader government system providing opportunity to focus on one victory type whole heartedly or a combination such as growth and culture leaving your options open.
Multiplayer is as good as always but makes the one more turn mantra even worse. Be prepared to put a weekend aside entirely. A few tweaks to the options here and a slightly unusual almost real time turn system can make for a few interesting moments.
Youd be forgiven for thinking a turn based mostly 2D strategy game would run on modest hardware. Sure it can on the lowliest of settings on the small maps your old laptop will cope well. I just suggest you dont turn everything up to maximum and add 20 city states and at least 10 civilizations on a large map.
As a firm believer that you cant review a grand strategy title unless you go grand yourself I chose the largest map and the biggest game size. The system I reviewed this game on is an eight-core 4ghz Intel rig with 6GB of RAM and a GTX 470 video card. And yet near end game chronoswiss regulateur replica watches
the last hundred turns or so invicta watch
I was having to wait from 45 seconds to three minutes between turns as the game plotted all the AI moves. Some will relish the time to allow them to consider what to do next. But for every ten turns you could spend half an hour waiting. Perhaps Im just spoiled by how well Civilization IV runs these days. As an aside oddly I find that Civilization V hasnt made Civilization IV feel old just different.
As a Steam game which you will love or hate you can at least be assured the updates will arrive as soon as possible. Firaxis have a fairly good record with updating and tweaking the Civilization franchise over time so I have confidence that performance and the odd user interface glitch I experienced will be ironed out fairly quickly. Its easy to look past a few early release quirks and the slightly bizarre pricing of the game depending on how you buy it when you consider the overall package.
The hardest thing about making a Civilization game is that it is ostensibly set in the past. Over five iterations of the game have been made all starting at the dawn of your civilization and following humanity's triumphs through to the present day. Five or so years since the last game not a lot of history has happened of huge historical importance. I was worried that there would be a case of building the same old buildings with the same old leaders to reach the same conclusions.
While this is true to an extent the way it is presented and the cultures and wonders chosen are just the right mix of familiar and new to keep things interesting. I am glad they chose not to go too far into the future and get carried away with sci-fi units; with any luck Firaxis are saving that for Alpha Centauri 2.
Familiar yet still refreshing Civilization V is one of the best PC gaming experiences you can get. Just remember that it's likely to obliterate your social life your relationships and your work ethic. But then youll look up realise its suddenly Tuesday and you have a sweet beard. Silver lining!
By Nik Hardy for Gameplanet
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