Civilization V

I built the Pyramids with the Egyptians. I built The Louvre as the French. I defeated the Germans while playing the British faction and mastering the seas. I dominated the world from the Kremlin as Russia, with Siberia as my playground and industrial base. I fought something akin to World War II, playing as the Americans and facing off against Gandhi and the Iroquois, who had gone on the warpath.

I lost more games that I can count before I got to the Medieval period because I was too far behind the leader and wanted to try out a new setup. I also quit while being ahead because I though the computer needed to put up more of a challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed upwards of 80 percent of the turns I've experienced in the game.

Civilization V is a very different beast from the previous titles in the turn based strategy game franchise, introducing new mechanics that change how the game plays out and tweaking existing ones to make a more focused experience which actively encourages the player to choose a path to victory from those on offer and then shape his choices from then on to suit his path. I mostly succeeds in differentiating itself from the previous titles in the series but also has a few rough spots, thankfully with the potential for improvement.

Story We all know the story of Civilization: player meets civilization, players falls in love with its possibilities and leads it to greatness, managing to create a spaceship that can reach, presumably, Alpha Centauri, or managing to take over all the enemies on the map (there are also other types of victories but harder to achieve than these two ones). It's alternate history handled via abstractions and a sandbox environment that has no actual tory, save maybe for the signposts of technological development.

Build order

Fresh start

Still it manages to create narrative that can be read like history but is actually coming out from the complex interactions between player decisions and reactions combined with the initiatives and schemes of the computer controlled nations or other humans.

The beauty of Civilization V is that the experience is more focused and more suited to story telling. Even an expansive player will have fewer cities than in the previous games and will know them and their capabilities better. There are also smaller number of units and the fact that they cannot share a tile means that their individually is better represented in the game.

Gameplay Civilization V is the first video game in this series where land domination is not a measure of actual success. It's much more important to control luxury resources, strategic resources and be on top of the happiness game. I would venture as far as to say that a tech advantage is easier to overcome or to ignore than being behind in the happiness race.

The basics are the same as in other Civilization titles: settlers are needed for expansion, workers create tile improvements and help cities to specialize, military units are needed to take over enemy cities and defend the player's own, research leads to new buildings and new Wonders that confer powerful bonuses when built.

The big changes that were talked about before the launch of the game were hexes replacing squares and the fact that only one military unit can occupy a game tile. Their effect is to make the tactical game more interesting, allowing for last stands in passes and battle line tactics, but the biggest changes in Civilization V are the ones made to the before mentioned happiness and to how building and researching is paced.

In Civilization V happiness is not linked to individual cities but calculated for the entire nation, influenced positively by wonders, structures and, crucial in the early game, luxury resources, and negatively by increases in population, number of cities and conquests. This means that players can no longer created shining beacons of culture and research while delegating heavy industrial production to a backyard slum city. It also means that expansion is much more complex than in previous titles and that fear of getting into negative happiness putting an effective cap on the mushroom model of early expansion that was prevalent for some players in Civilization IV.

Later on in the game happiness is crucial when conducting war and conquering enemy cities. Taking over cities can really wreck a well running empire, which means that liberating and creating puppets are very attractive options to the gamer.

Buildings also seem to take longer in relation to Wonders and units in Civilization V, meaning that it's pretty hard to make sure that happiness stays up by putting up Colosseums and the like. It also results in a longer thinking period before choosing what building to put up because committing to one can determine strategy for quite a number of turns, especially when coupled with the fact that buildings can no longer be hurried by spending money.

Costlier buildings can also make Wonders more attractive and Firaxis balanced them by limiting their impact and specializing them, meaning that there are culture related ones that military players will never be interested in and the other way around.

Continent wide

Onwards to victory

The entire game seems more focused on smaller numbers of cities and units and forces the player to make choices early that will then determine the way long sections of the game play out. It's more intimate than Civilization IV and more engaging in the early ages, although at times it seems like there's little to do when you reach the modern era, except for waging war.

One major weakness of Civilization V is the diplomatic system. The problem is that, despite the beautiful animations and focus on cooperation and secret pacts, there's little to no information about the exact way other civilization feel toward the player. Declarations of war at times come with no clear reason as do certain peace settlements.

The City States, neutral entities that can grant bonuses when relations are good or can be conquered for their good locations, are a nice addition but the interaction with them also lacks depth and the missions they ask to be completed in exchange for favor are very limited.

Another critique is that the Artificial Intelligence in Civilization V is pretty limited in the way it plays the game. Strategically I seems to over expand early on and then fails to get the strategic resources that arrive in the middle and the late game. Tactically it fails to bring adequate forces to the game and only manages to take over cities with the strength of numbers. The problems might be caused by the shift to one military unit per hex and the ranged attacks mechanics and I truly hope that the team at Firaxis has the resources to fix the A.I. in the coming weeks and months.

Graphics and audio

Civilization V is one of the best looking turn based strategy video games on the market and sports one of the best user interfaces of the series. The cities and the terrain are well detailed and colorful, beautiful to look at even during long term games and for those moments when the computer seems unable to cope with it all a simplified look is also available.

Dealing with minors

Invasion

One of the biggest revolutions in Civilization V is how easy to use and heavy yet accessible in terms of information the user interface is. Sure, there are some pieces of in game info that are missing, like how various other civilizations think about you with offenses and endearing acts clearly listed, but overall players can quickly see a breakdown of everything as long as they hover their mouse buttons over numbers and words. It's a shame that some of the stuff that would be most helpful is not displayed.

The soundtrack is also very appropriate, offering a sense of grandeur to the player and allowing him to sit back and look at his empire in the later stages as it would do in a historical epic. Unfortunately there's no video game hit here like Baba Yetu from Civilization V. It's also very nice to hear enemy leaders speak their native language during diplomatic interactions, although all that talk can be grating in a long game.

Multiplayer

In theory Civilization V is a perfect game for multiplayer. Human are much smarter than the Artificial Intelligence, the civs themselves are varied and capable and the diplomacy is infinitely more interesting with breathing players who know about betrayal and backstabbing.

The problem is that, I don't know if because of Steamworks or of Gamespy, multiplayer slows down immensely after a few dozens of turns. The start is pretty good and lag does not seem to be a problem but after a while four players bring the multiplayer side of Civilization V to a halt, with turns taking forever and frequent crashes.

It's also upsetting to see that Civilization V does not allow for a play by e-mail options, which would perfectly suit the older, longer term gamers that the franchise probably attracts in droves. It would also have masked, if not eliminated, the problem of lag and crashed and would have extended its overall appeal.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion