Civilisation V

So, who’s got this then? I’ve only really had a chance on Sunday to sit down for a proper session, and it lasted 5-8 hours, so I must be enjoying it 🙂 There’s something missing from the game compared to Civ 4 though, and I’m not entirely convinced by the AI so far, which is the first time I’ve ever said that about Civ (although I’ve not ventured beyond Prince difficulty yet), but overall I think this is a good game. The changes they’ve made to the economic system are good, and an improvement over previous versions, and the changes to the Military side of the game are brilliant, with this being by far the most strategic version of Civ to date.

I’m itching to try it on multiplayer soon, as I’ve a feeling it’ll be quite absorbing, so if anyone wants to join me (coop or aggressive) give me a shout.

Oh and my concerns over the AI were alieviated slightly by last night’s game, as previously it didn’t appear to be fighting very effectively. I still have a question mark over some decisions it makes, but it’s not as bad as I’d first feared.

tbh, I’d hold off getting it if you’ve not done so already. I’m itching to have a game with someone, but there’s something missing in the game which i can’t quite put my finger on, and I don’t want anyone to be disappointed with their purchase.

There are also definitely faults in the game, but I’m not sure yet how many are flaws in the design, or simply flaws in transfering my Civ 4 gameplay to the newer version. I’m enjoying it atm, which is the main thing, but give me more time to look at it before taking that as a recommendation.

The way I’m feeling about this atm, is that it’s been rushed out to meet a deadline, without fully testing some aspects of the gameplay, and that it’ll require some patching, or mods to iron out the problems. I can’t say for sure yet though, as it’s quite a bit different from Civ 4.

Fair fan review here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=384645

After reading that article from Civ Fanatics I played a much more successful game over the weekend, and finally have a win under my belt, albeit on Prince difficulty. Having said that, I’ve rarely ventured beyond Prince in earlier versions of Civ, and I don’t think I’m going to any time soon in this one either because I’m still finding some aspects of the economy tricky to manage.

The biggest problem I’m having is with production, which I understand is lower in this version of Civ, but it’s at a frustrating level. Juggling production issues with Happiness and a random problem with gold, I was able to raise an army consisting of only around 10 units, with which I had to conquer the North American Civ on the Earth map. This took ages to raise, and cost a lot of gold, which is really quite frustrating when your empire consists of Africa, Europe, and all of Asia. The only positive spin I can put on this atm is that it means losing units hurts a lot more than in previous versions, but really I expect to be able to support a much larger army, and construct it in less than a couple of centuries, when I occupy more than half the landmass of the planet. As it happened the 10 units were more than enough for me to win this fight, as the NA civ were miles behind me in technology, but when you can’t be bothered to string out a game of Civ in order to nuke the fuck out of someone, then there’s clearly something wrong.

There are a few other frustrations I’m having with the game, and these are preventing me from recommending it to anyone here basically, even though I want to promote civ a bit. Yet, having said that, I’m still glad I got it, and I enjoyed the game over the weekend – so go figure 😕 . I’d be interested to hear whether anyone else has taken the plunge yet and tried this, but atm I’m sitting on the fence with my overall verdict, at least until I see what direction they take with the first couple of patches.