Civilization 5 Review

Summary
Civilazation 5 is good. Really, really good. So good in fact, you could keep playing it for the next several years and have a different experience pretty much every time. As far as turn based strategy goes, this is the epitome.

There are some downsides, the biggest of which is also one of the games greatest strengths: the sheer magnitude. This game is huge. Even a "quick paced" game will take you several hours to complete. Because of that it lacks the instant replayability of popular online games like Starcraft 2 or the Modern Warfare series, but to be fair that is like comparing apples to oranges. Fortunately the game boasts over a hundred achievements to keep players coming back to build an empire.

While the game teeters on tedious, especially toward the end of a game you are "close" to winning (the game does manage to get that "just one more turn" feel just right) that shouldn't stop you from buying it. If anything it's part of what makes Civ 5 great.

Goat Fu gives Civilization V 4 out of 5 hooves.

The Start

Starting out the game does a really good job of finding out what level of player you are, and throwing you into the game world. Since I hadn't played a Civ game in quite a while I really appreciated all the tutorials. They weren't in your face to the point of being obtrusive, and they were informative enough that I didn't just x out of them whenever one popped up.

The Tech Tree

At first this component of the game can be intimidating because it is really... REALLY big. The second and third time you play through the game though you get a better idea what route you want to take through the tech tree depending on what type of victory you want to achieve. If you are going for a science victory, you might want to tech toward advancements that help you research quicker, but as with everything else in the game, what will you sacrifice to make the next big leap? Will you forgo a military technology and fall behind? Nobunaga will punish you for that...

Not only that, but the game's policy tree is pretty large on its own, but not large enough that you feel overwhelmed. Different policies lend themselves to different kinds of victories so players will have to carefully choose which policies to build toward.

Combat

Combat is a lot of fun, in fact you could replay this game several times just to see how many different ways you can dominate the game board through sheer military strength. Ghandi offers a gift of silk and gold? Accept it for 20 turns, then crush him under your heavily fortified boot!

Civ 5's combat system does differ slightly from past Civ's, the biggest and most notable change being that units can no longer stack. While this was a pretty big change for those used to the old way of doing things, it does a great job of moving the game along and forces players to be more thoughtful of where military units are placed.

Victory

There are several ways to attain victory in this game. Culture, military, science, diplomatic and score.

A cultural victory means you have researched enough policy trees, each of which gives a bonus to your society, so that you can work on completing your utopia project.

A military victory is really straight forward, just crush everything that stands in your path. A science victory will lead you to a space race where the first to get into orbit wins. (Hope Richard Branson is born in one of your cities)

A diplomatic victory is basically a popularity contest run by the United Nations. If you are well enough liked, and voted for, you can win by vote.

Finally, if time just runs out, which comes out to about a year of your life, the game will eventually end sometime near 2075 on the game calendar at which point scores are tallied and a victor is declared.

Gameplay

The game plays very smoothly. Other than the wait between turns which can feel a little long, you always feel like there's more that could have been done. The game does a very good job of pushing the player on to the next thing and making them feel like they are on the verge of the next big thing all the time.

Difficulty

You can make Civ 5 both as difficult or as easy as you want. The normal difficulty should prove challenging enough for most players. Veterans of turn based strategy have plenty of room to grow as the game features multiple levels higher than hard.

Graphics

Although it might be a glitch with my setup, I did have issues with screen tearing in square blocks occasionally across the map. Usually zooming way out and then back in fixed it, but it was an issue. Other than that the game was very pretty. All of the critters are beautifully animated. The elephants swing their trunks, the foxes play, the deer graze and the giant robots make pretty destructive laser 'splosions.

Even the CG at the beginning of the game, while not representative of actual gameplay, was very pretty to look at. Who would have thought I could say that about a leather-faced old man? Also, a quick gripe about the intro, and this goes out not just to the makers of Civ 5, but to game developers everywhere. Make it easier to hit escape to get out of the opening cinematic, intro, cool logo you spent lots of money on.

Conclusion

With the holiday season coming up and game choices becoming more abundant gamers are looking to spend their money on quality. Rest assured this game is quality. If you are like me and enjoy a variety of games but have a limited budget, it might be best to wait until the game has been out a bit longer and some sales start popping up on steam so you can focus your current gaming budget on games like Fallout 3 and Black Ops. Fans of turn-based strategy, on the other hand, this is your game this season.