Topic: Review: Civilization V

[sam]

Turn-based strategy is an underrepresented genre of video games. Perhaps it's because they aren't as flashy, or aren't as embedded in the public consciousness as the more popular types of games. Or maybe because it's so damn hard to build them right. The first Civilization  game came out 19 years ago. (Feel old? Sorry.) Despite changes in design leadership over the years, Sid Meier and the Firaxis crew realized that they had a solid foundation, and poured their efforts into refining everything that worked, and revamping everything that didn't. Civilization V reflects not just a few years of direct development after the launch of Civ 4, but also nearly two decades of continually evolving game design. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/09/24/1312244/Review-emCivilization-Vem?from=rss

nice review - will have to add my 2pence worth later, my initial thoughts on the game are a little "meh"

[GillE]

It's certainly different to its predecessors.  I'm not sure about it yet...

[GillE]

The damn game won't load most of the time!  I'm really peed off with this Steam arrangement.

 

[sam]

I found the loading a bit slow but it always loads / I'm not sure its Steam at fault.

Are you running in directx 9 mode?

I spent quite a long time playing it yesterday! :-)


Really useful post on how to fix a few things: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/707668/Civilization-5-Errors-Crashes-And-Glitches-Some-Solutions.html


I think the most important fix for me is:

Problems with the Civ 5 Intro Movie: Go To:

    “My Documents\My Games\Sid Meiers Civilization 5\”

and open usersettings.ini in Notepad. About 15 lines down you will find “SkipIntroVideo = 0″. Make this value 1. This will skip the intro video and you will be directly entered to the game menu.


Read more: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/707668/Civilization-5-Errors-Crashes-And-Glitches-Some-Solutions.html#ixzz10e1qcB7M

[GillE]

Great tip about the intro, Sam  .

[sam]

it actually takes roughly the same time - I guess the problem is the computer is busy loading stuff in the background and so doesn't take input for x number of seconds and thus the video is running... still annoying

[GillE]

Civ4 took quite a while to load too.  At least there's a way to circumvent that irritating video - I'd rather have a blank screen than have that running.  Gosh though, doesn't Civ5 gobble up computer power?  It seems as if each turn takes ages to process.

I completed a game last night and was disappointed to find no scores or ratings are given.  Instead, you unlock various achievements (I can't remember exactly what the program calls them, but it's something like that) which isn't exactly a champagne moment.

It took me ages to realise you don't need water transport units to cross water!  I think this is quite a good improvement, but perhaps my opinion will change as I play the game more.  I don't like the inability to control research/culture/finance and I don't like the length of time it takes to construct buildings, most of which appear to have marginal impact.  I do like the battle element which is much more realistic and has a less arbitrary outcome.

I'm going to keep playing Civ5, but it hasn't yet superceded Civ4 Warlords as far as I'm concerned.

[sam]

It took me ages to realise you don't need water transport units to cross water!  I think this is quite a good improvement, but perhaps my opinion will change as I play the game more.  I don't like the inability to control research/culture/finance and I don't like the length of time it takes to construct buildings, most of which appear to have marginal impact.  I do like the battle element which is much more realistic and has a less arbitrary outcome.

Yeah, took me ages to figure that out - I now have settlers going everywhere :-)

I though you could control the research / culture ... in each city you can change the priority, ok not quite as hands on as before.

Buildings do seem to take a while, unless you have decent industry around the city, tis a bit annoying - mostly annoying is the huge length of time it seems to build wonders.

The battles are much much better and do seem to make more sense, for once my tanks won't get beaten by a guy with a bow and arrow unless my tanks are several destroyed already.

I find the game still lacking something.... and yeah so far the last Civ is taking some beating but I do find the game is more transparent and I like the more apparentness of resources and the city states add a really nice dimension of trade etc.

I still prefer Colonization at the moment though.

[GillE]

After 40-odd hours trying to get into Civ5, I'm back with Civ4.  The new design just doesn't have the same experience as the older versions.

[sam]

I still really enjoy both, really different games - Civ5 will be better with a patch or two.