Someone give Aldeth oxygen...(Civilization 5)

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This is true. I remember that whenever I took a city from a well-established, war-mongering civilization, even if I was technologically superior, that the city would be attacked (and usually re-taken) because the AI would send about 50 or so of their inferior units to reclaim the city.

Agreed. Even if it was limited to something like 3 per tile - you can have one or two offensive units and one or two defensive units.

Civics were certainly part of Civ IV - has the process been further tweaked in Civ 5?

 

I've only played the demo which is limited to 100 turns so I'm not in a position to give an accurate account but from what I saw civics are organized in a tree and as you play along new options become available. All in all I think that it is more satisfying because it allows you to "specialize" in a certain line and I really like this. It took this feature and expanded upon it and that is what can be expected of a sequel to a game like Civ IV.

 

As Caradhras said, you've got a tree-like system, where you 'level up'. The higher along the tree you climb, the better polices there are, such as the top one on the Science tree gives two free techs. There are maybe 8 different categories of civics, some tribal based, religious based or communism based, as examples. Some are mutually exclusive, so you can't have liberty and authoritarian ones in practice at the same time. As your civilization gains culture, you're able to 'purchase' more policies. Of course, the price is scaling, so the more you buy the more expensive they become. This also applies to the number of cities you own. Once you've maxed out 5 (I think) areas, you can build a Utopia Project wonder, which allows you to win a Cultural Victory.

After playing two games through (one on short, small map, and one epic on large map) I'm not sure if I like these policies. It sort of reminds me of these Action/RPGs where you have a list of skills that you 'level up' along a tree. And it seems to remove the need of balancing your governments with the current need of your civilization. I remember in Civ 1 you use to want to stick with Democracy or Republic any time you're at peace, but these are absolute crap if you're ever at war. Or in Civ 4, the state controlled market thing was great if you had a really big civilization, but then you couldn't have other economic advantages. In Civ V, it's a case of "Yay, I've got more Experience Points/Culture, so I can get a better level of policies!". The other result of this is that all the techs that dealt with government changes have been removed.

In saying that though, there are some changes that seem great. I do like the changes they've made to combat and wars. Cities all now have a defensive value, which is made from the population size, technology level, the defensive buildings, and the united that is garrisoned in it. To take over a city, you have to wear this defensive value down to 0. Straight forward enough, but cities can attack back. They've got a range attack (arrows or missiles or something like that, depending on the age), which can knock a unit out in two or three hits. Also attacking with melee units when a city is at full health is deadly. Instead, to take a city you have to position ranged united a few squares away and bombard the city. All well and good, but you of course have to remember such units don't have any way of defending themselves, as you can't just stack a melee unit in the same square to defend. Attacking cities, especially in the early eras, becomes really fun (later eras artillery and stuff have a greater range, so can sit far enough away and just bombard harmlessly). So no stacking units and city defence = good and fun.

Another great change is what happens when cities fall. You have a few options - do you make it a puppet state? Or raise the city to the ground? Or maybe annex it? Or if it's an old city-state, maybe it'll pay to release the city-state? In large wars you can't just go annexing city-states left, right and centre, as it causes a lot of unhappiness. So instead you have to make them into puppet states and slowly annex them over time. Just adds another element of game play into the game.

However, on that idea of adding things to game place, the end feeling I got with the game was that they cut it down to it's most basic aspects, making it as simple as possible (not in a good way). Religion, Espionage and all those things have been removed. Other aspects have been really simplified. I'm not sure if they've done this to try and appeal to a new audience (maybe the WoW and/or shoot-em-up type people), or if they've purposely left things out so people will want to buy the expansions. What ever the reason, it definitely hasn't served to keep my interest. At the moment I wouldn't think it is worth buying - really disappointing.

If anyone wants to know anything specific, feel free to ask.

 

Dammit, then it is as I feared and I already ordered the game. What you describe is just what I was afraid of; a simplified, dumbed down Civ that you can rush through without much thought or effort.

 

Ah! That's the other thing that annoys me about the new Civ. You can't set the tax rate - or if you can, I haven't figured it out yet. I want control over how much is going to science, culture, money, etc.

On that note, one other change is that I found money is a lot more useful than in past civs. Which is good, I guess, as due to not been able to set the tax rate, by mid-game you'll have money pouring out of your ears. Purchasing units and buildings becomes a more every day occurrence, and money can be used to buy tiles in order to expand your cities limits (which is now limited to 3 hexes away, rather than the 2 squares of the old games).

 

There are 48 hours in a weekend.

I purchased Civilization 5 on Friday evening.

Today is Monday, and according to my Steam client, I've already logged 31 hours of play time.

Holy sh*t.

Suffice to say, there is very little I find myself missing from Civ4. I don't miss religion or corporations, which were a pain in the ass. I don't miss stacking, battles are much more fun this way. I don't miss having 80 bazillion different civs to play. I don't miss taxes.

The only thing I really miss are that the wonders seem to have been nerfed pretty significantly. I used to like Wonders that put a free something in every city, like Stonehenge. Other wonders, like Notre Dame, seem to have very small benefits now. Only +5 culture and 1 Great Person point? May as well be a regular building.

New stuff: LOVE the city states. LOVE the hex grid. LOVE the new graphics (though I seem to have crashing issues when I play it in DX10 or 11 mode, so I've been playing in DX9 till the patch comes out). LOVE how useful money is now. LOVE how you can buy tiles. LOVE the new diplomatic options.

I'm so screwed for free time now.

 

No one else is having trouble installing and getting hte game started? I install it but it installs through Steam and I do not even get a proper icon for Civ V on my desktop and I get an error message when I try to run it. It didn't really feel like it installed properly, after a measly 6-7 minutes it said the installation was complete and that didn't feel right.

My rig is in perhaps not all the way to the recommended specs but well above the minimum so it should at least start the game but but for some reason it crashes before it even starts, my feeling is a steam issue. Also perplexed as to why I have to install and have the game through steam when I bought it as a DVD from a store?

 

I did do that and it didn't work except it worked right after I made that post and now two hours of my life are just gone, disapeared. Ah, a new Civ.

 

So far my favorite civs to play are Japan (their unique trait is pretty amazing for warfare, and as always, the Samurai kick ass), Babylon (holy science, Batman) and Rome (the Centurian / Ballista combo dominates well in the early game).

Anyone else?

 

Just into the renaissance age on my first game on chieftan as Rome and well, time flies but it is still Civ for good and bad. I have played this series in freakish amounts and they haven't really changed enough for me to go "WOW! COOL!" but they have changed it enough for me to not be too fond of some changes. Hopefully I will get as many hours from V as I got from III and IV but none of them are any II's.

I both like and dislike the battlesystem, it is more fun and more strategic but it is also way more cumbersome making warring a task of micromanaging every single unit. I didn't create stacks of doom as much for their power but for ease of control. Now I need to remembere where every unit is.

 

I haven't found that difficult, myself. I never have more than 2 armies coming from 2 different directions, and even then I'm finding 6-7 units are more than enough to get the job done (2 artillary, 3-4 infantry, 1-2 ranged and a general for each army group). Of course, I'm usually a promotion or so ahead of my opponents, so smaller, leaner armies do well for me. But still - it's not much to manage, I don't think.

 

How do the city-states work? Also, is it setup more like Civ III where bigger was better (in terms of your civilizaiton) or more like Civ IV, where limiting the size of your civilization was often the better choice?

 

As to the second part, I have no idea. I never played III and I've never been able to resist the temptation to over-expand my empire.

As to the first, city-states are essentially small AI countries who cannot expand beyond a single city, cannot declare war on their own and cannot explore the map. They advance through tech relatively quickly and can provide several benefits. Often times, they possess a resource your populace is asking for, and once you become "allies" with them (not just friends), you get access to all their resources and visibility. When you enter a war they will immediately join in along side you. Different city-states have different "personalities," and I haven't figured them all out yet. But for example, "militariestic" city-states who are allied with you will gift you a free military unit every 50 turns or so. I think this is at random, as last game I got a cavalry one turn, a scout the next, and a mechanized infantry after that. I'm sure other city-states give other benefits, I just haven't played enough yet to figure them out (and as always, I'm too lazy to read the manual ).

One thing to note is city-state alliances deteriorate at a rate of 1 point per turn (half that for Greece). It goes from angry - neutral - friends - allies. I think if they're angry, their borders are closed to you. Neutral you can pass through their lands but it pisses them off. Friends you can pass through with no penalty, and allies you share their visibility. In order to keep their approval high, you have to get them something they want. A relatively-small gold donation is usually enough, but they also ask for you to eliminate other city-states, built specific wonders, establish trade routes with them, send them great people (not give great people, just walk them over to their borders), etc. There seem to usually be 3 city-states for every 1 major civ.

Another thing I like about Civ 5 is you can bring older civs back from the dead. If you take a city that was once a city-state or belonged to another nation, you have the choice to raze, annex, make a puppet, or liberate it. If you liberate a city-state, this brings them back to life and gives them a huge influx of positive points towards you, often making them your instant ally. With conquered civs, it's a mixed bag. I liberated a Russian city (whom I'd never had contact with before they were conquered) and the leader, Catherine, was still very hostile to me (even though I defeated her enemy). On the other hand, I have Ghandi back a conquered city and he went from calling me a warmonger to "Hello, friend!" So it's definitely not cut and dried, but I think it adds a bit more realism. (Incidentally, I gave Catherine back her land so I could have another ally. After her less-than-grateful reaction, I re-conquered her. Reckonize!!)

 

I am not playing CivV now, I think that says too much.

I am sure I will amass a few hundred hours on this version as well but I do not feel the *need* to play just one more turn.

 

What is it about the new game you find so disagreeable, joac? Perhaps I'm missing something...I'm enjoying it so much I don't know that I'll ever play IV again. For me, it's an improvement in just about every way.

---------- Added 2 hours, 55 minutes and 4 seconds later... ----------

Had to post this. It's pretty damn funny.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2010/06/23/civilization-v-pc-civilization-anonymoustrailer

 

Oh I do not think I will go back to IV, I have plenty of other games. I do not know really what it is. Could just be that I have played too much Civ in my days that even a brand new installment can't completely relight the flame. I like most of the new stuff but one thing I do not like is that it is kinda slow. On a normal map I have to wait just a few seconds too long every turn for it to not be annoying. Going to lower the graphics but don't think it will work.

My negativism is mostly due to not being blown away and playing Civ V 24/7 like I used to, now I even find time for a bit of WoW (new patch, cool), a SC ladder game or three and maybe even a bit of Mass Effect every day. I was kinda expecting Civ to make me lose all interest in other games for a few weeks and it hasn't.

Oh and it takes half a year to start the game, why the hell do I have watch part of the intro movie every single time I start it? Ease of start up is really important for me when it comes to games and I find myself playing games that takes a few minutes to start less than games that are quick to start.

 

I'm very surprised - given the popularity of Civ4 topics in this forum - that there's been so little traffic about Civ5. I think it's superior to its predecessor in just about every possible way and I for one can't stop playing the damn thing. I was up till 4am last night (I know, I know) defending my immensely-profitable Arabian civilization against that warmongering ***** Catherine. From the graphics, to the city-states, to unique abilities, there's so much variety and challenge in the game that I've pretty much lost interest in all my other games.

Is it just that few of us have bought it yet? Or am I alone in my fandom?

 

I haven't bought it yet, but I surely will eventually. I'm thinking of a major PC-upgrade in the coming months. Not only will that allow me to play Civ5, but it will allow me to run the better graphics on SC2, and I'll have a machine good-to-go for D3, whenever that comes out, hopefully sometime in late 2011.

 

I quite like Civ 5. It's very addictive. I still think troops become too superfluous too quickly, though. And it's still no Total War.