CIVILIZATION V

[Sabretooth]

The graphics, though, seem to have grown a bit more futuristic/childish. Maybe just my interpretation, but some of the pictures for the units/cities are a wee bit cheesy.

 

It's neither cheesy nor childish, it's ART DECO.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

What's that I see on 0:44 standing right inside Tokyo on the last video? A MILITARY UNIT?

[Sabretooth]

Got a new video interview by BBC with lots of new gameplay content. Worth a watch, though it will only make you want to play the game more than actually show you something you haven't seen before.

 

Gamespot interview with Jon Shafer, lots of gameplay footage

Also clearly features some fairly epic background music. Looks like they're going for a more dramatic score than the calmer one in the previous one. Also, it has Hinds. Includes almost all the gameplay content of the above BBC video.

(This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

 

Gametrailers interview, not much gameplay footage, some info on AI, victory

Basically, 4 victory conditions in the game: Domination (conquer every capital in the world), Science Victory (construct spaceship), Cultural Victory (similar to that in Civ IV, but more tightly related to gameplay), Diplomatic Victory (be elected in United Nations, which city-states can now participate in).

Linkie

[Sabretooth]

Text interview by Shacknews

 

Quoting the new parts:

Regarding Social Policies:

There are 10 different branches ike 'Liberty', 'Tradition', 'Honor' and things like that. Each has a series of policies underneath them that reflect on the type of branch that it is. Honor is for military stuff. Piety might be for happiness or culture. You use culture to buy these policies. They are powerful bonuses. Under Tradition, there's 'Aristocracy' which is a +33% bonus to Wonder production.

 

If you get six full branches, it unlocks the world wonder called 'Utopia Project' and building that unmolested by other civs: you win the game.

 

If you're not playing that culture game, for example, a diplomatic, science, or military game, culture being used as a currency to purchase bonuses that drive those other aspects of the game is huge. Now culture matters. You can't just completely ignore it.

 

Shack: What about unique units. Are these just pallete swaps with some bonuses?

 

Dennis Shirk: Each unique unit in the game has its own unique abilities too.

 

Shack: Are these - for lack of a better term - spells to be cast or are they passive bonuses?

 

Dennis Shirk: Not just passive bonuses. The Roman Legion, for instance, can build roads and forts, things previously just given to the worker [unit]. As the Romans, your legions are going across the landscape and paving their own roads at the same time. There are a lot of unique units like this. They don't just look different; they do different things.

 

 

 

 

Shack: A lot of the early game in Civ IV ended up being a rush to specific tech or research: founding religions was particularly powerful. Is there any of that in Civ V?

 

Dennis Shirk: We have one or two rushes in place, but not on the level [of founding religions in Civ IV]. In the early game, we still want to have some minigames going on, but nothing that is going to alter the landscape of the planet. With religion, it was really fun, but extremely powerful. If you didn't go for it right away, you were out of the race.

 

There are little races going on. There are some natural wonders in the game now placed on the map like a mysterious crater or volcano here or there - that kind of thing. If you discover those, it will increase happiness within your civ. If you found cities next to them it's a huge boon in gold and other odds and ends. There's going to be a rush to find [natural wonders] and ruins because they give multiple benefits, but nothing that's going to be earth-shatteringly game-altering.

 

 

 

Shack: What multiplayer options will be available?

 

Dennis Shirk: We're going to have the basics out of the gate. About a month after release, we're going to add Pitboss. Pitboss will be accompanied by two extraneous modes that we weren't originally planning, but the fans keep asking for: play-by-mail and hot-seat.

 

That's right folks, play-by-mail will be coming to Civilization V post-release!

[Sabretooth]

Two new titbits of info:

 

Strategy Informer

 

- City Razing isn't immediate. (According to the forums,) cities that are being destroyed will lose 1 Population per turn, allowing the defending force to send a force to rescue their city.

 

CNN

 

- "In the case of ancient or dead civilizations, we were actually able to find melodies, if only fragments in the case of Augustus Caesar or Ramses II," Curran explained. "With more recent leaders, these melodic sources will be recognizable."

 

Many of the pieces in the game were recorded by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. In addition to traditional instruments, hundreds of unique ethnic percussion, string, wind and reed instruments were used to achieve each culture's musical feel.

[Sabretooth]

Another new bit of info from an interview with Dennis Shirk.

 

Dennis Shirk: One thing we didn’t even talk about in the demo is the strategy view. If you turn it on, it makes everything into a flat 2D hex grid – just like you’re playing a boardgame. Or, if you’re on a plane or something and you don’t want to worry about the high-end graphics, just turn on the grid and it’s totally playable on this 2D map. Like you’re playing Risk or something.

 

So yeah, if for some reason you decide that you hate 3D and wish the world was 2D like in the old days, Civilization V lets you do that.

[Sabretooth]

2K just revealed what the Strategic View looks like:

 

 

Again, according to Shirk, the game should be totally playable on this map. According to the community blog post, you can use filters to view only military units or only improvements etc. Sounds pretty nifty, but I don't know if I'll end up using it.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

It looks awful, IMO. Strip all the graphical fireworks away and that's what you have. Doesn't seem either particularly helpful and certainly not beautiful. I very much prefer the "orbital" view of CivIV.

[Sabretooth]

The orbital view wasn't controllable, however. This one is something of a throwback to older Civ games and board game-style games.

 

But no, it isn't the prettiest of things.

[Sabretooth]

Official Box Art Reveal:

 

 

Not really special, but not too shabby.

[DarthParametric]

Hey, the Opera House made the cut. Nice to see we are cover-worthy.

[DarthParametric]

Reviews:

 

Joystiq - 10/10

 

Game Informer - 9.75/10

 

Destructoid - 9.5/10

 

GameTrailers - 9.4/10

 

CVG - 9.3/10

 

IGN - 9/10

[Sabretooth]

So I guess we can rule this one out as a critical failure.

[swphreak]

Civ V is awesome. I spent 4 hours playing that learn as you play tutorial mission. It was pretty much a 1v1 with helpful popups during the game. I didn't quite make it to the space age. I had already conquered everyone by 1000 AD.

 

If anyone is interested in a game, we'll have to work something out.

[Revan 411]

I'm interested in playing this game, but do I have to play Civilization IV before getting this? Or are the two games completely unrelated?

[swphreak]

They're completely stand alone games. You can get Civ V and play the tutorial til you get the hang of it.

[Sabretooth]

I'm interested in playing this game, but do I have to play Civilization IV before getting this? Or are the two games completely unrelated?

 

Civilization doesn't have a story, it's like a board game, so it doesn't matter which version of Civ you get. Each game has a slightly different take on the overall goal: to let you forge an empire and take it to greatness in one way or another.

 

IIRC, one of the developers said that the way they've made Civ V, he wouldn't be surprised if there are people who play both Civ IV and Civ V side-by-side.

[swphreak]

Just... one more... turn... before bed...

[swphreak]

As soon as Comcast fixes my internet troubles, I'm going to bug people to get a multiplayer game going.

 

Until then, I've got a pretty good Earth map single player game going. I started out in Texas. I proceeded to spread throughout the States and then colonized England. Right now I'm in the process of colonizing Australia. I'm gonna have to annex a city-state on the eastern half of Australia.

[Sabretooth]

Nobunaga is one hell of a badass.

[Rake]

I want to play this game so bad, but my cpu overheats every time I play for more than 10 minutes.

[Sabretooth]

Don't know about CPU consumption, but the game is one hell of a memory hog. Takes ages to do anything once I've quit the game. It's sad that unless you're playing at full graphics on DX11, the game doesn't really look so much better than Civilisation IV, and lags horribly while at it.

 

I find myself switching to Strategic View somewhere in the classical age and then playing the whole game in it. The view is, IMO, the best feature of the game - gets everything done up fast, you can see all your resources and improvements, etc. They could might as well release a "lite" edition of the game with just the Strategic View and the leaderheads.

[Rake]

I can't stand to play in the strategic view, it's just too... too board-gamish, yeah yeah, I know, Civ is supposed to be a board game. I switched all the graphics to medium and it managed to last 20 minutes before crashing. Making some slight progress :/.

[Sabretooth]

Game's getting one hell of a beating at the Civ Fanatics' Forums, and I have to agree with most of the views here. Here's what they think in a nutshell:

 

Pros

- Hex Grid - infinitely better than square tiles

- 1 Unit per Tile - no stacks of doom, battlefield tactics and less worrying

- City Defence - no more babysitting cities!

- Improved Gold dynamic, allows gold to be actually used instead of just spent on research/culture

- Resource dynamic - only as many units as you have the resources for

- City-States! Limited wars, goodies, quests, and lots of flavour.

- Better balance of options; warfare is easier to manage, cultural victory is now feasible

- Social Policies are nice, they can get addictive if you play for the cultural victory. Unfortunately, their permanence means you cannot have any dramatic revolutions. No French Revolution or Nazi Germany or dramatic shift from Monarchy to Democracy without wasting the culture you spent on a whole tree. Civics was better in that respect.

 

Cons

- Stupid AI. Absolutely doesn't know military tactics, makes senseless diplomatic decisions, and is either a.) puny civ to be conquered soon, b.) juggernaut taking over the world.

- Blind Diplomacy. This one is more a get-used-to-it thing, but diplomacy is now less predictable and involves keeping a mental track of your relations with other civs. Otherwise, all the civs end up not trusting you and brushing you off.

- No flavour. The game seems to be entirely concentrated on being gamey, and not so much on the fictional world within it. The leaders never have anything interesting to say, they don't seem to have proper personalities as leaders, but appear to be players who are simply in it for the game. Ultimately, it makes the game feel boring because you're playing just to play and not really for the whole civ-building experience.

- No graphs or replays! Maybe they're geeky, but it's great to see how your civ progressed from a sapling into a world-conqueror, or when you adopted what policy. Now, if it's over, you're just given a pat on the back and told to move on.

- Interface. Big and clunky. I find it usable enough, but it really doesn't have to be so huge and obtrusive. Civ IV's interface was more elegant than this. The artwork is gorgeous, though.

- Performance/Stability. Maybe I don't go well beyond the minimum graphics, but the game looks barely as good as Civ IV with lowest graphics and yet seems to run less than half as fast. Ultimately, I'm playing in strategic view - easier and simpler. Stability is an issue, as Rake reported - it seems that tons of people are getting CPU/GPU overheats with the game and I've had 4 game freezes so far.

- Turns taking forever. Civ V is by no means the first game suffering from this, but there's no reason not to complain about the glacially boring late game, where you just click End Turn, wait 20 seconds, click End Turn, rinse and repeat till that spaceship component gets built.

- No Map Trading? Probably to balance the Natural Wonders thing, but it makes little sense that you can't trade world maps in the Industrial Age, or see the whole world if you've researched Satellites.