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Only 1 left in stock, order soon!
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Thursday, Jul 2
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Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
Features
- Successful diplomacy will depend on players carefully managing relationships with other leaders
- Expanded visuals and immersive audio invite would-be kings to take up the reigns of power and forge a mighty empire
- An intuitive interface eases both new players and Civ veterans into the game
- The addition of ranged bombardment allows players to fire weapons from behind the front lines
- Choose one of eighteen historical civilizations to lead from the stone-age to the space age
Description
Sid Meier's Civilization V is the fifth offering in the multi-award winning Civilization strategy game series featuring the famous "just one more turn" addictive gameplay that has made it one of the greates game series of all time. In Civilization V players strive to become Ruler of the World by establishing and leading a civilization from the dawn of man into the space age, waging war, conducting diplomacy, discovering new technologies, going head to head with some of history's greates leaders and building the most powerful empire the world has ever known.
Release date: September 21, 2010
Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 7.5 x 5.5 inches; 4.8 ounces
Type of item: Video Game
Rated: Everyone 10+
Item model number: 318177
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer: No
Item Weight: 4.8 ounces
Manufacturer: 2K
Date First Available: February 17, 2010
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If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is:
Thursday, Jul 2
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Top Amazon Reviews
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
I've been a fan of this series since it first came out, and my favorite versions were I (brand new) and IV (the culmination of that line). Version 5 goes in a direction that offers a lot of new stuff to learn, and it still has the broad scope in a turn-based format. It's definitely worth playing, even though version IV was so good. The major new features: 1 - Hexagon spaces, single-unit stacks, ranged units on land, and zones of control. These all combine for a better military side of the game. No more gather points to feed monster stacks and a cloud of cavalry. You will make deployments and movements that look more like what's described in history books. It's actually easier to move forward and capture cities than in previous versions. Anybody with prior experience in board wargames should really appreciate this. 2 - Social policy trees, which are a more complete treatment of government civics and religion than in I-IV. Religion was overly simplified in IV; I mean you could shuffle the names of the different faiths and it would make no difference to the game. That's not true of the social policy trees (which include one for "piety", mutually exclusive to the "rationalism" tree). 3 - City states; they make the world seem larger in terms of other parties to deal with. I don't think they can be game winners, but still it's cool to receive military units and key resources from client states, while having others jump in to help a great power that I attacked. 4 - The interface is much easier to work with; it's much less tedious to play the game. We also have Civ Revolutions and I like it for a quick game. Two of my kids play Revolutions, but they would not be interested in I-IV on the PC. In Civ V, we now have a complex game with simplified interface, and that's a good thing. I jumped right into the first game without playing tutorials or anything, so I have known mistakes to correct for next time and a lot more to figure out. That's part of the fun. This was my first experience with Steam, and I didn't have any trouble with it. Neither has the game crashed so far. I'm using a laptop that was high-end about a year old, now running 64-bit Windows 7. A lot of the negative reviews here focus on Steam and DRM. My opinion is that publishers have to do "something" and Steam is okay. Most software these days has to be activated. With Steam you can't re-sell a game or give it away. Steam could set up a mechanism for that, but who knows if they will. If that's an issue, maybe wait until the game price drops, which is what I usually do anyway with most games. On its own merit, Civ 5 is excellent.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2010 by T. McDermott
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
After a brief hesitation, due to poor rating of the game, I still decided to buy it. I'm glad I made the decision. After a month playing with it, it is as rewarding as Civ 4, and I have not gone back to Civ 4 again. Of all the reviews I read about the game, those which worried me the most were those about the quality of the images and the dynamics of the game. There were those who said the game did not allow zoom to details; that it lost much with the absence of the videos when you finish building the world's wonders, and that the quality of the textures of the land's improvement was low. Adjusting the video settings to the possibilities of my computer, I can say that the graphics are just beautiful; that when zooming, which is possible, the images and their actions are very nice; when you finish a world's wonder, the game rewards you with a beautiful painting, which is a nice replacement for the Civ 4 video of the construction of the wonder. Perhaps in future editions of the game, Civ 5 can improve the thumbnail images of buildings and technologies, which are a bit difficult to discern. Regarding the gameplay, definitely the dynamic is somewhat different to Civ 4: the benefits of the various wonders and technologies have changed; the pace of construction and research are different, at the beginning a little bit slower; the happiness of the population plays an important role globally; resources are not unlimited - for example an iron mine gets depleted when you build units, which forces you to think carefully which units will be built and what effect they have on the availability of resources. For the moment, there is no religion, health, intelligence (as in Beyond the Sword). But I have no doubt that Firaxis has already thought of them for future expansions. Finally, now there is no exchange of technology available, but you can have "research agreement" with the other leaders. In war, as has been said elsewhere, it also requires far more tactics and strategy as well as attention to the terrain. Wonderful, because a massive army may not necessarily be the difference, and a handful of units may well make a good defense if they have a good ground and good ranged units. Definitely, Civ 5 requires a little more attention to the details of what is working in each city, what buildings are being built, what units are available, the economy and happiness. In any case, just as addictive and fun as every previously Civ version.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2010 by Carlos Ch
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
Update 15mar2012: I recently built an Intel_i7 desktop system with a moderate NVidia graphics card and decided to retry this game. What a difference. It's fast, stable, and just works fine. Any complaints I had on an XP laptop don't apply to this modern system. I've got all the graphics controls maxed for a 1900x1200 monitor, and there's no stutter, hangs, nothin. It just works fast. Turns change fast. Even launching the game from STEAM only takes a couple seconds, and I can jump from the opening movie to the main menu in seconds. So it is possible to get past the tech issues that drove us all crazy. Now the question is whether you like this version of the game or not. My original game comments stand. Original: I can see why the mixed review scores. I'm adding my own low score due to my inability to play this game on my relatively new XP laptop with upgraded video processor. Pros: * The differences make the game new and fun to figure out. There are less fiddly things to keep track of during each turn, tho are still there if you want to get into that level of detail. * How to best match and use new civ personalities and policies is where the challenge is. It gives more motivation to try playing from very different strategies. * The game looks great. I like the hex squares. * There's an option to upgrade lots of things with money. Cash plays a more strategic role in this game. * Interaction with city-states creates new challenges. * Steam support is responsive and has handled easy questions well. They weren't able to resolve the system-hanging problems but I don't hold that against Steam. * Ran OK in stand-alone and on-line modes. Haven't tried multi-user, which I was really looking forward to. Cons: * The game hangs the system else crashes the OS. It fails in 3 of 4 attempts during the first turn, while every 4th try it might run a while, sometimes for hours. When adding up the time to reboot several times and start the game it might be 30min before a working game is going. I've checked my hardware, OS, drivers, DirectX per their diagnostic instructions, and it all looks OK. I've never had any other app crash this system, including Civ4, so find it hard to believe it's my system. * The interface is a definite step backwards. Civ4 interface was far superior. The information may be the same as in Civ4 but it doesn't seem like it. I can't click on a unit in units summary and go to the unit like in Civ4, so it's virtually impossible to find specific units. Trying to find which cities have what improvements is a nightmare. You want to upgrade military units in cities with certain improvements so this is something you need to know. * New rules of similar units not being able to pass through each other is needlessly frustrating. I'm fine if you can't stack units, but having to go around makes no game sense esp where dissimilar units can pass over. Further, not being able to stack military and settlers causes more problems trying to keep them together. * Winning wonders is less exciting, and the benefits are less obvious. * On my system Civ5 takes a long time to load (minutes), followed by more time to load a specific game. Turns take a very long time. There's a lot of waiting around. * It took hacking magic to stop the opening 3.5 min video running every time I started the game. * My system has never been so hot to the touch. It must be running all the hardware at max power. I have to wonder what kind of stresses this is putting on the laptop. * The game is oblivious to attached (larger) monitor on a laptop. Moving the Civ5 game window to the 2nd monitor blacks it out. If you have a laptop you play on the silly little laptop screen, and ignore your big high-res 2nd monitor. Baffling. * I hate the stupid adds Steam posts every time I start the game. Maybe someday I'll get to play the game, but for now I've given up. Steam support can't make it work, and the upgrades so far haven't helped. I'm setting it aside hoping for upgrades to fix the issues. All in all I'm surprised how badly a fifth generation top-tier game with deep pockets came to the market. I've certainly lost faith in the Civ franchise. The only thing going for it is the potential to be fun. But what good is a game that won't run? Update 10/30: Installed last major patch but didn't resolve the XP freezing problems during first turn. At this point I'm going to ask for my money back since the product clearly doesn't work. Update 11/12: Returned game for refund. Amazon is great about handling defective products. Can't get STEAM to tell me how to remove the game and my STEAM account. Funny that after the return was complete 2K Games finally came back 15 days past my initial request for help to give me a laundry-list of things to collect on my computer for them to mull over. Just as well, since after the weeks of pain working with STEAM to diagnose same issues I'm in no mood to start over. Games are supposed to be fun, not like engineering debug problems I face at work. Having two levels of problems to wade through with STEAM *and* the Civ5 game vendor just makes it that much harder. It will take a lot of happy Amazon users to sucker me into another STEAM product.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2010 by JMoomaw
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
The key that came with this game was a duplicate, already used. After looking at some recent reviews, others seem to be reporting the same thing, which means people probably found a way to guess the keys or something. The game was sealed normally, and I don't believe this was the seller's fault. The game itself is great, but there is no way I can play a game that I can't even activate on Steam. I purchased my copy from Vintage Software, and they were very helpful in getting me a working copy of the game. EDIT: About the actual game: * Although it seems simple, it needs a decent PC to run. * The base game is really good, but it is much better with DLC. * Really easy to learn, the tutorials are decent. (They will take around 2-4 hours.) * There are multiple ways to win the game, one being domination. * You can choose the map, leader, and difficulty for each game. * Multiplayer is really fun, players on the same teams can take turns simultaneously. * There are both nations and city-states. Nations want to gain power and win the game, city-states just want to survive or something, and they only have a single city.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2016 by JohnDoe
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
So here is the deal... I am reviewing the game, not the Steam Account annoyances or anyone personal computer issue, I will briefly comment on them at the end, but it is not necessary to read, and is not part of the 'review' itself. THIS IS A LONG REVIEW Quick points (I write detailed reviews, this is for those that don't wish to read it all): * Great graphics/visuals * Attention to detail is high * There is a polish to the game * Combat is reworked and is now real strategy * Happiness is changed and means more * The music could be better * The game is a 'step change' from previous versions, but is still classic Civ * Culture is different and means more * Victory conditions have radically changed for the better * The game 'flows' more and feels more organic * Will take SERIOUS getting used to, but will feel like 'good old Civ' in no time * Must open mind to playing it * Remains vastly deep and complex, probably more than Civ 4, but better interface * Requires Steam * Mods are not affected by Steam * Requires a good PC/Laptop to run * Lots more than can be summarized here, read the review! So now that those key points are down, I will get on with the rest of the review, good luck reading this by the way, under the 100+ some reviews already written. I usually like to review earlier but without substantial playing time it is pointless reviewing the game. Civilization 5 got, well, 5 stars because I genuinely think it is that good. Not a reaction to negative reviews or star ratings etc - the game lives and dies on it's merits. As a rule ignoring 5 star and 1 star reviews is usually wise, but sometimes a game can be that good, or for that matter, that bad. Civ, is simply put, quite incredible - but it is not without it's faults. The first thing you will notice is that it is beautiful, quite literally stunning. However this will only be something you can see if you possess a good DirectX 11 graphics card (you probably don't) and have a computer fast enough to run it. Which brings us quite quickly to the first immediate problem of Civ 5. This game demands rescourse and power. It also offers 'two versions' to choose from each time you wish to play - a DirectX 9.0c version and a DirectX 11. This can be confusing. The general rule will be, try DirectX 11, if it is slow and jumpy and unplayable, try DirectX 9. There may be some tweaking required to get it working. I have two rather different computers and their results on playing the game are very different too - one runs smooth, the other wasn't running it at all until I discovered a fix. And be warned, you may need some searching/tweaking to get this game to run, especially on a Windows 7 machine. I will just state this, if you have Windows 7 and your game is unplayabley laggy, and slow on the DirectX 11 version, and crashes upon trying to load the DirectX 9 version, you will need to load the game in 'windowed mode' and without the intro video. I won't explain it it here, but google it, and you'll get some good answere. Once you get it working however it should be fine, okay, so the DirectX 9 version isn't as pretty as the other, but it is still better than Civ 4 by some distance. Sadly, to get 'top of the line' graphics, it has to be paid for, through the nose. If you want to know whether or not your game can run it, go to a helpful site called 'Can You Run It?' - just type that into Google and the site will come up. It is not always totally accurate, claims my PC can't run it, but it can easily - you just need to take note of what it is saying. Enough of that, it is not relevant to review but may serve to be helpful to many. Once you have managed to get your current PC/Laptop to run it, or bit the bullet and gone out and bought a new PC/Laptop/upgrade - it is quite a treat. Yes you need Steam to activate it etc, I'm not a fan particularly but now is not the time and place. Also if you plan to buy this to play with your partner/family members/friends say at home, over a Local game, you will need more than one copy of the game. There may be a workaround for this later (or even now) but I'm yet to hear of someone doing it, and was unsuccessful myself. So if you and your wife/husband wish to play this game together, you will need two copies, unlike Civ 4, which is a shame. The game play is very fluid. In previous versions of Civ it felt a little like a computerized board game. You had your turn, there were strict game mechanics, it was all very mathematical and you plodded along bit by bit. This was not a bad thing, it is what gave it the famous 'one more turn' feel. Civ 5 does away with this in favour of something a little more 'realistic' and organic. One complaint I saw from some was that it no longer felt like 'one more turn' but instead seemed at first quite easy to put down, quit an go do something else. In all honsety that would be a disaster if it were true. You will feel this probably the first time you play, then maybe the second and then you are hooked. My spouse and I felt rather let down at first. We were blown away with the graphics, the mechanics, the smooth gameplay and then felt sort of deflated, and just quit and went and did other things. Can't say that happened with Civ 4. However this soon changed. The reason I think is that the game as someone official on the developing team put it, feels more like you are riding a wave, than climbing a cliff face. Civ veterans are very used to that 'climb' and enjoy it greatly. The wave effect can feel a little too easy, too laid back, too... boring. This doesn't last though. Instead of 'one more turn' you are given the wonder of 'Is that the time!?' feeling. Instead of 'I think I can stop on turn 251, you get a sense of the ebbing and flowing of gameplay and it becomes more about 'this seems a good place to rest.' You will focus more on the 'feel' of the game rather than exact statistics (which are all there) but no longer as important. It goes from a game 'by numbers with no surprises' to an experience that feels very 'real worldy' (sorry, no better term to use there!) When you negotiate, the AI makes intelligent counter offers, the offers seem realistic too. When you fight units/cities you can see them, feel them weakening, not just '3.7 Hit points to go' with a percentage of likely success. This all takes some getting used to, and the change in type of addictive play is rather surprising, yet I feel will please just about everyone, though it depends how set in your Civ ways you are. I think this aspect of the game will become seen as a great move, but it will require people to open up to it, and not close their minds on it. Those words usually seem like death to most gamers, me included, but it is genuinely worth understanding the difference. And of course, you can still play the game exactly like Civ 4 in the sense of monitoring statistics/turns etc. Governing your empire has changed drsstically through oddly, small changes. Individual cities are no longer happy/unhappy, this is a 'nation wide' phenomena now. Again, your mind will grate a bit about the change in mechanics, after 5 years of the Civ 4 way of doing things like happiness, your mind will not like being told to work out the new game mechanic for happy people. It gives helpful advice on how it works, it doesn't mean you won't fight it. But again once you open up to it, it is very good. I often got annoyed in Civ 4 at how certain cities just couldn't be happy, no matter what I did, and if you were not religious/founded a/have access to a religion you wre in trouble. This no longer happens. Trade is very important for happiness now, and long gone are religions. Social Policies are also important and replace 'civics' as a new form of 'personalizing' your empire and getting benefits. Happiness also greatly affects everything now, including your army. If you are unhappy, units will take severe hits to their ability to fight. This makes thinking about wars something more than just 'can I crush them with 50 horse archers?' but instead about 'can I even afford to do this, with my people already so close to unhappiness?' With the loss of civics mind you does come the issue of trying to rectify a bad situation. It isn't as easy I think as it was before, or I have not discovered the solution. The game will play slower in terms of building things, and making changes to make people happy. You cannot for example change civics now (since they are gone) and the social policies are no reverseable. This is not something I'll criticize since I felt similarly about Civ 4 and the way it played when I first got it. That brings us onto Social Policies. I swear somebody took this idea straight from my mind when I was thinking of ways to improve Civ 4. I had often thought it'd be nice to customize your empire, so that it's laws/policies/type of governance could be reflected as I wanted them. Okay, so it is a far cry from that online game 'Jennifer Government' (making new laws everyday that define whether you are say a fascist autocracy or say a liberal technocracy) but t is a very good indeed. You may now decide what type of government you are. This is rather similar to choosing a class/customization of characters in a Role Playing Game. There are many types to choose from (ten I think of the top of my head.) You can mix and match, though if you choose one path you may be unable to follow another. If you choose to be liberal for example, you cannot then choose the path of autocracy. Options include Traditional, Liberty, Honor, Peity, Patronage and others I have just forgotten (that is only half of them.) So you can choose these based on your style of play; small number of cities, military, non-expansive and see what it basically reckons you are as a person(!) or you may play as you think you are, and see how that shapes your empire. Or just do whatever suits you. Either way it is both fun, and effective and gives a better use to culture than just 'ooh, my border has expanded to have sheep.' This also changes the victory conditions but more on that in a second. I should note I am trying to focus a little on things not touted so much in the advertising. I know Social Policies were, but I needed to mention them, since they are in all honesty, just brilliant. So, what about Victory Conditions? The very aim of the game has changed. This is a surprise not to be mentioned. It now makes more sense and ALL victory conditions are now viable candidates, not just 'kill your opponent' or 'space race!' Time Victory is still the same, and I always turn it off, so nothing new there (to my knowledge.) Let me list the changes: * Domination - You are the last Civilization with your 'Original Capital' (cannot be destroyed ever) standing. Taking the capitals of all over Civs will win you the game - however should you take three capital say in a five player game, and someone takes yours at the last minute, that other person would win, being the last Civilization with their capital still intact. * Space Race - Now we are off to Alpha Centuri, not a massive change, and I have not got this far yet, but I hear it is rather different now, with a lot more options/risks. * Cultural - this one is fun. No longer is just some grotesque amorphous blob srpeading like a virus going to win the game. I saw it happen, some people got good at it, but it makes little sense. Now there is the 'Utopia Project.' You must complete 5 branches of Social Policies and trigger the Utopia Project to win the game. Not to shabby huh? * Diplomatic - seems a little easier to do, rather similar to the past games, with subtle changes. I think overall the changes here are excellent. The previous victories made no sense and often even less sense to try and execute. If someone ever really completed a Domination victory (percent of land/population) I'd like to hear from them. These victories make more sense, and now five genuinely different styles of play can legitimately win this game. Still there? Good. I don't do these by halves, I think if you are going to shell money out on something you should have as much info as possible. Usually I refrain from giving too much personal opinion (just stat what is there) but I am finding it hard to remain impartial on this game, I honestly think it is that good - but I accept that my 'dream' on this game may have been realized, and that to someone else, it is a nightmare. I should also note at this point, this is nothing like Civ Revolution (which was awful in my opinion) and is very much like Civ 4, despite someone earlier saying they are nothing alike. Interface wise the game is crisp and clean. And yes seems to have drawn a lot of influence from the 'fluid GUI' interfaces being used in everything now. I hated them at first, again, opened my mind, got used o them. You will notice though, no animations in the Civilopedia/leaderhead selection screens or anything else like that. I was a bit let down by this, hoping to see a very similar Civilopedia and game setup to Civ 4. It looks more classy, yes, but I would still like to have seen more eye candy than just some stylized pictures. Speaking of eye candy - the Leaders look amazing. But little more need said on it. It is just eye candy, you'll probably love them, but it'll just become 'oh there is Wu again.' Like all eye candy the wow factor wears off quick and is never a reason to buy something. But they are very nice touches and good attention to detail. Catherine the Great though, is a particular wonder to behold. Leaders are also now very varied and some nice changes have been amde. Good to see another female leader in the game, in the form of Wu Zeitan (I think I spelled the last name correctly) who is the leader of China. Only Napoleon, Elizabeth I, Bismark and Catherine really stand out as 'Civ Favs' as the rest are mostly unusual changes, with some countries liek Songhai being in instead of Spain (would like to have seen Spain mind you.) It certainly makes for a nice array of Leaders to handle and they each have their own 'special abilities' (like traits.) Still though, sadly, no Cleopatra for the Egyptians, just old man Rams. I swear they have something against Cleo... anyway... The music score is great, in places. Sometimes though it is just bloody annoying. On the leaderhead screens it is fantastic, oh and of course the Leaders speak now, that is a lovely touch. The music of the Russians and the Indians is especially nice. The game music for the far Eastern nations like China is by far the winner though, and the music for the French is just awful I'm afraid. At one point I developed a twitch and couldn't work out what was driving me crazy, realised it was the music and had to turn the sound off altogether. Waxing an waning trumpets and violins that sound like they are being interrogated by hot pokers is not my idea of 'music/' This type of thing crept into Beyond the Sword, especially in the later game, and I have no idea why. Was the composer sat down and forced to listen to it? I suspect not - after all, we have laws against such things. So you have been warned on that front, stick in a CD listen to that instead if you are playing as the Western powers. A 'shuffle' button would be nice, because some of the music is lovely, not 'Warlords' good, but nice nonetheless. The sound effects are great too, the voice over are classy and sound crisp, clean and fit the part. It all adds a very polished edge to the game. It is a little more 'clicky' than 'boomy' on most sounds (not my preference) but I've heard others say they prefer this change, feels a little less dramatic ending a turn in other words (again could be part of the 'being swept along' as opposed to 'turning cogs' effect.) Naval combat/moving has been vastly improved. Now any unit can cross water once the correct techs have been researched. This is more realistic and suits the flow of the game nicely. And anyone at this point thinking (if you've read this far well done) 'this sounds too easy' - you are wrong I'm afraid. This game will bite you hard if you slip up. It is not dumbed down, or streamlined in any way in particular. It is more intuitive than before, and I don't really think it is that accessible to new comers really - hence the astonishing amount of tutorials/help information available. This game is in every way as complex and far reaching as Civ 4 and before, in fact, more so. Don't be deceived by a pretty interface and flowing play, the game has more depth and nuances than before and I'll explain an example with combat now. Combat is probably the most touted change. This is rightfully so. Gone are the stacks of doom, and replaced by proper combat. Units take longer to build and no two units can occupy the same squqre. Ranged attack is no essential, and units like archers cannot melee. Finding cover and planning attacks will be tricky nad require more cunning than marching a bunch of units to a city. You can get ambushed, you will get destroyed, even if you have more troops. Strategy is everything. This is not an exaggeration i can assure you. Some have spoke of problems with the AI, I haven't encountered any yet, but have no doubt this is true. Hopefully this will be fixed in up coming patches and they will continue to improve it. There is also a unit cap, somethign not really mentioned but significant. When I first heard of this idea of no units on the same square I thoght "Great! Hang on... will we get whole maps then of units?" Luckily, no. The fail safe to this is a unit cap, based on cities/wonders/population etc. You will also likely have less cities in this game too than before (just a side note.) The cap is great, and the time taken to build units means you can by turn say 50 have the most powerful army on the map with two archers, a warrior and a spearman - enough to wage a small war. This is good for not killing computers in the later part of the game when you could have had in Civ 4 about 300-500 units, instead you'll likely have only a few dozen. The new style is like Chess vs ... Dodgeball. Okay I've never played dodgeball, but I've been told what it is. Civ 4 was like dodgeball. Just power something at someone, you win. Civ 5 is like chess. I'll give an exact example of what happened to me on my first military conflict. I had two archers, and a spearmen. I helped a City-State of Belgrade and was given (after a few turns) an archer. This was very significant and I nearly didn't help them, flipped a mental coin, came up heads so I did. I was the Chinese, attacking the Japanese. Fairly early on, I was going for Osaka (they had only two cities.) I surrounded Osaka with my archers, quite spread out, two on hills, one in forest. I had my spearmen in between the city and my archers in the forest/hill. When I started the conflict a Japanese warrior came out from the fog of war/shroud (hadn't been able to reveal it) and slammed straight into my archer on the hill. Killing them instantly (no contest, archers cannot melee.) This took me quite by surprise. I had to turn my spearman at them and instead of moving one of the two remaining archers into range, had to stand still and direct arrows onto the warriors. They hurt them badly and my spearman blockaded them from attacking either of the two remaining archers. The archers in the forest, who hadn't done anything yet, fired on the city causing small damage. The city fired back, slaying a couple of spearmen... within my spearman, if that makes sense (a 'unit' is now a squad of like 10 troops, two were killed here, so I had 8/10 HP left.) Now assaulting cities usually requires a total of about four units-ish, some ranged, some melee. But not always. Cities fire on you, you see, and don't need troops inside to defend from attack. So if you can't inflict more damage than they can heal, they can just wear you down. You need to be clever about it. The next turn the warriors crashed into my spearman and my spearman did the job. I was fired on again by the city and had to retreat the spearman into cover and 'fortify until healed.' The other archers on the hill were moved into range and began firing on the city as did the other archers in the forest. They wore the city down over a couple of turns and took high loses themselves. Finally the city looked weak enough, I woke my separman up and charged, took the city. This is how combat now works in Civ 5. Not just 'troop mashing' but real strategy. Also of note, had I NOT helped Belgrade out, and been given the archer unit (the one in the forest) I would have had only a spearman and an archer against the city after having the first archer unit blindsiding by the warrior unit - this would not have been enough and I would have been forced to retreat. That one decision gave me the victory. Small as it may seem, every unit matters in Civ 5. You must guard ranged units with care, and know when to be in cover and when to strike. Unit promotinos also make more sense and actually matter now (like attacking hills promotion, did anyone ever use that in Civ 4?) and there is also an 'instant unit heal' you can choose but you lose your promotion chance. If the AI is messing up later on, then I imagine it will get fixed, but for me, no issues quite yet. Human vs Human conflict will be fascinating, but I haven't done that yet. Also a quick point, negotiations happen/messages come in, in a point between turns, so as not to have annoying messages up when in the middle of a battle. This is a nice feature. The game also now had 'future tech' which is fantastic, finally they got the guts to 'guess' at future techs, like giant robots (I know, steady...) and the like. Another side note, the game is also 'half stylized' and 'half realistic' - this may seem odd visually to some but it is very nice in my opinion. So you have super realistic seas, birds following fish, organic looking hill (two are not alike), and then you have 'flat drawn on' rivers and the like (no waves crashing on boats), it is rather interesting. There is a also a little more class in the writing of the game. Gone are the childish quips and odd comments. There are still some funny things and good humour but no more 'i'm so cool' kind of comments. A personal new favourite is "the Civilizations with the pointiest sticks" - not childish just amusing. So in summary, the game is as addictive as ever, just in a different way. It is more in the vein of Civ 4 and not Revolutions. It feels cleaner and more modern and easier to use. It retains all of the complexity but simply makes it more intuitive to use. There are massive gameplay changes, this is not just an add-on. The changes are great, but will need a lot of time to adjust to and you must be willing to learn it, not just throw up your hands and say 'this is rubbish.' It has some bugs, but less than most games released these days and they are on top of it, with a patch already released for some issues that some experienced. Usually I'm dubuous about calling anything a 'revolution' or something that 'changes everything' but this truly does... is. Civ 5 has broken away from much that held the game back. Okay, it was always great, I loved the previous games but so much annoyed me about them, stacks of doom, moronic diplomacy that was always broken, dull combat, mismatched tech growth/military use, pointless victory conditions, over dependence on religions for growth/happiness, and so on. Remember, this game was actually co-created with members of the Civ community and modding teams, in many respects this is a game 'by the people for the people' and is a big shout out to the fans like myself! Okay not all fans have one vision for the game, but it certainly was a vision I had. Look, to put it bluntly I am hard to please. I have modded just about every game I have ever owned, changing mechanics/visuals/content left, right and centre. But this game... hmm, I'm honestly struggling to think what I'd do to it differently - and I pick up on issues fast. Civ 4 got modded almost instantly. I've never known a game in history have so many 'fan demanded' aspects put in, let alone capable of reading my mind! You may get this game if you decide to buy it and hate it, I will not deny that it may split some of the community - but you must keep an open mind to change. This was very good change indeed, fan demanded change. It is hard too, when you think of it. If they had rolled out a prettier Civ 4, then what would we all be saying? "Look, it is just an update, what a waste of money." You would all be saying it. It is hard when people criticize it for staying still or for moving forward, you have to be objective. My view is this, if you liked the old game, then you can still play it - no obligation to buy Civ 5 at all. But for the large proportion of the community that had things it wanted changing, and fixing, it has moved on and done it for them. If they ahd stayed the same, it would have been a failure, called 'boring' or a waste of time. By moving on, we've gotten something new. Something at least in my view, much, much better. That ends the review, I hope it was helpful, probably different, and it was meant to be. You can read an official review anywhere which will tout the same old features we have been hearing about for ages, but I wanted to give something different, rate up if it was helpful or rate me down if you lost the will to live half way through! But thanks for reading, I hope it helps make the choice for you. ********************************************************************* A LAST NOTE ON DRM/STEAM - READ IF YOU ARE ALSO UNSURE ABOUT BUYING IT Okay so let's look at the one ton white elephant in the room here. Steam. You love it, or you ahte it, the Marmite of modern gaming software. Though I'm about to contradict that with a measured viewpoint. You should know one thing first. Becaues of Steam and the settng of accounts to codes - you pretty much CANNOT return this game if you don't like it. This is, in fact, borderline illegal under the 'resale act' (at least in the US and in places like the UK there is something similar.) Now this is working it's way through the courts as we speak and I'm sure more lawsuits are to come. This is a terrible feature of Steam and a 'deactivation' option would have been far, far smarter and they are probably about to get in a whole world of trouble for not doing it, and possibly being too greedy. I object heavily to this kind of anti-piracy. Because in a sense it piracy of the company against legitimate customers. I have to pay $50 (and I'm so sorry for you Australians, what is it, $109??) to find out 'What is in the box?" It is more like a flea-market sales pitch, than a contract between developer and loyal fan base. Demo's/reviews don't do it justice, especially if you can't play it due to technical reasons. However sometimes, I've heard legend tell, you can get Steam to refund your money. So i won't go into it all too much, research 'Steam' if you want to know more. But basically it is anti-piracy. However it has been deemed very draconian and often effects legitimate customers instead of pirates, who always find a way to get around it. The software is also many argue, illegal, and installs subversive elements onto your computer. Company's like Sony got in trouble for this a few years back. This 'bloatware' can slow games and cause fatal computer crashes. However most people don't experience any problems. You will need an internet connection to activate, if you are reading this, you have one. In many respects it stops 'low level' piracy, like friends lending each other games, which hardly ever cost the industry anything. They have poured hundreds of millions into this technology which could have gone into creating better games, but got wasted instead. It is estimated their losses on anti-piracy software far outway the benefit, it seems to have just become about a battle of 'principle' for them now. They are also producing on average sub standard games, and then use 'pirates' as the scapegoats for their failure. They are also pouring a lot of money into advertising, and taking it from development teams - after all, if you can't return it, all they need is you to buy it once. But, not all companies do this, not all who run Steam do this. There is also a fervent, rather obsessive 'anti-DRM', 'anti-Steam' group out there who border on rabid. They can be just as irrational and wildly wrong about statistics as those they criticize. Steam and DRM (Digital Rights Management), you could argue is just the companies protecting their product. After all, I was very against it but realised it really was mostly because we coudn't do what we are all used to, lending games, sharing etc. These laws on games are nothing new, they have just found a way to enforce them. So the companies or 'Sid' doesn't 'hate' you now, they've always wanted these restrictions, they can just do it now. Do people have to like it, no. The problem really can be shown in the game Spore. The game had huge hype and promise, almost all of it was fake. Images and videos shown of the game contained large numbers of things not atually in the game, some taken back in development due to budget cuts (toward advertising, anti-piracy), some never existed and were just fabricated it was alleged, to sell the game. Once you bought it, you could not return it. They had DRM like this game does, except online play was NECESSARY to the game, so cracking it was almost impossible, some did though and found ways to play it, in fact, a lot did - about 2.5 million was the estimate. Making it, the most pirated game of all time, despite having the most draconian and 'bestest' anti-piracy of all time. More units were downloaded than bought, and despite a post-release 'look how well it did campaign', it could not hide the fact it was a disaster and their financial losses were staggering. Whilst games like Tomb Raider (late 2008 game, Underworld I think) were a tremendous success, financially and critically - despite having NO anti-piracy at all, not even an old fashioned key-code. Nothing. People bought it, because it was a great game. When you trust your consumer base, it rewards you. But so what? Civ 5 has this Steam stuff. I bought it, I installed it, it is fine. I have had to do it before for games like Empire: Total War (that was a disappointment.) Okay, I found out that I must buy a second copy for me and my spouse to play it against each other (we can still play single player on two computers) and that sucks. But it was always the intent. Should they have offered a 'bumper pack' for families? Yes. It is shocking they didn't. As one person stated, she hda five children and she and her husband wanted to play, that would be seven copies of the game, especially if you don't want a fight. I can't afford $360 for a game, can you? I feel very sorry for people caught in that problem. The companies have closed their minds sadly, and are trying to grip too hard on water in their hands, rather than being intelligent about it, but maybe they'll start to think about it a bit better soon. Anyway, you can at least play it without the disc, on any number of machines you want, and updating is quick and easy. Also modding hasn't been altered by steam, a bloody miracle. So that was a little disjointed my comment on Steam/DRM but there you go. Calm down about it, if you are going to download it, do that, I couldn't care less and don't think any less of anyone that does. This is a bit of a war between the developers and the gamers, and I'm curious to know who will crack first, but it'll probably get worse before it gets better sadly. But some companies are not jumping on the scared bandwagon and are still rewarding loyal fans and that is encouraging. At least with Civ 5, no money was taken away from it, it truly is an epic. Thanks for reading. ***************************************************************************************
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Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2010 by Sophia
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
After playing around 30 hours, I am completely fed up. Actually there is one problem with this game, that is, there is just no fun. Installation: * I have an ancient Thinkpad T400, which fails to meet the minimum requirements, but it is still playable with minimum settings. I do not really care about the graphics; * I am not totally for or against STEAM. They just want to use the online activation to stop piracy. But since the game was cracked soon after it was released (according to civfanatics), what's the point here? Game: Pros: * Hex is cool; * Each civilization is unique. Cons: Expansion: * Money is EVERYTHING in this game. You can buy ANYTHING, soldiers,buildings and even land. At the same time the hammer produced in the city is so poor. The city improvements give you only +1 or +2 bonus, almost nothing, so you will always see that a normal building will take 50 turns to finish. So later it turns out that you just save money to buy most of the stuff; * No financing. The research points are fixed. So you can not adjust the ratio as what we did in other versions; * No happy faces in each city, only of the nation. After you capture a city, the angry faces last forever, making you want to just raze it. The people of the city are demanding, they will ask you to get some resources that you can hardly get. And the happy faces changes the strength of your army. When you just capture a new city, which gives you a lot of angry faces, then, all your soldiers will be angry... * The cost of the wonder is close to a normal building, and with limited effects; * The city growth is very slow, making the early expansion hard. Before the game was released, I thought it would be cool that they enlarge the city area. But while playing, I found the total population can hardly go beyond 20; * No cottage, town, etc. Only trading posts, which always give you +2 gold, and they look ugly, like trash yard (not just on my lousy computer); Culture: * No religion, which is GREAT fun in CIV 4; * The border does not change according to the culture, unless using great artists; Diplomacy and War: * War is everything in this game. The most important point of the game is getting sword man and longsword man earlier than others, then, with three of them and a general, you can raze other counties on you continent; * One tile can only have one of civilian/land force/air force/navy force. This will cause a problem. Now spaceship parts have to be transported to one city. However, there might be a worker just moved to this city, thus, you have to wait for another turn, which may cause you to lose the game. * No spy. Actually most of the time, I have no idea what others think about me. The foreign relationship is weak in this version, and it just makes you feel isolated. To make things worse, even you want to keep a good relationship, and you trade with them, they still declare war on you for no reason(or for any reason); * The archers are ranged units, while the infantries and tanks are melee units (no range). And when archer/crossbow man gets updated, their previous ranged promotions disappeared; * You have to control each of the unit during the war, which is time consuming. But if you do not start wars, you have no idea what to do during the game, since other ways of victory are too hard(I never finish the culture victory, and spaceship needs a very late technology); Others: * The game difficulty is greatly reduced. I can only try 5th hard level in civ 4, but now I can easily beat immortal; * I reloaded several times just in order to watch the opening cinematic, which always crashed half way. Also, every time you start the game, you have watch this again and again, which, still crashes half way; * I experienced several crashes during the game, and there is no autosaving, so I have to load what I got several hours ago (Updated: there is autosaveing, thanks to A. Ramirez ); * Have no idea how to turn the combat animation off; * Graphics problem. You will see the great wall passing through a pyramid, and the Stonehenge built in the water; * The game is half finished. The promotion symbols from the manual are not the same as the symbols in the game. Some of them, such as blitz, are shown as a triangle or rectangle in the game. So you could find some units with several triangle and rectangle promotion, and you have to move you mouse on them to see what they are. And there are bugs about the promotion. The gunship has a promotion that it can not capture city, just as CIV 4, which does not work at all. The the early artillery has to be set up in order to fire, but the rocket artillery does not. However, because it is a promotion of the early artillery to be set up in order to fire, after they get updated, they still keep it; * No video after finishing a wonder or wining the game. Just a picture; * The music and sound effects are awful. They use some famous music but arranged in a awful way, making you feel that the music is random. All you remember about the effects the stupid "Ahhhhhh" shouting of the soldiers and cities. At the same time, it is enjoyable just listening to the music of civ4. * Ugly interface. Huge round buttons everywhere. And sometimes around ten of them pumped up during one round. It seems that it was intended made for the iPad not PC. * If you know what happened to the latest release of Supreme Commander or C&C, you might have already guess what happened to our glorious civilization series. They simplified the game. Though they will surely improve the game in future expansions, since this game has NO DEPTH, I can hardly imagine anything better based on this crap. IMO, this game should be less than 15 bucks. I just feel like get cheated. And I have no idea whether Sid Meier knows that somebody made such a lousy game. SO SERIOUSLY, DO NOT WASTE YOU MONEY.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2010 by midTownDude
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
I was hesitant to buy Civ 5 because of all the poor reviews here on Amazon, but finally I purchased the download edition. A few of the reviews said that this wasn't really Civilization and it was a betrayal of the Civ tradition, etc. I'm sitting here building settlers, dealing with other leaders, making war with everyone, and researching new technologies. It seems like Civ to me! I'm not sure what these people are complaining about. I found the game to be just as entertaining as the other Civ games, but with enough new twists to keep things interesting. There are a couple new things I really like. First, I like that units can travel over water without a transport ship. They're defenseless on water, but it's so much more fun to send them off into the ocean instead of having to take the time to build a transport. Also, I like the city-states. They make diplomacy, exploration, and trade more complicated, which is a good thing. The only new thing that's a little annoying is having only one unit in a space. That makes for some cramped quarters when you're trying to lay siege to a city that is in a corner on the coast. Maybe a max of two units would be better. I highly recommend this game. Now that the price has been reduced it's a no-brainer.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2012 by Areader
Platform: PC
Edition: Standard
I rated the game 5 for fun and 4 overall, explanation below. Things associated with the game that I did not like I also mentioned - it's all part of the Sid Meier Civ, can't entirely separate the game from its program bells and whistles [ie Steam etc]. As is common among fans, I played one more turn from evening till late morning the day I got this game... I do not recommend this, I had an excuse at work [I worked on my day off so I could stay home to play this long..hours and hours people.. days]. Expect a steep learning curve with tech tree, units, diplomacy, trade etc. Expect game to be slow and/or with less than amazing graphics if you PC is old. Mine is Dell Inspiron 531 and works great on low-minimum settings. I can only imagine how fast and pretty the game is on a more powerful PC. The game seems to have an end to it, year 2050... WTF!? I wanna play foeva! [You may continue of course - choose the "one more turn!" option.] Steam setup was automatic and that is OK by me. However, [when pc not disconnected from web] the game ALWAYS goes through Steam when selecting the CIV5 Game shortcut [not even the Steam shortcut itself]. Note, the game setup "Disclosure" with which you must agree... explicitly said that the game is PERMANENTLY linked with Steam. Also, I got the bonus map due to a pre-order of the game... could not figure out how to play it. Had to get help with that [read on]. At first I activated the code with Steam, the map is listed somewhere in Steam [omg steep learning curve begins] - does it really have to be this hard? Other peoples' reviews said that one may download to other PCs - well I don't see anything in the "download" tab on Steam... and I know that my Civ5 game and the bonus map have been registered and activated...WTF!? It should be much more user friendly. The game does automatically upload to my PC however once there are any updates. Oh yes, if you seek support from Steam, you have to have a separate account - the "support account"... yes seriously. The support is rendered with folks at company called Y2k, these folks are super great though, prompt and courteous. But after all, the game is nothing new - its a Civ game that's made better, of course I like it and you will too.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2010 by Zaur