Civilization V

 Zach Goodier

Civ V is all about, well, leading a civilization.  You take control of one of several popular and influential leaders and their society, leading it through technological development, expansion, diplomacy, and war.  The final goal is for you civilization to sit at the top, to be the leading world power, but this can be done several ways.  It is possible to go the entire game without ever fighting a battle (but not nearly as fun).  You can establish a United Nations, World Bank, or construct a space wonder to win the game.

HEXAGONS!!!

Story:

The story is entirely yours to shape as you play.  You can fight, or you can be peaceful, but certain societies have specific perks, some relate to wars, others to transportation and trade, or other abilities that reflect the achievements of the civilizations themselves.  For example, I love to play as Japan because their military units always fight as though they were at full strength, even if they are damaged/diminished.  This ability is called “Bushido,” which reflects an iconic element of Japanese culture.  Native Americans can move through forests faster than other civilizations, and etc.  But you are always free to play as you see fit, but it’s best to choose a civilization to suit your play style.

Things look a little more lifelike this time around.

Gameplay:

You can tweak the speed that things occur in the game, making gameplay as fast or as slow as you want.  Beyond that, it’s all simply what all Civilization games have always been.  You try to balance industry, economy, research, and military strength in order to make your society thrive.  It’s nearly impossible to completely devote to one area, and you really wouldn’t want to.  Money is obviously important, but you need science to improve you technology so you can buy the things you need.  Military strength is a must to fend of hordes of barbarians in the early game, and to defend your borders later on from other societies.  You might think that you can buy peoples’ loyalties, and you can, but only for so long.  If others see you as weak, you’ll quickly find yourself dealing with lots of enemies/rivals.  The biggest change is the use of hexagonal tiles in the field, allowing units to move in more diverse ways from the simple square grids from previous titles.

The leaders look more sophisticated than they generally are.

Graphics:

This is a huge area of improvement, with better textures and models for all the units.  Also, the models use textures from the actual units they’re based on for unique units.  The overall look is less cartoon-like than previous titles, trying to focus more on realism.

Science is fun, especially when you have nukes... nukes are fun.

Overall:

This is an exciting strategy game.  It allows for divergent play styles without sacrificing the ability to branch out and experiment with possibilities.  In fact, it rewards experimentation, because as you tinker with different setups for all of your sectors of society, you learn more about the important roles they all serve, and how to strike the right balance so that your economy can supplement you military, your military can aid in diplomacy, and it all making your technology advance.  

Social policies allow you to tweak your society throughout the game, they can affect any number of things from military, to economic and general happiness around your society.

This game is exciting, but the only fault is that you will eventually realize that you’re always playing the same game over and over, just with maybe a randomized map, and different units/skills.  This doesn’t make the game bad, but it does limit the replayability.  Plus the civilizations don’t feel as varied when they’re all on the map, they just feel like preset AI’s that are set to behave aggressive, or defensive, etc.  This can also hurt the replay value a bit, since leaders don’t act like the sophisticated people on which they’re based.

Good:

-Improved maps, with hexagonal grids rather than square-based

-Awesome textures all-around

-Unique abilities for leaders reflect the legacy of their societies

Bad:

-Leader AI and gameplay can feel repetitive.

Scully Rating: 9 out of 10