SlashDot Civilization 5 Review

We’ll do our own. Won’t be for a while though. Exciting new sci-fi related writing project to announce soon.

Meanwhile…

Review Civilization V

“…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.”

400-turn Civilization 5 action report

A report of some pre-release play of the new Civilization V. In sum: graphics improved, of course. And a new city growth system exploits the new map hexes nicely, which is good to hear.  Elimination of unit stacks brings the games into the realm of strategic, army-level war games. Long overdue. As the reviewer mentions, encirclement becomes a viable ground strategic goal, instead of the wars of attrition, with single-square stacks of units hammering each other until one or the other is eliminated. Additionally units now have hit points, which will make combat a bit more interesting than the winner-take-all affairs they’ve been up to now. Also discussed are city states, a totally new concept, and a revamped social policy aspect. No mention of the supposed ranged combat feature. Perhaps it was dropped. Archers firing at targets two or three hexes away at this scale would squander all the benefits of what sounds like an improved strategic combat system. Come September! Yes. We have come around.

UPDATE: Article author Stephen Totillo in an e-mail reports that ranged combat is still present, but that it works well. Not a deal breaker. We’ll see.

Civ 5 will allow conversion of Civ 4 maps

This new Civilization version 5, due out in the fall,  may be growing on me. I know I mentioned perhaps not even getting it but the self-doubts on that began immediately after writing it in a previous post. I’ll probably end up getting it, since we’ve gotten every version since the original, and Civ 4 with the Warlords and Beyond the Sword add-ons is the best iteration since then.

Not that I have a lot of saved maps  but this conversion feature will please many players, especially modders. The World Builder in 5 will allow conversion of your existing maps.

Still not on board with the ranged attacks. At these scales, archers firing more than one hex away seems to us like being able to shoot arrows from Miami to Havana. But I may be willing to live with that.

Note: I haven’t played Civ 4 in a few weeks, and so no tip posts lately. We have a few things in the works.  More later.