Civilization V Special Edition Detailed

BoydofZINJ

I was a bit disapointed with the $99.99 price tag... and the fact we get so FEW civilizations to play with. How many did we get in this one? 7? 9? Yet with Civilization 4, we had so many different choices and options.

I was thinking. I did not like vanilla civilization IV nearly as much as Beyond the Sword. So I am hoping the mods and expansions will make the expansion an worthy successor to Beyond the Sword. AND DARN IT TO @@@@, make Wonders more powerful and religions more .... i dunno... interesting.

Here are my thoughts:


The UI needs some serious love. Especially lacking is the track enemy units option that was in Civs 1-4. Instead we get some plug ugly icon that we have to click on. PAH! The UI seems like it was made for the WII instead of a PC. And finally even though every retail launch CIV has this problem, the AI is not that impressive.

Civilization V is not Civilization IV:

It s just not. Let s just put that dead horse to rest right now. I loved IV. I still love IV. But to compare these two games to one another really wouldn t do either one justice. Some components of IV please me more and some parts of V make me happier. A lot of that is really subjective so we ll just leave it there for this review. Any comparison to the past can be read as a reference to the Civ pedigree, not exclusively the previous title. In many ways this is the most difficult bit to write. I m stuck between loving (and yes, enjoying very much) the new gameplay changes and constantly asking myself, not why did they change x, y or z from CiV IV but why did they make a particular decision at all or why didn t they carry it forward logically into a better iteration?

Empire building in general is pretty straightforward. Each building has a purpose (money, science, production, food or culture) and each category has tiers of awesomeness that you can climb, if you ve balanced your happy / cash seesaw appropriately. My only problem with this is that it s very, very transparent and maybe too straightforward?

Warfare is excellent. Single unit per tile was a good way to go. Hexes increase fairness and require a bit more thought and planning, which is a good thing. Fighting is in many ways the most satisfying part of Civilization V. The only drawback is that no one seems to have told the AI how to do it. If it gets the drop on you and invades when you aren t ready it can seem pretty intimidating. If it can t overwhelm you with units however then it seems to just give up and wait for the end. I ve played for a day now and I feel confident of my ability to invade a foe twice my size (currently happening in the game I m playing now) Once I break his main line he s done. It s over. He just rolls over. In a week from now am I still going to want to bother? The AI, in my opinion, is a severe shortcoming of Civilization V. It also has the very funny habit of sending undefended workers into the front lines. Why? I have no idea. But it does so consistently, so you can capture enemy works and force them to work for you. Saves build time.

The result is that the AI opponents don t feel like people. They don t have the personality of the foes from past games. They just feel like AIs that are all plotting against you in some rudimentary, 1990s AI kind of way that you really don t need to think about too much. He ll build lots of units so I ll build lots of units is all you need to know. The flavor is completely gone and no amount of animation or voice acting is going to change that

One final but important thought on diplomacy: city-states. They re just awesome. They re pure win and there is nothing negative to say about them. I want to see a component of an expansion dedicated to these guys because they were one of the breaths of fresh air that the series needed. They re fantastic. Did I mention that I really like city-states?
The hex system makes the world look very nice and makes it more fun to explore. The oil-painted overall look of the map is excellent. The different tile sets for different continents are just plain cool and will add to the replayability of the game. In other words, their heart was in the right place with the art style of the game, but many of the details seem like they could have used more careful judgment or more time in the creative process. A lot of details look just plain rushed, though.

If this all seems somewhat contradictory and it doesn t leave you with a real thumbs up-thumbs down feeling on the game, then that s perfect because that s exactly how I feel about the game. I keep playing, which has to be worth something I m just not sure if I ll be playing four years from now like some other games I won t mention. I like the game and its changes, but I m not sure if I ll keep liking them or more importantly if they were worth what the series lost. While I m playing I keep getting this feeling like I m having fun and this thing has high production value and oh that s neat and this is cool