Civilization V

[Uncle Peter]

Anyone played it yet? Been lurking around the Civ forums for opinions and there are far too many conflicting views to influence a buy/no-buy decision. Not really impressed that civics and religions are missing and the recommended system specs seem to indicate that you need a military grade supercomputer to get the best out of it.

[Matt D]

I don't think my ageing PC could handle it

I think there's a demo on Steam, though. I may try that out.

[Barewolf]

ive seen reviews and it doesnt seem to be that good from what i can gather

[chris9991]

I know a lot of the reviews pre-release spoke pretty highly of it but since then I've seen the more negative ones come out of the woodwork.

I quite like the game but I've only played it for few hours; it does for me have a play one more turn addiction

[dizziblonde]

I'm enjoying it (and I've played Civ since Civ1... Civ2 is probably the reason I missed out on a first at uni by one mark) but it IS a bit too far away from pure, beautiful, classic Civ for some - I didn't enjoy it as much as I did IV at first, but once you get into it, it is a great game, just a lot of the standard Civ strategies don't work anymore (no stacking units for example) so it feels a bit like your favourite auntie suddenly coming in in an Ann Summers outfit instead of a woolly twinset and pearls.

The religion thing - I still miss blasting to my old favourites, some of the wonders have been nerfed back in their powers, but the system in their place actually works really well (upgrading along branches with lockouts for mutually incompatible belief systems - I forget the exact name for it at 8am pre-coffee). The difficulty curve on the settings is somewhat inconsistent - the first two are jokes to beat, by number three the game's had its Weetabix.

Graphically it's stunning, runs decently on my PC (year old quad core) - but has the eternal Civ problem of late-game slowdown based purely on having to generate all the enemy AI turns.

II is still the best but this one is the usual Civ black hole of time sucking in and losing afternoons into evenings into nights.

I'd love an updated Alpha Centauri to be honest.

Oh yes, and it uses Steam which I've previously managed to resist getting the evil empire of installed on my PC.

[Uncle Peter]

Originally Posted by dizziblonde

I'm enjoying it (and I've played Civ since Civ1... Civ2 is probably the reason I missed out on a first at uni by one mark) but it IS a bit too far away from pure, beautiful, classic Civ for some - I didn't enjoy it as much as I did IV at first, but once you get into it, it is a great game, just a lot of the standard Civ strategies don't work anymore (no stacking units for example) so it feels a bit like your favourite auntie suddenly coming in in an Ann Summers outfit instead of a woolly twinset and pearls.

The religion thing - I still miss blasting to my old favourites, some of the wonders have been nerfed back in their powers, but the system in their place actually works really well (upgrading along branches with lockouts for mutually incompatible belief systems - I forget the exact name for it at 8am pre-coffee). The difficulty curve on the settings is somewhat inconsistent - the first two are jokes to beat, by number three the game's had its Weetabix.

Graphically it's stunning, runs decently on my PC (year old quad core) - but has the eternal Civ problem of late-game slowdown based purely on having to generate all the enemy AI turns.

II is still the best but this one is the usual Civ black hole of time sucking in and losing afternoons into evenings into nights.

I'd love an updated Alpha Centauri to be honest.

Oh yes, and it uses Steam which I've previously managed to resist getting the evil empire of installed on my PC.

Thanks for the excellent, informative summary. I guess the key is that you persevere with it. I've read comments from others where they've immediately decided that it's not as good as IV and cast it aside without playing any further.

This machine isn't quite up to the recommended spec though so it's going to be an expensive game!

[DocDutch]

played the enhanced demo and again i miss the way 3 was okay graphics wise its brilliant but in my opinion game play sucks and i've wasted too many a day night or weekend playin 1 2 and 3. Saying that i did love ctp as well if they could work that 1 into modern stuff i would be pretty happy. 1 of my main gripes with 4 and 5 is the tech tree and city screens but thats perhaps me

[Derek]

I like it.

Some of the changes from Civ IV are taking me a bit of getting used to but overall I'm very impressed.

[Matt D]

Originally Posted by dizziblonde

I'd love an updated Alpha Centauri to be honest.

Ah, I have fond memories of SMAC

[Uncle Peter]

Finally, we will soon be able to wage war on the infidels once again! Religion and espionage makes a return.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ring-the-faith

Gods and Kings expansion pack is due out soon. Don't think there's a firm release date as yet but it's imminent.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

Finally, we will soon be able to wage war on the infidels once again! Religion and espionage makes a return.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ring-the-faith

Gods and Kings expansion pack is due out soon. Don't think there's a firm release date as yet but it's imminent.

Yes looking forward to it as l have bought everything ever since the first Civ came out.

[Gavin78]

Dont know what pc you are using but I am using a quadcore AMD 3.4ghz, geforce 460 GTX and 8 gig of ddr 3 ram.

Game runs fine on mine although it was running fine on my old system, dualcore 2.8ghz geforce 260 gtx and 8 gig of ddr 2

[Uncle Peter]

Release date is now fixed at 22nd June

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...date-announced

The way they've worked the religion system seems pretty neat.