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Civilization V is the reboot that the franchise needs

Civilization V is the reboot that the franchise needs

Sid Meier’s Civilization V will be coming to the PC this fall, and with it comes a new Civilization experience. Civilization fans are used to expecting major changes each time a new iteration of the game is released, but this time the major overhaul is taking place in the combat system—the one place where the franchise has stagnated since the original game.

As veteran players know, every Civ game has allowed combat to follow the same essential trends and strategies, which go like this: Build up an army of units, which sit only as defense in your cities, unless you wish to attack someone—at which point it’s necessary to build a huge stack of units (sometimes: “stack of doom”) which move all together, space by space  toward an enemy city. When they arrive, they must be thrown against whatever units are stacked in that city until the attacker’s stack or the defender’s stack is depleted. The winner is partly random, and partly dependent upon whose technology is higher, but the only way to have a good chance of successful attack is to have far overwhelming forces. As I said, this aspect of Civilization has remained since the beginning, making combat in the game difficult to really have fun with. Civ III attempted to deal with this problem by making military units prohibitively expensive, but all this did was make it more annoying, so that idea was dropped for Civ IV.

Large scale battles will be much more complex than simply seeing whose stack falls first.

Finding a better fix for this issue was a major goal for the Civ V team, and they believe that they have found the answer. The new game will only allow players to place one military unit on each map space, and no units will ever be allowed to reside inside of the cities. Cities themselves will have a HP value which must be depleted before enemies can move in. Additionally, some units will have range attacks, which can safely fire—even over other units—while others can gain attack strength when supported by flanking units. Finally, the map spaces have been changed from squares to hexes, to stop units from exploiting diagonals to move between obstacles.

Ranged attacks will add some harassment tactics to combat.

All of these changes mean that combat in the new game will be much more tactical, and the map spaces between cities become battlefields, the shape of which will be important to defense of the city.

Another new feature is that influence will now expand one hex at a time (rather than in big jumps), and these individual spaces can even be obtained through gold expenditure, rather than only through culture points.

The city management screen looks drastically different.

The AI has also been improved. Each leader will now have a distinct personality and favorite strategies (as opposed to only three or four personalities for everyone). They will also recognize when they are failing, so that they may change strategy mid-game. For example: Napoleon’s favorite strategy is  to overwhelm his opponents with massive foot-armies. If, however,  those armies fail too much (or if the opponent is impractical to attack), he will choose to switch his focus to the space race.  Perhaps he may even pursue a diplomatic victory, choosing which one seems most likely to allow him to win. This makes the AI more like a human player , and less like an AI drone.

There are also many detail improvements, like an easy to navigate tech tree and multiple graphical tile-sets, so that each continent in a random world can have a distinctive look.

Not many other details have been announced (for instance, the only thing that we’ve been told about multi-player is that it will have full Steamworks integration), but it’s clear to see that a lot of work is going into it, and it’s shaping up to be the best Civilization game yet.

Icrontic Viewpoint:

Rob Updegrove:

Civilization was a defining game for my development as a gamer. I fondly remember the sense of discovery I felt every time I began a new game in the early years of the series. Sadly, that feeling began to wane beginning with Civilization 3. I didn’t really feel that Civ 3 or 4 had anything really compelling to show that the series was anything other than more of the same with better graphics.

Civ 5 is going to change that for me. As the Icrontic team sat for the Cilivization 5 demo in the 2K games theater at E3 2010, I felt that sense of wonder and discovery return.

The first time I ever sat down to play the first Civilization, I never opened the instruction manual. Not realizing that units could stack or that multiple units could fortify a city, I laid out my armies in strong strategic defensive positions around my cities, one unit per tile. My civlization was quickly taken apart by the computer players, as they plowed through my forces and easily into my cities with their stacks of doom.

Civilization 5 is going to allow me to play the game the way I’ve always wanted to play it. The combination of the hex tiles and one unit per tile rules are going to open up a new world of strategic capabilities during battle. As the demonstrator said, the difference is truly night and day.

Bobby Miller:

To me, Civilization V was one of the best of show games. I didn’t even see it coming. It took me by complete surprise. I’ve always adored the Civilization series, and I knew Civ V would be fantastic, but I wasn’t prepared for just how good it was shaping up to be.

Changing the tileset to a hex-based system, rather than square based, is literally going to change everything. Movement on the maps looks significantly more natural now, and it improves the strategy of combat. No longer will players need to push diagonally across the world to maximize movement while going directly East or West. This is a change that Civiliazation has needed for a very long time.

Speaking of combat, I am positively thrilled that they have removed unit stacking. The age old “Stack of Doom” was always a dumb combat mechanic to me. The new system will make players think differently when they attack or defend, and that to me is single handedly one of the most important overhauls in the new game.

Finally, I am thrilled that Firaxis is dishing out a new, custom built graphics engine for Civ V. The map itself is much more detailed than it has been in the previous incarnations. Locations differ as new continents are discovered, which makes the entire map more believable. The leaders themselves look fantastic, as we were assured that DirectX 11 was being used to the fullest extent to ensure top notch visuals.

Civilization V is going to be the end-all, be-all strategy game. I cannot wait to buy this game.

Comments

  1. Colgere
    Colgere Excellent article, I am looking forward to this game!
  2. GooD
    GooD I'll be buying this game for sure !

    No more stack of doom, finally !
  3. GnomeWizardd
    GnomeWizardd wonder how it will run on my 4670 1gb Laptop
  4. CB
    CB
    wonder how it will run on my 4670 1gb Laptop

    One of the other reporters in the room asked about this during the demo. The Demo guy said that while the final minimum specs have not been finalized, they are very aware that lots of people will want to play this game on their netbooks.
  5. Winfrey
    Winfrey For a long long time Civ II was my favorite. Maybe this will soon change?

    I dig what I am seeing and hearing.
  6. GoogleFett
    GoogleFett it still won't bring my favourite feature from Civ 2, which is the city view because i just like looking at my city but not from the world view. But the changes of Civ 5 really make me wonder what they'd do for an expansion pack or Civ 6
  7. GHoosdum
    GHoosdum There doesn't seem to be a city view as it appeared in Civ 2, however, with the single tile-based city expansions, you actually see the buildings in your city appear on the world map around it.
  8. nackbird
    nackbird never played a civiliaztion game but im going to try this one
  9. Obsidian
    Obsidian Really looking forward to this one, even if they decided not to change it much from 4.
  10. UPSLynx
    UPSLynx I cannot describe how excited I am for this game. Day one purchase, without question.
  11. Zanthian
    Zanthian This game looks amazing. I will definitely pick this up too.
  12. CB
    CB
    UPSLynx wrote:
    I cannot describe how excited I am for this game. Day one purchase, without question.

    You haven't already pre-ordered?
  13. Thrax
    Thrax I, too, have never played a Civ title, but I think it's a good time to start.
  14. UPSLynx
    UPSLynx
    CB wrote:
    You haven't already pre-ordered?

    You know, I'm a weird one. I never pre-order. The only game I ever pre-ordered was Half-Life 2 (which is also the only game I've ever bought expansion packs for). No matter how much I want the game, I don't pre-order. I don't pre-load, pre-purchase, pre-whatever.

    I walk to the store and buy it the day it comes out.

    Don't ask why, because I don't know.
  15. Thrax
    Thrax I'm the same way. I guess I just can't endorse the speculative aspects of that practice.
  16. primesuspect
    primesuspect Because you're weird.
  17. Garg
    Garg If it's on Steam, I'm pre-loading the crap out of it.
  18. GooD
    GooD The only reason i pre-order a game is to save some bucks. BestBuy often do a 5$ or 10$ rebate on a pre-ordered game.

    If its the same price, then i don't care.
  19. primesuspect
    primesuspect Sometimes you get exclusive pre-order bonuses. I've been compelled to pre-order for stuff like that.
  20. GooD
    GooD Yeah i did one time too with Dragon Age :P

    But most of the time those bonuses are nothing to get excited about. Beginning items with a different look.

    What i do like tho is to be able to get the "soundtrack" of a game in mp3 as a bonus.

    Also, Most of the nice bonuses are retailer exclusive those days. Steam will give you Kit A , Gamestop Kit B, Direct2Drive Kit C, etc... Some games have more than 6 Kit of retailer bonuses, that's insane lol But well it gives the consumer the ultimate choice in wich bonuses he wants so that's not bad. You just need to be careful and to be well informed before buying :)
  21. Vick
    Vick I absolutely love Civ 4, civ 5 is at the top of my must get list
  22. GoogleFett
    GoogleFett i constantly pre-order my games, most of the time to ensure i get collector editions(i just like getting them), pre-order bonuses, or for games that can become quite rare. but i haven`t pre-ordered civ 5 yet due to absence of funds. but i`m definitely getting the deluxe edition and world view of cities always seem lacking to me.
  23. VegaKrazmych
    VegaKrazmych This is one game that I'm very sure is going to be great! Civ 4 seemed like a step sideways, but this looks like it's going forward.
  24. Tushon
    Tushon I bought this yesterday on the amazon $20 steam-activateable (totally a word) sale and played from 930P to 430A w/o looking at the clock from like 1230 on. WTF.
  25. Starman
    Starman I did the same thing when I first got it. "Just one more turn" (for about three hours).
  26. Tushon
    Tushon That was exactly the thought I had ... I mentally said "Just one more turn, Mom!"
  27. Starman
    Starman I remember I had a big paper due, and I flipped out when I saw how much time I had left.
  28. CB
  29. CrazyJoe
    CrazyJoe Pretty excited for the expansion.

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