Civilization 5 Review
Sid Meier’s “Civilization” series has stood the test of time and has been one of the most popular strategy games to appear on the market. The latest addition, 2010’s Civilization V, is no different from this formula. There are several civilization choices that range from Queen Elizabeth and the English, to George Washington and the early Americans. After you’ve chosen your own civilization, you also get quite a few customizable options to tailor the game to your liking. These options include game length, amount of players, map shape, and even the weather. You begin the game with a pack of settlers and a band of warriors; once you’ve settled your first city, the game truly begins. As with all of the Civilization games, the first thing I noticed was Sid Meier’s ability to completely immerse you in his game world. The choices you make greatly define the course of your civilization over the length of the game. For example, if you make progresses in science and build cities that accommodate such progression, then you may be on your way to a space race victory in which you blast off into space to find a new world. Other victories include cultural, economic, time, and destruction.
Victory by Destruction involves destroying your opponents’ cities and units through constant warfare.
To reach the previously mentioned victories; you must use your cities to produce beneficial constructions like new units and structures that support the strategy you are using. For example, a science strategist would build universities and observatories over soldiers and barracks. There are also technologies that are always being researched during the game. Once researched, these technologies unlock new units, buildings and world wonders that you can build to aid your civilization on the path to victory. While producing units and researching technologies, you also have to maintain your civilization’s happiness, culture, money and science output. This proves especially tricky, so be careful, allocation of resources is required. Finally, you also get to choose social policies which give bonuses based on certain criteria such as a naval based civilization or an army focused civilization.
The only problems I found with this game were miniscule and mostly related to the AI. For example, one turn, Ghandi would be signing a research agreement and peace treaty with me, but the next, he would be lining troops up at my borders. They sometimes seemed overly aggressive but it may have been an intentional addition by the developers to add an extra degree of difficulty to the game.
Score
Summary: If you are a fan of Sid Meier and Civilization games and looking for more gameplay to enjoy, Civilization 5 will not disappoint you one bit. This game is truly another great addition to the Civilization series and includes great gameplay, a fantastic soundtrack, and plenty of re-playability that makes it more than worth the price tag. And with the recent release of the Gods and Kings expansion pack, which adds even more content such as religion, spies, new units and new civilizations, there is even more to enjoy!
4
About the Author
Bronson Kitts+ I'm a Canadian game development student who enjoys writing and gaming in my spare time. Joining Hard Reset was an easy decision as it allowed me to combine two of my passions. My favourite games are mostly Action RPGs and shooters.
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