Is Civilization V any good?

[Anomalous_Matter]

I\'ve been playing the Civilizations games for a long time on my computer, ever since I was nine or ten years old. But I guess I kind of drifted away the past few years, because I just now realized that Civilization V is out. I was wondering what you guys think of the game before I buy it. It looks really cool from the screenshots, and I\'ve read a few reviews, but I\'d really appreciate your opinions on the game.

Some details I know I like so far:

• Less micromanagement

• Being happy in one city makes you happy in others

• Pretty amazing graphics

• Long-range fighting

Also, I was wondering if there was any way to get the map maker off Steam without getting the game from a box or from Steam itself; my parents are really untrustworthy about giving their credit card information, so I have to download it off Amazon, which we already have an account on.

[Ascensiam]

Actually i hate the new combat system like the plague, but otherwise than that, there isn\'t much wrong with it.

I feel like the game has been made \'\'child-friendly\'\' and i am a micromanagement loving person.

[Ydoow]

Ah, you\'re in luck! I got this game last year, and just recently (2 days ago) started playing again!

If you have less than 8Gb of RAM, do not buy it.

When I got it last year, I had 4Gb of RAM. The start of the games were fine, but the longer a game went on AI turns turned into crippled turtle races.

Each AI turn took about 1 minute or longer. It doesn\'t sound bad, but it really is and makes it annoying to play/finish games.

Now that I have 8 Gb, I\'ve noticed the game is MUCH more bearable.

I\'ve noticed the AI turns are still slowing down a bit (I\'m on turn 400 or so, 1920\'s), but nothing like before.

My RAM usage is around 6.2 - 7Gb (I turned my system PageFile off though, so about 2Gb is just Windows, not the game).

Graphics are really great. Things get jumpy while the AI take their turns, but I really think that\'s just a processing slowdown. During my turn, everything is pretty smooth.

Combat:

The grid is a Hexagrid, not Octagonal.

Which is better? Eh, I don\'t really think one is better than the other, but I prefer Hexagrid. It just makes things more interesting, and a little graphically smoother in some regard.

You cannot stack units anymore. (Except when you have 1 unit guarding a city, and that city produces a new unit, then it will be stacked until you move 1. I\'m not sure how fighting works in that situation)

Personally, I like this. It makes warefaring much more lengthy and require planning.

You can\'t just create one super army that wipes through an entire nation.

You have to build many units, arrange them to encompass the city (without grid-locking them!) and have them all attack then.

Ranged units are great for this type of warefare

You can have a Melee unit next to the city and ranged units several hexagons away shelling the city.

However the occasional grid-lock sometimes gets annoying, but not game breaking.

You units can pass through other units, they just can\'t land on top of them.

For some reason though, I couldn\'t pass through one of my allied City-States units. I\'m not sure why.

City-States are kinda eh.

I never really found them useful. This past game I specifically designed my nation to utilize them (lots of bonuses to make City-State relationships more efficient).

They do give you units occasionally (which is very nice), but they don\'t really do too much more.

Technically they\'re like allies that can\'t backstab you (more or less), so if you are an ally with them, then they\'ll go to war with you.

But they don\'t really do much :l

They most I\'ve seen them do during a war is

A.) Give me a unit

B.) Serve as a distraction against my enemy. The enemy will attack the City-State instead of me (the States do a great job of defending).

My only other complaint would be Denouncing and Multiplayer.

Players can denounce each other, which basically just means you\'re publicly declaring so-and-so is evil and should not be trusted.

AI throw these things around like a hot potato. Even your allies, which is annoying.

I had a great relationship with America, when suddenly he denounced me. Which caused all my other allies to denounce me ._.

Breaking Peace Treaties, or randomly declaring war does seem to cause Denouncements to fly (as I\'d expect, this is good. It makes sense). I like that, I just wish the random ones would stop, although I have to admit that it does add a little twist to the game here and there.

I\'ve only played on low difficulty too, so maybe this goes away on higher levels.

Multiplayer I haven\'t tried, but it sounds god awful.

It\'s asynchronous turned RTS. Meaning everyone is playing at their own pace, and if they operate fast enough they can play the game/advance/attack/move before you make your click.

It sounds terribly frustrating. I think it MIGHT be okay if you\'re playing with a friend though.

I haven\'t played anything past Civ2, so I don\'t know what\'s real different from Civ4 and Civ5

But there are lots of combat bonuses that help/hinder you

e.g. attacking across a river takes a heavy toll on your unit\'s effectiveness.

I\'ve played about 3.8 games and I\'ve almost put 50 hours into the game ???

I like the large maps, making for really long games.

Smaller games/maps would encounter less lag I\'m sure.

I\'m on steam often, so I could describe it a bit there or if you do get it we could try multiplayer.

I like the game a lot.

Although I\'ve only played 3.8 games (and the .8 is the only one so far I\'m truly satisfied with due to the RAM issue), I feel like I got my money out of this game.

50 hours is quite a bit. I didn\'t HATE those first 40 hours I played, it was just that the games ended with disappointment because of the severe AI turn lag.