Civilization V

[StorminNorman]

This deserves its own thread.

Civilisation "CivAnon" trailer. (http://kotaku.com/5569527/civilization-addiction-is-as-real-as-this-trailer-suggests)

I think there's a little bit of all of us in that clip.

The game's due out later this year, and I'm pretty sure you can already pre-order it via Steam if that's your thing. It's moving to a wargaming-style hexagonal grid, which will quite radically alter the way Civ is traditionally played.

There's also apparently going to be something of a focus on user-generated content, with in-game support for mod finding and downloading, which is potentially really cool.

I really, really can't wait for this.

[Serenity]

I really cannot wait for this game. It's been a long time coming.

[texta]

Pretty excited. Just need to buy a new computer and make sure I don't have a job in the second half of the year.

[texta]

Two days to go!!

[HiredMan]

Oooh, I haven't played a Civ since the original. Will buy.

Will games in this version take (literally) days? If so, awesome.

[texta]

I think so. There's been some fairly big changes (like no army stacking), but I suspect games will take as long as they always have.

I'm going to give the demo a bit of a go on Steam while I wait.

[ElPresidente]

After the rollercoaster ride that was my access to review code for this I wasn't able to get truly worked up for the release. Now its settled I'll be going the standard consumer route, the two days wait for the Steam unlock (bought and preloaded) is agonising! :(

Regarding the length of games - I've spoken to a number of people who have had code for a while and yes, games will still be of epic length with the larger civilization numbers and landmass options selected.

[Slippery]

Demo downloading

[ElPresidente]

I'm not touching the demo. I don't want to spoil any of this. :)

[Emilbus]

Just tried the demo..only get 100 turns. :( I want this now!

[Slippery]

Since I'll probably not buy it due to my large need for both time and money, the demo will have to do.

[Silverwolf]

Ouch, its $80 US on steam. That's just cruel. Guess I will wait a few months for a price drop then =(

[Vindik8or]

I'm not touching the demo. I don't want to spoil any of this. :)

Like... whether this one will include military, cultural, or technological victories?

[Emilbus]

Ouch, its $80 US on steam. That's just cruel. Guess I will wait a few months for a price drop then =(

Ozgameshop has it for $40 free deliver.

http://www.ozgameshop.com/pc-games/sid-meiers-civilization-v-5-game-pc

[Surgeon.]

So apart from the improved interface, the no-stacking and the improved graphics, what's changed?

I've always loved civ, but after listening to the latest bombcast I'm kinda afraid that it's the same game with a fresh coat of paint.

[aubergine]

I just bought Civ IV for $20. Will get V when VI comes out.

[StorminNorman]

Ars Technica review. (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/statecraft-as-entertainment-ars-reviews-civilization-v.ars)

Gives a good summary of what's new and what's changed for those who are curious.

[HiredMan]

So my local JB has this on the shelves for $89. Sorely tempted.

[Vindik8or]

Ars Technica review. (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/statecraft-as-entertainment-ars-reviews-civilization-v.ars)

Gives a good summary of what's new and what's changed for those who are curious.

I wouldn't call six pages a "good summary".

[StorminNorman]

So anyway, I bought this game from JB Hi-Fi this morning and now I can't play it because Steam thinks it hasn't been released yet.

WHAT THE ****

[Lazlow]

Man... you know you have an old PC when your CPU, not just the clock speed, doesn't make the cut in the minimum requirements. :(

[That_Gamer_Guy_64]

hey op, listen up you ****ing asshole. do you see an s in 'Civilization' on the box cover? no? then don't localise spelling for titles you daft ****

[Vindik8or]

Outstanding.

[StorminNorman]

So anyway, it turns out that the problem with Steam activation for this game is affecting the entire nation of Australia, due to 2K pushing the local release of the game back a day and then not telling anyone or some shit.

So yeah, don't buy this game today.

[texta]

hey op, listen up you ****ing asshole. do you see an s in 'Civilization' on the box cover? no? then don't localise spelling for titles you daft ****

Agreed. Furthermore, "Civilization" is the traditional English spelling and makes more sense etymologically than the modern French derived "Civilisation" so we should be using it anyway.

So anyway, it turns out that the problem with Steam activation for this game is affecting the entire nation of Australia, due to 2K pushing the local release of the game back a day and then not telling anyone or some shit.

So yeah, don't buy this game today.I was under the impression that the worldwide release date was the 24th anyway.

[Vindik8or]

So anyway, it turns out that the problem with Steam activation for this game is affecting the entire nation of Australia, due to 2K pushing the local release of the game back a day and then not telling anyone or some shit.

So yeah, don't buy this game today.

That is not a reason to not buy it today.

[Choabac]

I got the game for cheap by arranging a US GAF member to gift it to me in return for payment by paypal.

Pre-loaded and ready to be unlocked.

[ElPresidente]

Release for everywhere EXCEPT the US is the 24th. The US got it a day early.

[Choabac]

I remember your review of Civ IV.

Are you doing this one?

EDIT - Ah, so you are.

[ElPresidente]

Nope, no I'm not. Hence the roller-coaster and anguish waiting for tomorrow. :P

Meghann did the PCPP review and I think it will be her name you see next to the Hyper one too.

I begrudgingly admit (out of jealousy :P) that the PCPP review is excellent and I'd expect the same from Hyper's.

[Cerebral]

5 min into the demo and the game completely owns.

Probably shouldn't buy it though...it will be the end of me

[Slippery]

5 min into the demo and the game completely owns.

Probably shouldn't buy it though...it will be the end of me

My thoughts exactly

[ElPresidente]

I only just managed to stop playing the game at 2:00. Woops. :P

[/backslash]

Man... you know you have an old PC when your CPU, not just the clock speed, doesn't make the cut in the minimum requirements. :(
I should consider contacting you next time I upgrade my PC, most of the time I practically give my old (but still good) pc parts to friends/family for almost nothing

[Slippery]

I really wish I hadn't watched the Civ 5 quick look on Giant Bomb.

Do want.

[Spudzilla]

Is this out now?

[HiredMan]

It was out yesterday, but you couldn't play it 'til today.

[Spudzilla]

brb, running to the shop

[Spudzilla]

well there goes the rest of my holidays

[ElPresidente]

I'm supposed to be reviewing stuff this weekend. How will that happen in the face of Civ V I ask you?!?!

[HiredMan]

had a shit day at work, thinking of buying myself this and a slab of beer as a long weekend reward.

[lex3191]

must not be tempted to buy this game...

[dinopoke]

Nope, no I'm not. Hence the roller-coaster and anguish waiting for tomorrow. :P

Meghann did the PCPP review and I think it will be her name you see next to the Hyper one too.

I begrudgingly admit (out of jealousy :P) that the PCPP review is excellent and I'd expect the same from Hyper's.

This is crazy, why would you get her to rewrite the same review?

[lex3191]

its already happened at least twice since the regime change, one being two differing reviews for Starcraft 2 by the same reviewer in both PCPP and Hyper:o

[JimmyKane]

Should I get this y/n

[/backslash]

This is another situation where I'd like to watch & see someone I know playing it, rather than playing it myself

[Cerebral]

Are you serious

do you enjoy spectating board games by any chance

[Gameboffin]

its already happened at least twice since the regime change, one being two differing reviews for Starcraft 2 by the same reviewer in both PCPP and Hyper:o

Whilst it's not ideal, having a budget sometimes makes this the only option. There's also the fact that limited review copies from publishers sometimes means only one reviewer can get time with a title.

[TrinityJayOne]

Never played a Civ game in my life, fired up the demo and.....hey! Where'd the last 5 hours go?!

I may have to buy this.

[StorminNorman]

Civ games are a bit like that. I sat down at about midday yesterday to start playing and the next thing I knew it was dinnertime.

[texta]

This is crazy, why would you get her to rewrite the same review?

It pretty much makes PCPP totally redundant. Great way to decrease sales.



Downloading now. At 800kb/s. Yuck. If I'd went with a pirated version it would have finished by now.

[TrinityJayOne]

Just went out and bought it, installing now. **** you, Sid Meier. :D

[Rambo]

Marathon Hyper game anyone?

[Slippery]

Downloading now. At 800kb/s. Yuck. If I'd went with a pirated version it would have finished by now.

Don't think you can pirate it - Steam and all. Might be wrong though.

[sausage]

You don't need to see his identification.

[texta]

Don't think you can pirate it - Steam and all. Might be wrong though.
I am confident that every game on steam can be pirated. But you would miss out on achievements, online play through steam etc.

[AranchineD]

Don't think you can pirate it - Steam and all. Might be wrong though.

There's already a cracked version out, m8

[texta]

Anyway.

I gave it a small play through last night and had a reasonably good time.

The one big difference is not being able to have two (or more) units on the same square at the same time is pretty annoying. Having to do your own path finding is an unwelcome change imo.

The cities being able to bombard troops is okay. It feels like a change to make the game easier for beginners more than anything and it'll be interesting to see what impact it has on early rushes.

I haven't had much chance to play with the changes to sea travel yet, but that seems okay.

[Slippery]

I am confident that every game on steam can be pirated. But you would miss out on achievements, online play through steam etc.

There's already a cracked version out, m8

I stand corrected.

[Spudzilla]

dinnertime.

How old are you?

[Saxby]

First civ game I've played. It took me all day to finish a game on quick mode. Kind of annoying. Also, having a huge army is terrible. Slows the game down like crazy and the camera constantly flicks between the units on different sides of the map. Wish I could turn it off.

[ElPresidente]

The one big difference is not being able to have two (or more) units on the same square at the same time is pretty annoying.

It makes combat a much more strategic affair (in terms of Civ) than unit stacking.

One of the best enhancement to the series to date.

[texta]

Disagree.

The difference in strategy is almost trivial. But it's a **** when you're not at war with anyone and you waste moves because your scout gets blocked by a neutral scout moving into your path.

[ElPresidente]

No longer being able to blitz your way through your opponents with a super stack is a pretty fundamental change to the strategy. With there now being a hard limit on the number of units that can attack any one unit at a time winning has become more than a numbers game. You need the right units on the right squares, etc. I plan out my attacks much more than I ever have.

Another thing I've noticed. Veterancy feels more integrated into the gameplay than prior releases. I've got a number of units now who have been building experience over hundreds of years and they are a true terror when attacking from squares I've customised their perks to take advantage of.

It could just be this is the first Civ where I've really cared about experience and as such it feels more pronounced. In the alternative, the design may be the reason this is the first time I've cared about promotions.

[texta]

I think that says more about the amount of strategy you've employed in other games more than anything else.

[ElPresidente]

I'm talking about Civ specifically. The super stack has been a part of Civ strategy since the first game. I'm stoked to see it gone.

[texta]

Yeah I realize that. I've played a lot of Civ before and I don't think the lack of a stack makes the game a whole lot more strategic. The only extra thought that comes in is doing manual path finding. If you're playing the game properly you should have already been paying a lot of attention to what troops go where to tackle what threats.

And as far as the soldier leveling go, I don't think it's any different to Civ 4. So if you're treating more experienced troops differently to how you have in the past, that's as I say, more to do with how you've played the game previously than anything else.

[ElPresidente]

Happy for that. I thought your post was about unit stacking - a point with which I disagree with you on considerably. :P

[ElPresidente]

Those (like myself) experiencing issues with the game such as crashing, etc will be pleased to hear that a patch for the game is now out.

- Modding - Installer and permissions fixes. Should address any remaining mod download and install issues.

- Full screen crash fix. Game will now restart in Windowed mode if it cannot find a suitable full-screen resolution on first start.

- Hall of Fame now records data correctly when using a Windows username with special characters.

- Deal expiration fixes.

- Fix for Puppet State production exploit.

- Misc crash fixes.

[StorminNorman]

Hopefully it fixes the bug I encountered yesterday where invading a city would cause the game to crash.

It was only one city, but no matter what I did, the game would crash if I tried to take it.

[Slippery]

Nuke it.

[Saxby]

Thank christ. My Civ game was glitching like a mofo. terrrrrible.

[Ad-Rock]

How I long for the days when a game was released without needing immediate patching...

[texta]

It's worked fine for me.

[TrinityJayOne]

What he said. I've had the odd artifacted icon, but no other issues and my rig barely scrapes past the minimum reqs.

[ElPresidente]

Power isn't the issue. It is the endless variety of potential PC configurations that mean some bugs like crashing won't appear until a game is released in to the wild and even then often only manage to affect a minority of users.

[Azzaman]

might try to pick this up, is $75 @ big w the cheapest so far?

EDIT: nvm I bought it. Now to hide it from the missus otherwise she'll kill me for a $75 purchase ;)

EDIT2: holee sh*t civ's still got it.

[texta]

Played a massively long game to get the cultural victory achievement as well as the large map achievement. Finished about 4am and today I discover that Steam didn't record the achievements. FML.

[Emilbus]

Yea i think some of Steam server was down last night.

[Silph]

Played a massively long game to get the cultural victory achievement as well as the large map achievement. Finished about 4am and today I discover that Steam didn't record the achievements. FML.
Load an autosave and finish it up again? :confused:

[texta]

Ridiculous. I'll just play a new one. Pretty sure I can win much quicker next time.

[TrinityJayOne]

Bump!

I had ignored this game for far too long, only recently actually saw a game through to completion (I only play on marathon). My first victory I went for was science as Babylon, huge ring-world map with only 5 other civs. Previously I had always spread out my cities, but then some **** would come and build on top of my trade route. :@ So for this match I decided to go with a relatively smaller area and basically work to quickly block off any chance of someone else settling near me. Geography worked in my favour with a nice body of water between the bits I wanted to build in. Here's what things looked like early on-

http://members.iinet.net.au/~trinityjayone/civ/BabSci1.jpg

Aaaand much later on, not too long before I won-

http://members.iinet.net.au/~trinityjayone/civ/BabSci2.jpg

Things went a bit funny towards the end because this was my first time getting past the industrial age and I was just testing things out. This one also kinda sidetracked into a military game half way through. >_> Early in the piece I saw the Danes coming up through the lake in my area with a lot of units and immediately knew war was coming. :( My military was woeful but my production was insane, so I dropped everything and built Walls of Babylon (racial building) in every town. I lost many units but so did they, and nothing got captured. :D From that point on I held a massive grudge and basically refused to negotiate peace for the entire game, even when they were offering all they had. Towards the end of the game I stormed them with a bunch of tanks and bombers, taking out 3/4 of their cities before my units were wiped out and I went back to finishing my space shuttle.

Second win I played a large map as Mongolia with 3 opponents, going for a domination victory. This one was over fairly quick because Keshiks are ****ing mental. Ranged unit with 5 moves, 2 attacks /turn, 3 range and self-healing. I had 5 of those, plus 2 Khans (3 healing to all adjacent units). :o No pics because it wasn't a fantastic game, everyone but Pachacuti just bent over.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~trinityjayone/civ/HoF1.jpg


After that one I decided that maybe the big maps are better off with the default number of civs that the game suggests, so now I'm playing another large map as Montezuma with like 10 civs, going for cultural this time. No screenshots yet but so far it's been a pretty good game (at around 200AD I think) with a hairy start. Early on my neighbour Spain decided they wanted to be dicks and declared war, while Greece kept taunting me for having a shit military, and then Mongolia showed up. :( Chased Spain out pretty quickly but relations are yet to recover, Greece have come around and Mongolia is being Mongolia. They decided to declare war on India, whom I had friendly relations with, so I went to help out. Mongolia were far & away winning by this point though (score of 400~, compared to everyone else between 100-250) and were friendly to me to boot, so I was hesitant to declare war. Instead I took a bunch of units and cockblocked Mongolia's takeover by surrounding the newly settled city they were trying to take. :D India survived.

All was fine afterwards, then about 80 turns later I was gloating to Aran about it, and what happens? Mongolia declares war. :( Their invasion force was a paltry 2 units who were quickly dispatched, so I decided to nip it in the bud and marched up to their territory with 3 pimped (I will get to this) swordsman. I took out plenty of units and almost captured a new city, but their stream of new units was too great and I had to withdraw. Still, I was too well defended for capture so I wasn't about to accept their extremely biased peace deals. Shortly after that Polynesia & Greece declared war on Mongolia, just as they had snuck a settler across a big lake to near where I was. I quickly captured the new city + another settler they didn't get to use, and killed plenty of their units as they streamed onto the shore. Elsewhere, Polynesia got taken out and I lost a mutually beneficial trade-partner.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~trinityjayone/khan.jpg

Anyways, that's where I am now. Relations are pretty good all-round for me, a lot of civs don't like Rome, and the Ottoman keep on denouncing people and declaring war despite having the lowest score. Pretty sure they'll be next on the way out.


Now, onto the "pimping". The Aztec start with Jaguars instead of warriors, who fight better in jungle tiles and heal 2 damage when they kill a unit. I discovered that if I promote a Jaguar to a swordsman, they keep these perks. If I train a new swordsman, no perks. I started just training Jaguars and instantly promoting them, then at some point the Jaguar option was removed altogether (one I was producing automatically changed to a swordsman even). I could be wrong but I think this occurred when I researched Steel and unlocked the longswordsman. The swordsman I had already trained from Jaguars still kept the perks. Anyone know what sets this off? Theoretically could I just make a shiteload of Jaguars early on and train them up later?

Finally, who's up for a marathon game some time?

[Surgeon.]

I really, really like Civ5 but it just shits me off after a while.

AI is tactically moronic, ridiculously over aggressive towards you and just generally awful. Not to mention that the higher difficulties simply involve the AI getting more resources, rather than playing better.

This usually results in the AI building ridiculously huge armies that are too stupid to capture anything.

[TrinityJayOne]

They could certainly be a bit more dynamic, I'll give you that. For example lastnight India cracked the shits at me when it asked for some tiny amount of gold and I refused, so that I could give them a much higher amount myself. They became angry that I denied their request, even though I immediately gave them 5x as much gold. :confused:

If you like playing on marathon we should have a game.

[Slippery]

Civ takes forever as is, why would you want to make it take longer!

Civ 5's AI problems stop that game from being amazing.

Edit: I think they may have changed it, but when I was playing it was way more viable to have many small cities and a few large ones than 5-6 large cities, just because of meeting happiness requirements. I want large cities damnit!

[Spazzola]

Edit: I think they may have changed it, but when I was playing it was way more viable to have many small cities and a few large ones than 5-6 large cities, just because of meeting happiness requirements. I want large cities damnit!

I've got a marathon on ice at the moment, but India seems to be the way to go for few but large cities. With other races you are way too reliant on luxury goods and sinking excessive turns into happiness structures. But yeah, all large cities just doesn't seem viable, which is a shame.

[TrinityJayOne]

Yep, you'll never break even with happiness without pimping out the happiness buildings. It's a bit lame that the CPU gets the massive offset and gets like 30-40 happiness without even trying.


PS: Finished that game at 4:40am this morning. >_> Spain came around to me and we had a good relationship, then they went back to disliking me, then back to neutral, etc. Rome became the new power after nearly every civ simultaneously declared war on Mongolia, although they were still the black sheep nobody talked to on account of being the most aggressive. France, India and the Ottomans were all wiped out. England somehow survived not being attacked at all even though they only had one city the whole game, Spain survived as well after I busted up a Roman invasion for her. Greece ended up being my only friend.

[Lazlow]

This reminds me, I have the Dune Wars mod for CivIV and am yet to play it.

[Spazzola]

Out of curiosity, what difficulty were you playing on, Trin? Do the higher difficulties actually improve the AI, or just do a Stardock and give them insane bonuses?

[TrinityJayOne]

Extra bonuses.

Also, I wish they would optimize shit. I can run the game on full settings on the biggest maps and it's as smooth as silk, until I click "next turn" and it starts processing everyone else's turns. Then it chugs until every CPU civ has had their moves, which is annoying when you're trying to follow the action. Only does it when I can see a lot of different civs, and maps with a lot of water seemingly make it worse. I thought it was the settings, but even if I put everything on low/off it would still do it. The only time I see it using all cores even remotely is when it's loading the game, which puts all 4 at 100%.

[Azzaman]

Damn it Trin, you make me want to play civ5 again. I have too much to play atm...

[Slippery]

Civ 5 $27 on Steam today, 66% off.

[Natrak]

Took advantage of the sale on Friday, it's pretty great. Love how slick the interface is.

[AranchineD]

You know what was fun


buying this game for $8 then never playing it because IV is better

[TrinityJayOne]

Here we go, old man Aran is going to tell us about the good old days! Remind us how far your stack of 20 units on one tile had to walk through the snow to each battle, which was somehow uphill both ways. :P

[Surgeon.]

Oh god . . the megastack.

I couldn't go back to that.

[AranchineD]

the only people who got mad at stacks were people trying to pussy their way to cultural or space victory without building any military units, getting another civ to protect them or just simply having the brains to realise an aggressive type civ will actually attack other civs

[AranchineD]

it's much better now that players don't even have to think to win games now, because they can simply take advantage of a dumb AI using even dumber mechanics

[Surgeon.]

Hasn't there recently been a couple of patches improving the AI?

Civ 5 with competent AI would make me pretty happy.

[AranchineD]

They improved it. But it's still bad

[aubergine]

V doesn't have Leonard Nimoy, so how can it be good?

[Slippery]

They improved it. But it's still bad

Haven't played patches, but before it was pretty awful.

[Spazzola]

Between the choice of mountainous land (effectively shutting down my archers, while the AI was purely melee and would benefit) and a small chunk of ocean (filled with my triremes), the AI chose the ocean. Unless there's been a miracle AI patch in the past few weeks, then it's still abysmal.

[Surgeon.]

I've had a civilization declare war on me, despite the fact that they were in the process of being decimated by another civ and only had about 2 cities left.

[Azzaman]

Just wanted to bring on the inevitable.