Civilization V Review

The Civilization series is fabled on the PC for its addictive and fun gameplay and complex design both online and off. After a well received attempt to place the popular strategy game on consoles the definitive strategy series has returned to its home platform in the best instalment yet.

The latest entry is a beast as far as options go. You have eighteen different civilizations to take command of, each with their own strengths and benefits across hundreds of randomly generated maps. Both single and multiplayer modes can be edited and tweaked and edited to your liking including difficulties, maps and even how many and whichever leaders you'll be facing through the game's enormous length of at least three hundred turns to achieve victory. This can come in four ways; domination where you must capture all capital cities, technology when all technologies are researched and a spacecraft is launched, economic when the player accumulates enough gold and builds the World Bank and cultural where all nations live in harmony and the Utopia project wonder in built. The only problem with this is that some online matches simply won't finish unless players use the turn limit function. Through the game you'll be building cities across the land, conducting diplomacy with other nations, researching technologies to unlock new units and attacking and defeating enemies, which could be barbarians or units from other hostile nations. Between all of this you'll also meet city states who are uninvolved in the race to achieve the victory conditions and uncover wonders which can reap massive benefits for your civilization. City management is a vital part of the game. These can be focused on a particular area eg: science, gold, production and these can be expanded by building the many, many buildings which give bonuses to defence among others, or wonders to increase culture output in the city of your choice. Cities will gradually grow larger with higher populations which will in turn, produce at a more brisk rate. If all else fails you can slap down some gold to instantly buy a unit. Multiplayer features all of these features but with the added unpredictability of human competition. Connection is usually easy and efficient with a server browser in place as well as the possibility of modification tools, provided you have the time to download an extra pack. Civilization 5's feature set is enormous and with downloadable content on the way, players will be playing it long before and after the sixth entry is produced.

Real time strategy has never been done better than the Civilization and the fifth version has been made more addicting and accessible than any entry before it. The grid is now hexagonal with the stack unit's function being removed, replaced with a more tactical element of attacking cities from different directions and terrain. Combat in Civilization 5 is a somewhat daunting challenged in that you don't just have to worry about attack strength being higher than the enemies. Players will have to contend with different terrain types, defensive strengths and the addition of city bombardment. To capture a city its strength must be reduced all the way down and all units guarding or garrisoning the city must be eliminated. The game gives a rating on how the attack will turn out with ''Decisive and minor victory, stalemate, and minor and major defeat'' units take much longer to produce this time, making losses all the more costly. Units earn upgrades upon winning battles and can be upgraded to increase their effectiveness, these too have their own different effectiveness against and other units and city attacks. This complex system would be a nightmare for newcomers but thankfully, the game's advisors do a great job of explaining the game's basics as well as whether they think an attack or city founding will be successful. Science and gold are simple to use, automatically being generated by each city in varying quantities after each turn. Great people also return along with golden ages which trigger an immense surplus in production across all cities which informs the player that they're playing the game right. In each turn the game will cycle through all the cities that need attention which is helpful for ensuring every city is working effectively but isn't so great for looking at cities that you wish to change the focus on. New social policies add more depth to the culture aspect, giving civilizations various bonuses towards whatever victory they are pursuing. If you were going for a domination victory then you would go for honour which would net a discount on producing combat units. Artificial intelligence is an integral part of any strategy game and for the most part the quad AI engine used here holds up well except for diplomacy. Leaders of other civilizations can be angered very easily by your expansive empires stretching too far or from having a low culture or gold rating. You're bound to get into a few wars sooner or later which can be very annoying when you are focusing on the other victory conditions. Other than this the game remains as addictive as any other strategy game of its kind, sure to put any player into that ''just one more turn'' mood.

Civilization 5 presents the best technical presentation yet for the franchise with greatly detailed terrain as well as some decidedly authentic looking leaders on the diplomacy screen. Both peaceful and epic music scores sweep in appropriately in both peaceful and war situations. The game also features its fair share of historical and religious quotes that accompany the building of wonders and the research of technology. Load times are simple and short enough with the game running smoothly most of the time.

Civilization 5 represents the pinnacle of strategy games on the PC. It refines and polishes up the franchise to a fine point that will keep players online and deprived of sleep for a long time to come. Any fan of strategy games simply has to have this game in their collection.

Rating: 9/10