I hate this game, but not for the same reasons as the others. I review this as someone wjo barely played any Civilizations, and I sure wish I didn't play this one. Huge fundamental flaws- you start a civ, you explore a bit and discover that other civs are way too close, and you can barely explore anymore. At the same time you're builing other cities and working the land. And you part on the map becomes a convoluted mess, and every action is a complete chore. And then other civs start complaining constantly. I know some people are very good at the game and they can handle all that, but I would like to have some fun added to the games I play.… Expand

I'm just going to let it out that this is the first Civilization game I have ever played and you know what? I'm glad I played this first because I want to play the rest of the Civilization games and see how they evolved. Civilization V to a new comer like me is pure straight addiction. When I first played this game, I couldn't stop playing until it was 8 in the morning and I was starting to hallucinate from the lack of sleep. I was determined to build my empire, I wanted my enemies to burn for defying my empire and I wanted to get every single hexagon spaces for my cities. This game is so addictive that I try my best to avoid playing it. Getting my personal experience out of the way, I'm going to say how Civilization is from a new comer's perspective. I think this game is really good. I don't know how the previous Civilization games played or how their mechanics work or how good they were but I really like the turn based style of this game. The board game like nature of the game made me think harder than most strategy games and I also thought the overall mechanics of it was really deep. What I think is that this game is for people who are completely new or just being introduced to Civilization as I have seen some gameplay of the previous games and they look quite complicated, maybe even more complicated than this. I say if you want to be introduced to this franchise, check Civilization V out. I know I did.… Expand

I just wanted to update my review a bit now that the game has been out for a couple years and there's an expansion right around the corner. I previously rated it a 5, but looking back that was a little unfair. Civ 5 has improved quite a bit since launch, though there are still serious issues inherent to its basic design. The biggest issue is 1 Unit Per Tile (1UPT). At its heart, 1UPT is a poor mechanic that the AI simply cannot handle, making most wars completely one sided, and the management of a large army annoying. Other mechanics, such as happiness, limits on expansion, and diplomacy (as always) are poorly developed. Policies and the various Civilizations themselves feel neutered compared to previous games. Communism and fascism, for example, have NO penalties, whereas previously they were powerful, but had issues you needed to manage to make them work. Despite all this, Civ 5 manages to preserve its 'just one more turn' charm and you can still spend the majority of a day playing without realizing it. Hopefully the expansion will add (well, reintroduce) some much needed strategic depth in the form of religion and espionage.… Expand

There are a lot of good ideas here but unfortunately a myriad of performance issues and a sloppy multiplayer mode prevents this Civ iteration from achieving true greatness.

Great, unique game that actually didn't copy its predecessors AND is good. It's very enjoyable, there are tons of ways to build your empire, making every game unique. The turn by turn aspect makes the game stress-free and strategic, unlike RTS games. The game isn't overly complicated, and well organized, while having a decent amount of content. The actual "fun" factor of the game isn't perfect though, because games are very long, and moving units from one part of the map to the other can take like 15 minutes, going turn by turn, it's long and horrible. I find this sad because the game had potential, if it wasn't so long and boring to get anything done. I have played 50 hours, and still have enjoyed it, but I can't say it's a flawless game… Expand

More of the same. Fine by me! if it isnt broke then dont fix it. I have seen what happens in these days of trying to shoehorn a classic series to fit with console limitations - Command and Conquer is now a worthless brand, Dawn of war is far less than what it was etc etc. It has all the things I liked about the Civilization series, except Leonard Nimoy's narration. That made me a bit sad and sentimental. But I liked this installment. The only thing I didnt like is that it runs like a lame dog.… Expand

Let me start by saying that it's a special game. Civ V could go for a single player campaign like Anno series. Go for some tutorials + hours and hours of complicated mission forcing you to fulfill the screenplay writers idea. But that's not Civ V! It has tons of freedom in it's gameplay design and it is not ashamed to use it. You can play it for a week, you can play it for a month. You'll be thrilled to see your civilisation blossom.… Expand

A fun game with lots of replay value. The main things I dont' like about it is the overly aggressive AI. Your ally from the last 100 turns could just choose to attack you over nothing because you might be a threat considering you share borders. The game has quite a good balance between accessibility and depth, but I'd like to have more depth in combat, while it is still a vast improvement over previous iterations.… Expand

i started with civ 2 and loved it. then civ 4 came and disapointed me. so i needed a pick-me up and civ 5 was the answere. the first game was so exiting. i love the diplomacy it makes the game revived after civ 4's failure in diplomacy. the combat system is great and fun it is not just #'s vs #'s. if you have less units you can win a war if you use terrain and uprades to your advantage. this is for REAL STRATEGY GAMERS that know how unlike the civ 4 freaks that have only played #4 and have no idea what strategy is. you need to use your noggin to win. fun and addicting. deserves alot more attention.… Expand

Civ 5 starts off awesome. The graphics are great, the new combat mechanics are cool, and there's lots of neat things to explore...

Then you start getting good at it. The empire building aspect is shallower then it was in Civ 4. There's less to build. There's incentive for building a lot of cities but not letting them grow. You can buy most of your food from city states if you want to, and come out ahead by just spamming trading posts. You notice that only a few Wonders are really worth their cost, let alone the difficulty in building them when the AI gets building speed boosts on higher difficulty.

Combat is awesome, except that the AI is REALLY BAD at it. Once you know how to use rivers, hills, great generals, and ranged attacks strategically, you will dismantle armies significantly larger without difficulty.

That's the problem here. The AI is bad and it makes the game really easy once you know how to play it. The shallower nature of the game means there's less fun without a challenging AI to push you.

The game isn't bad, and if you're not a Civ fanatic you will probably find a lot to like. But for the people who are good at the TBS genre and Civ in particular, there won't be much to hold your attention over Civ 4.… Expand

I have been playing strategy games (rts and turn based) ever since Age of Empires 2. I prayed god like a thousand times to finally see a game which is as good as my old and beloved Age of Mythology. And civilization 5 was no exception on this. This game grabs you with a weird kind of addiction if you start playing. You may sit to play this for 30 minutes and find out that 2 hours are already passed. But the important part is the Civilizations actually have no difference than the other in particular. This makes the game really basic in variety. For godsake the only difference Between Aztecs and French are 1 different unit for each and 1 more unit/building if you are in luck. And uh there is also 1 more bonus between any 2 countries(For example Aztecs get some culture bonus for each enemy units they killed). I don't study history but even i can tell you at least 10 difference between the Aztecs and French People. This game really needs some more variation.… Expand

It's a good game, but just not nearly what Civ IV was (or Civ III for that matter). I've been playing Civ since the original was released many years ago, and have never been disappointed by anything the series has ever done. But once I played Civ V I became worried about the future of this series. Civ V has been dumbed down significantly from it's predecessors. It's a sad change.

Civilization V is currently my absolute favorite strategy game that I have played. Civilization V is a brilliant game with excellent gameplay and graphics, but obviously the main qualm it has with most players is that it seems inferior to Civ IV. Well, having played Civ IV, I can say that Civ V is massively better, in terms of gameplay, graphics, and general playability. Large problems in Civ IV included STACKS OF DOOM, in which one could create a bloody massive army and generally annihilate everything in your way. With Civ V this is removed, and strategy comes back instead of blind unit spamming.… Expand

This game is problematic for me. I played the demo, liked it quite a lot, bought the game, and I almost don't play it at all. This probably is tied to the fact that I'm a BIG fan of the fourth installment, which I definetly prefer. But Civ V has a number of elements that I cannot but regard as flaws: not that I'm not used to them, but that i regard them worse than in the previous part. On the other hand, there are some very nice introductions, such as the battle system. recommendable, but if you're a hardcore fan of the previous part, you may be disappointed because the amount of changes.… Expand

Great game and I'm an old Civ addict. Has kept me addicted longer than any civ game since civ 1. The new combat system is great. There are a few things I would like to see done better, such as more interesting diplomacy and more of an emphasis on religion. But overall a really addicting, fun addition to the Civ franchise. I'm giving it a 10 because I think it should be 9.5 but can't choose that here.… Expand

There are few changes from previous iterations that work great, namely 1 unit per tile. But bad AI and incredible resource hog on larger maps, as well as the unecessary simplification of the game take away from the experience brought on by the previous versions.

Pretty disappointing: at release time, it felt like some of the features might not be finished, and the game overall felt pretty stripped down. I could tell this was not developed by someone who had a particular passion for the series, and who got caught up in shaking things up, forgetting to maintain some of that good complexity we had in Civ 4. The new, more tactical, combat was an interesting idea...too bad the AI couldn't figure it out. I miss the old city management of Civ 4...it feels more bland and I feel like I have less control. Also, cities feel far more static than they use to: border expansion feels slower and is much less noticeable. Let's hope they can do a better job for the next iteration...I'll stick to Civ 4 until then.… Expand

Ah, Civilization. This series has kept me up many a night, expanding my empires to try and take down my enemies will pure tactics. And this fifth iteration of the series will not disappoint, not at all. The first thing you are probably going to notice when you boot this game up is the graphics. They are simply amazing; the hills and oceans and deserts look so real you'll want to make sure that this game isn't actually real. And there are some changes made to things like the interface, movement, and quite a few other things. These changes mostly are to make the game easier for new players to jump in, and I promise you it won't ruin the experience for Civ vets. Also you'll notice that the standard square-spaces have been replaced with hexes. Honestly, this changes pretty much nothing, and you'll adjust to it within moments of playing. You get a diverse selection of leaders with different abilities; instead of things like higher health in cities you get abilities like having units fight at full strength even when wounded, or having your navy be more powerful. The game itself runs as smooth as butter (Or something else that is really smooth, like ice cream) even on lower-end systems, and even when you crank up the graphics it still will give you 40+ FPS, an amazing feat. If you enjoyed any of the previous Civ titles, or if you like strategy games, get this game.… Expand

If you were really bad at previous Civ games, and are looking for something more consoley, Civ Rev 2 is the game for you! New features include: Auto play! Just keep hitting next and automate! Free victories! Tired of the trouble of having to take each of your opponents cities? Now all you have to do is kill a scout and your opponent will literally give you half their empire! They removed all the bothering elements like religion, spies and diplomacy, so all you have to worry about is letting the game play for you! Another fantastic feature added is the settler bomb! Against all odds, are you somehow losing a war to an opponent? Well just drop a settler and all your troubles are over, you now have a unit with some of the best defense in the game, another city!

Expect new dlc coming soon featuring an updated graphic pack; now this game will actually look like it uses its monstrous system requirements!… Expand

Civ 5 is not a bad game. I think they just went the wrong direction with it. The graphics are updated beautifully but the depth has been stripped back some. This will change to some degree with the release of Gods and kings, but if you are looking for more depth and content, you are better off loading Civ 4 mod Caveman to Cosmos. The mod is everything I hoped 5 would introduce including so much depth and content it's almost TOO much to process. Some improvements that were made in 5 are: City-states- a cool new addition. Ranged units are ACTUALLY ranged units being able to attack from more than one space away. Hex grid is way better than square and unit stacking is gone. I find it more realistic, but it is a pain in the @$$ when you have to move garrisoned units to produce more. Gods and Kings will re-introduce a religion resource and units will receive a large bump in HP. I'm anxious to see how this will affect overall game strategy. Overall the game is solid and I must give it a thumbs up.… Expand

Having enjoyed each Civ game, this was a total let down. Civ 5 is a giant step backwards in terms of complexity and is not even worth the $15 I paid for it as a steam special. Once you get past the new graphics - which I'd happily do away with for greater game complexity - Civ 5 feels hollow and dumbed down. It is obvious which game review sites/magazines are paid off for positive reviews as the user reviews are resoundingly negative and disappointed. I agree with comments stating how the AI is poor, diplomacy is neutered and practically meaningless. The new civics program doesn't gel well with the historical policies of civilizations. It is also virtually impossible to maintain a large army due to special resources being required for certain units. Please tell me why I need aluminum to build modern armor or a missile cruiser, when neither use aluminum in the "real world". Overall the game is poorly designed and rushed to the market. It is a crappy product hidden in a nicely wrapped box. I want my money back.… Expand

So many annoying things have been streamlined without dumbing the game down. No more counting out 2 tiles away from your city, your boundaries are more fluid. Wonder limits appear to be tossed out, which was an annoying strategy-lite factor to track in IV . (I noticed lots of well-placed streamlining... I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention some.)

I cannot understate how much better combat is in V. Ranged combat, no stacks, hexes, all for the better. Frigates can kill stuff on land.

Game balance seems better so far. Last night I tried a theologically-based "happy citizens" approach that seemed to pretty successful, though that was on Chieftain setting.

The communication of why things happen isn't so esoteric "It's too crowded!!!!" comments are now clearly quantified. Civic options are a bit more fleshed out as "policies". They follow a more formal tree, but have relevance throughout the game. AI is cool too. During one war I was winning, my AI opponent offered a great peace deal. Unfortunately he whisked in a defensive pact. Silly me, I didn't think about it until he started killing one of my city state allies and quipped, "I'm beating up on your buddy. What you gonna do about it?" It's like any later edition of a game: Modern game design is simply more sophisticated nowadays. Some folks will dislike the differences, but in the case of Civ V, I like what they did to it.… Expand

I played Civilization since version 2, and this game is ok. It's easier on Prince than civ 4, at least I've never seen over 9000 stacks suddenly appear at my borders. Well, there are no stacks anyway. The game plays differently than previous versions.

Unplayable at release but after a few patches it's a really good game! What I dislike about the game is the weird AI and that the time between turns is way too long. The AI does not have to be the smartest but I'd really like them to make sense...

Highly overrated game. It can take dozens of turns for a single small event to happen and there's not a single interesting thing in the entire game. Anyone who plays actual games such as Starcraft II will fall asleep watching or playing Civ V because it's such a dumbed down simple game that a 5 year old could play it.

If you build 1 thing every 15 turns there's no skill or thought needed.
Attacks can take dozens of turns to do anything, again making people simply fall asleep.
Play the demo if you'd like, skip buying it.… Expand

Civilization V attempted something grand, and lost its way. While the game has wonderful graphics, hex grid, and intense battles, there is much to be desired. Depth was simply stripped away for a more action-based experience. This game never felt like a grand strategy game to me. Hopefully, the new expansion pack will address some of the shortcomings, but in my opinion, it is too little, too late.

I have played Civ since the first one!!! This is another great addition to the great series! Some feathers are good some not but overall it's still amazing game! I just hope they won't dumb down it too much in next one!!!

The game is plays well enough, looks nice and has great peripheral qualities. However it ultimately feels like a step back from CIV 4. Many of the intriguing elements of the previous installment are missing here. There is less resources, less improvements, no religion and your limited to one unit per tile. The global happiness mechanic doesn't perform as intended. The civ-specific abilities are extremely unbalanced. City states are more a nuisance than anything else and are out of place in a 4X game.… Expand

Imagine Civ 3 but slower. ALOT slower. It seriously is just like civ 3 but a small, tiny, micro-scopic uniqueness to each civilization. Gameplay is the same, graphics are better, and overall its the sam civ game you know, just shinnier. OH OH OH! and its dumbed down. If you are also a fan of Empire earth....imagine empire earth 2 towards 3. Its basically like that

Updated 8/25:
Yes, the game was not ideal at start. But the developers have shown good support, fixing issues and adding new content. TF2 took many years to initially release, and then took even longer to get all the maps and content for people to really enjoy it.
As for the game, it is different than past Civ games I expect. I like the changes, work to make gameplay easier to pick up but still offering depth. Combat is more strategic with limits on units per tile, with a nice interface to prevent units from getting lost in micromanaging. The game is a staple as co-op with my friends. Hosting the game does need decent RAM, but patches have helped trim down the memory usage.
There is great support for addon development for maps and scenarios, and the built-in market offers a convenient way to find tweaks you want.
I have had no issues with the game, put in over 150 hours, and enjoy the consistent support of updates and DLC. The game could use better AI options, and random events would be a great addition, but the game is definitely enjoyable. The game is likely more akin to Galactic Civilizations 2 (an amazing game) rather than previous Civ games, but the game wouldn't be fun being the same as the old games with just new graphics. It's a new start for the series, but it's more appealing and easier for newcomers.… Expand

Disappointing, but not bad or unplayable. Due to the weird AI, you can always go all military and have some fun for a while. The multiplayer? Doesn't work. It would be actually a really good game if you could have offline player vs player games.

I am fan of civilization franchise but i think this game is not the best of them and didn't has the same quality and deep gameplay of the previous games.

In the past few years there has been a theme of streamlining strategy games. With new technologies the perception is that people lack the patience they once had. Civilization V makes an attempt to streamline the game compared to past games in the series. Unfortunately, Civilization V goes too far. Let's start off with the good. First of all I like the hexagonal tiles better than the usual square ones. I think it makes the map look much better. The graphics are better in Civilization V, which you would expect. I like how accessible mods are in this game. It is much easier to use mods than past installments in the series. Now, the bad. The one unit per tile was a nice try, but it simply doesn't work. What should have been done is a Victoria II style supply limit system, where each tile could support a certain number of units. You could put as many units as you want on the tile, but there would be significant combat penalties for going over the limit. One unit per tile makes wars something you dread, as opposed to something you enjoyed in Civ IV. The diplomatic system is still messed up even two years after release. The AI leaders are inconsistent and change their minds quickly. The game got rid of religion which makes it less interesting. Finally, I'll explain my review score. Automatically, the game receives a four point deduction for not improving on its predecessor, the receives a 3 point deduction for OK gameplay.… Expand

Get Civilization 4 and BtS instead (you don't need Warlords, BTS has all of Warlords in it).
5 has worse AI, only just barely matches the visual quality of modded Civilization 4, is much harder to mod and thus barely enjoys any modding community unlike 4, and the game is just too damn easy due to how unbalanced everything is. On top of that, there's hardly any multiplayer support.
Just get Civ4. Want more civilizations than 4 has to offer? They've been modded in. Want better graphics? They've been modded in. Hell, you can get mods that make each nation's units look unique, so that a Portugese and a Dutch unit will not be clones like they are in 5. Then to make things worse, Firaxis has actually started -selling- civilizations, putting less work into them than modders do, for $5 each.
This sequel doesn't even deserve to exist if it can't compete with its predecessor on any field.… Expand

With the fifth series the developers made some radical changes for the civilization series, including some bold new choices. I spent a long time playing the game before commenting as it is difficult to review a classic franchise. The best improvement is the combat system. Combat is now on a hex system. One army per hex. Ranged units can fire from hexes away but are generally weaker from attack, making the organization of your army critical. Non fast units move as fast like scouts in prior game (2 hexes over open ground, 1 hex over rough terrain), which makes terrain important. One bad change, and a baffling design choice, is the UI. In Civ 4 the UI told you everything you needed to know. You could tell how you were doing in points, and could hold your pointer over a resource to instantly know how many you have. No longer, for some reason. Advisors are back, but they only give general advice that most experienced civ players should already know. They are not an adequate replacement for Civ 4's excellent information screens. Cities take much more time to produce both buildings and units. Which means you must be selective about what you build. I can see why this was done, but the effect is that the game feels much slower than its predecessors. Happiness is now an empire wide trait. Instead of having happy and unhappy cities, every city has an equal amount of happiness which rises and falls together. Unfortunately, this means that a game of conquest and annexing conquered cities (which is now much harder, as cities take several turns to fall and can defend themselves with ranged attacks) can cripple your entire kingdom. This also slows down the game. I'd give this game a hesitant recommendation. I would also strongly advise having a very fast hard drive if you wish to play on any map beyond the smallest.… Expand

CivforBrains
Jun 4, 2011
2
CivforBrains Jun 2, 2011 3 I've been playing Civ games since the Civ I and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. (Civ III was my least liked Civ though.) This latest Civ however, I have tried my hardest to like but I just can't do it. Besides an awful AI and terrible diplomacy, this game flat out isn't very fun at all. It's streamlined and frankly quite dumbed down. Expect a console version within 1 1/2 years after they finish their true love Civ World.

It is truly incredulous how the "professional" reviewers gave this piece of crap such high marks. Something definitely is rotten in the state of the gaming industry. Likely there are more than a few guerrilla posters on here as well. The developers also seem more intent on releasing DLC than properly fixing the game. In my opinion, 2K Games is largely responsible for ruining the Civ franchise. I don't blame Jon Shafer very much. This game was clearly released at least one year too early. Not much more to say. Perhaps they'll right the ship with Civ VI but I wouldn't count on it.… Expand

I have always loved civilization games and IV (both expansions, but especially BTS; Beyond the Sword) was by far the best. That would be as close to a 10 as I could give to any game. With that being said, As much as I love Civ 5, there are definitely some downsides. The good: Graphics are decent, gameplay is new and inventive, battles are epic and amazing, and a lot of the console/management system has been streamlined. On the flip side, it's amazing what streamlining can do and how much of the game they gutted. This is very much a micromanagement game to the core and they took out quite a lot of those options! Let alone some of the other minor issues, this feels like a game that was re done but not quite done fully. I feel that this game could have utilized system resources better (processors/RAM) and the AI should at this day and age been revamped to a point where it is slightly more intelligent than mathematical numbers (I know, I know, what else does it have? Either the AI is too stupid or too smart to the point of cheating...). My biggest pet peeve is all of the crazy DLC they keep pumping out and selling, very disapointing to see the marketing involved in this and how big of sell-outs they have become. We will never get the same value for our games again. At the end of the day, I won't lie when I say I have probably pumped in close to 200 hours into this game and I definitely found it to be worthwhile, there are definite quirks and minor things that I wish could be fixed.… Expand

4+/5 (Very Good)

If you enjoy playing games like RISK, where a game can take DAYS to finish, CIV5 is for you.

The best part? I don't actually care about winning in CIV5, it's how you get to the end that is fun and somehow hugely satisfying. (even if you lose)

I don't even finish all of my games and still feel good about them!

My all time favorite turn based strategy game: I have over 700 hours logged on Steam and I still haven't tried all the features included. I totally love the new graphics, the soundtrack the voice acting, the Interface and most game mechanics. I have nothing but admiration for the bold move to go hexagonal without unit stacking: no more stacking 50 units on one tile. And while at first I didn't like the lack of deep info screens, I now appreciate the absence of tedious micromanagement. Each game has a great flow from start to end. Volumes have been written on the strategy forums, that means it's still deep enough, right? I could go on and on lauding this game to infinity so I'll quit here. One bit of negative is the online multiplayer: me and some friends tried that a few times, but we just couldn't enjoy it. It's not entirely turn-based and sometimes the one that clicks faster will win the battle, meh. On the other hand, local hotseat is great fun if you choose to cooperate. (Make all local players part of the same team, then plot against AI teams. Feels like a boardgame... great!)… Expand

I got this game shortly after it was released and quickly realised this was not a Civilization game at all. The game play of this game consists mostly of next next next with the AI handling most things for you. All the challenges and fun of the series has been stripped away and replaced by want feels like a console version of Civilization. Also dipsite the patches, the slow down and lack around the 15th century is still so bad, I doubt I will be able to finish it. So far I have lacked the will power to try. Civilization 1 and Civilization 4 remain my 2 favourites, just so you know where I am coming from and what I liked about the Civ series.

Fans of the old Civ games seem to have a universal hate for Civilization 5, where as new fans that have never seen it have no idea whats missing and so like it.… Expand

Overall a great game, but after playing Civ II, III, and IV it seems lacking something. I do not like how there are random city states, and how it is centered on combat. Yes in Civ IV the micro-managing could get annoying, but I enjoyed it all the same.

Having never played a Civilization game before this, I was pretty pleased with this game. I can't compare it to Civ 4 like others, but what I got was a varied turn-based strategy game that was a lot of fun. I agree with others that the city-state mechanic is awful - they often just act as a frustrating buffer between you and enemies. However, they can be removed. The game was pretty enjoyable and provides a lot of play time for your money. It must be said that the steamworks modding system is really good and some of the mods are useful and others change the game enough to keep it interesting.… Expand

Well this game brought some genuine graphics and UI design. But it did not succeed in many areas. The AI is way too aggressive and at higher levels you often end up being declared war by 5 out of 7 AI opponents. What a frustrating experience. Also everything is taking still very long, you cant complete game in decent number of hours, it will be like 5 or more hours to win. I think it's possible today to make it faster and save you from all the tedious activities, deciding what to build on every single hex in every single turn. You should be able to set your typical path through the tech and build trees and reuse those. The final spoiler is, that anything you do, you will end up in war. Even if you try to be polite and nice, there is no peace alternative in real game, it is only theoretical. I managed to win peacefully once from like 30 attempts and it was by mere luck anyway. So this game does copy typical american colonial consumeristic philosophy - expand, fight, kill and consume. More means always better. What a disappointment.… Expand

Civ5 is a rather bad action game. Controls are limited and it is best played with a gamepad. It also helps to be intoxicated while playing. I takes about 10 hours to beat the game on STEAM difficulty. Most of the time is spent navigating the mouse pointer and hitting "end turn" about 300 times. Everything else is more or less autopilot. Your opponents (barbarian tribes and barbarian boss tribes) don't know who they are what they are where they are and what they are supposed to do, so it is a single player. Mulitplayer is broken, but totally ROCKS according to the devs. I recommend thsi game to enyone who is short of hate and / or boredom.… Expand

Poorly designed, poorly executed, and very poorly coded and optimized. This game is like paying to watch fat people **** If you want a good Civ game, stick with Civilization IV and its expansions.

It was good......when I got it to work - which took forever!

But when I say "good"....not as good as Civilization 4 - not as good as beyond the sword either, it has a lot of the strategy and abilities removed, and to be honest, it is in essence a prettier dumbed down version of Civ 4, it isn't as good as Civ 4 - which is a game I did enjoy, albieit it was a very buggy game I was enjoying.

All in all - you can buy this game, but don't go in expecting much revolution from the older Civ games - and certainly don't go in expecting it to be as good as those Civ games - it's good, but not THAT good… Expand

I'm a big fan of the Civ series but this one is the first civ game that bored me after only a couple of hours. Tons of dlc but no innovation, odd new combat mechanics (1 unit per hex but the maps are too small), a lot of missing features from the old games, less management,....

Feels like a "Civ Light" for newcomers to the genre

What has happened to Sid Meier? Has he lost all self-respect? First Revolutions and now this piece of crappola! Next he'll be putting out a Facebook version of Civ, for F's sake! Oh, wait... What's that!? HE IS!?! Sid, 2K, Firaxis... some or all of the former are to blame for the decimation of this storied franchise. I've played this series since Numero Uno, spent thousands of hours on every subsequent iteration, but can not bring myself to complete a SINGLE game of Civ V! They dumbed down all of the strategy elements that make a Civ game a F'N CIV GAME!!! Gotta get that casual/console market interested. Apparently, Core Fans just aren't good enough any more... Who cares if I've helped pave the way for you! Just another in a long line of greed induced SELLOUTS! F**K YOU, YOU GREEDY BASTARDOS!!!… Expand

Long time Civ player. The hate this game has received is fueled mostly by:
1. Peoples' tenancy to expect the release of a squeal to fulfill all their wildest dreams.
2. Peoples' fear of change.
Some specific changes for the good: The graphics are smooth and beautiful. The gameplay is streamlined and requires less micromanaging. No more stacked units!!, MUCH easier for units to travel across water, far superior user-friendly interface. There are plenty of other little changes to come and more gameplay balances, tweaks and fixes to come (remember everyone, EVERY civ game had bugs).
Steam makes installation, updates, friend management and communication easy as well as adding achievements.… Expand

Great game for eycandy. Cities max-out radius 3 - much larger (Civ Test of time allowed much larger cities). Took out much of the features of civ 4 but kept most of the war-unfriendly features (I'm not a war person myself, but a lot of other players are). Civ5 forces you to use steam. Mods are centralized like StarCraft II. Civ5 is intellectual tyranny with a 'please don't sue me' atmosphere on the mods. Civ5 and StarCraft 2 are a taste of the coming police state in america. Still addicting game though.… Expand

By far, the best of the Civilization games. It doesn't havee the messy combat system from Civ IV, it doesn't have units moving half-way accross the map in one turn and it has cities that defend themselves! Finally! 2 units fighting means both taking damage, not one living and the other being relatively unharmed! It has city-states, a notable improvement. Air combat has greatly improved and now embarking maks naval assaults possible!… Expand

I have played all Civilization titles from day one. With each new one, we were offered a steady (yes) upgrade of quality and experience - I was brilliant at its time, but II introduced new things, III even more, and IV was clearly the pinnacle. Yes, you can see where it comes to...

I mean - V feels as an inferior one to IV in almost all things. Religions are gone. Science is now just linked to population, no game of balancing the budget. Diplomacy is worse. Diplomacy with city states is just laughable in its stupid simplicity (you just pay cash to buy points, straightforward as that). Gone is the choosing of governments - you get to keep all civics earned to the end of time, eliminating deep play and any resemblance to real governments. Combat is actually worse than in IV - one unit per tile! Gone are the Stacks of Doom, say hello to the Carpet of Doom! Land units become weak transports at sea - but no convoys - one unit per tile! And cities just defend themselves like some damn forts. Ridiculous! And - one leader per civ. Not even multiple DLCs change that.

There are however a few things done good. Hex tiles are nice. Border spread is better, one tile not entire range, and you can buy land. Ranged bombardment is back - though I don't get it how riflemen can't have it while archers do. Graphics are noticeably better. Great people can build special improvements on tiles, and this is quite neat.

Gameplay is even interesting, but seriously lacking the full depth of previous titles. In itself, it is not a completely bad game, hence score of 5. But after playing it once, I can hardly come back to it. I can safely recommend it to people who didn't play previous titles or thought they were too complex - they will have quite a fun with this title. But old veterans like me will feel disappointed, and frankly - rightly so.… Expand

This is the first Civilization I've ever played, and I have so much fun with it. If you're not comparing it to any of the previous games, it's a great game. I do wish I could stack units like you apparently could in the old games, but on a Huge map, it isn't so much of an issue. Well worth the money spent.

I think Civilization 5 is an okay game by itself, but if you compare it to Civilization 4 it... yeah. To sum it up as best as I can, I think Civilization 5 is just "dumbed down" a bit. You don't have to focus on as many things, religions were completely removed from the game, and hexagon upgrades were way more obvious. Speaking of hexagons, I absolutely hate the hex system. It means you have way less plots of land available per city, which took away a lot of the fun. The city-state system was a little lame too; I didn't want to have to bother dealing with greedy and disobedient city-state allies when I could just conquer them and use them and their land for myself. The AI has some of the same, if not worse, problems that Civ 4 had. Why in the world my best ally spontaneously decides to declare war on everyone, including myself, is beyond me. The expansions for Civ 4 were definitely worth it on Steam when you could get Civ 4 + all expansions for like, 20 USD/Euros, but Civ 5's DLC that adds just one civilization choice makes me want to vomit. Honestly, most games of this current era tend to "dumb down" their gameplay, but the Civilization series is all about strategy.… Expand

Meh - definitely not what I was hoping for - It's still fun to play for few hours but when i finished 2nd one like 20 times (my favorite game for a loooong time -strong 10) and was little disappointed with 3 (would give it around 7), but hooked again with 4 (9 in my scale) this one definitely didn't went in good direction for me. It has few nice new elements (like hex fields, nation specialization or barbarian activity) but a lot more were disappointing or just plain bad - happiness was definitely this thing for me - it is just unlogic why it had so global scale - i mean i could understand that if i have 1 revolting city I would get some negative bonus for every other city in empire - but we do not have this kind of mechanics here - here every new citizen gives negative impact doesn't matter if he was born in reachest city at plannet or poorest one with blazing borders- and when i build coloseum in 1 city it makes my every citizen little happier - the hell why??? It's like I should be happy when I live in New York that stadium was built in Denver - and like I would even care. Because of this global impact of happiness this killed my main tactics - to be an expansionist asap- you can't -every new city gives bigger negative impact than it can produce hapiness in next 30 turns. Another thing coming from hapiness is conquering cities - when you do that the only intelligent step is to burn it to the ground and place right away new city in the same spot - because you pretty fast will have population boom there anyway (especially if you have few free states providing food as allies-then new citizen every turn) and won't get such a big negative happiness bonus for different culture. What a hell? the only right way in conquer is total extermination? I don't like that - and it's not teaching kids nowadays to think properly and we don't want to raise new hitlers are we? I won't be pointing every other change that I wasn't found of - others did that already, so will only focus at happiness as main reason why this CiV has butchered gameplay - and in long term is just not fun to play. - So meh. No expansions or DLC that i'll buy for this one - going back to 4 or will wait for 6.… Expand

I loved the game, but am disappointed with how much is being sold as DLC rather than being included in the original game, and DLC that only adds civilizations and not really anything new or interesting. I do like most of the changes to the base game, but overall it is just another addition to a very successful franchise.

Best game I have ever played, Been playing for about 1.5 years, have been playing for awhile, never had a problem with the game, game play is great, it requires a brain, or just common sense, a bit of both and you could amount to something, the community is what sells it for me, everyone after awhile knows everyone, you will be meeting pass friends of the game, i can name several off the top of my head, this game opens up new challenges with the DLC's too! I love this game.… Expand

The hex system is a massive improvement for the Civ franchise, it's just a shame the game was riddled with balance issues for the better part of a year after its initial release. Certain wonders were necessitated for victory, certain Civ's were necessary for particular wins (cultural, etc), but fortunately most balance issues have been resolved. The achilles heal of the game is the atrocious AI and the pseudo difficulty setting which is more accurately defined as a "handicap" system.… Expand

Very nice game. Was looking forward to it and am happy with it overall. The only downside for me is the inability to skip the cinematic stuff at the start promptly and in a large game that's gone on for a while, your computer may start to feel like it's suffering from Arthritis! (8 GB Ram Win7 64bit). Worth buying though to any Civ fan - very enjoyable.

Pros: gorgeous graphics, excellent GUI, well thought-out tutorial mode, hexes instead of squares, sophisticated tech tree. Cons: dumb AI (opponent massing armies at your borders and nothing happens, workers who fail to complete roads), etc. It really is an excellent concept and obviously a lot of effort and money went into the development. I just wish I could like it more and give it a better score. But there are times when I feel like I'm in a grind. Like trying to level up in a MMORPG. Can't put my finger on it specifically, but to "tidy up" the game so that strategic moves seem more compelling and the game doesn't tend to tread water in places.

Nevertheless, if you're a RTS fan, you'll definitely want this one. No doubt there will be patches and other content made available and hopefully some of the concerns people have voiced here will be resolved.… Expand

A great CiV game, regardless of some minor bugs or issues, a must buy for any Strategy gamer.

The latest incarnation of the all time PC classic is the best yet. This latest version has changed to a hex based system and combat has been completely overhauled, making it much more tactical. After the disappointing Civ 4, this is a welcome return to form for the series and the turn based 'just one more go' gameplay is more addictive than ever. This version has integrated modding built into the interface and allows mods to be selected and loaded in-game very easily, giving it infinite replay value. Multiplayer implementation is now a much more viable proposition than in previous versions, making this the complete package. This game will take up many, many hours of your life and therefore comes wholeheartedly recommended.â… Expand

I have played every Civilization games since CIV 2. I only slept 5 hrs last night due to Civ 5, and it was worth it! The move to hexagons was a brilliant decision when combined with the removal of stacks. A slightly simplified tech tree and the new the social policies also reduce the micromanagement of the game. My first game still took me over six hours, but the turns went by so much faster. Pretty graphics are always nice :)

Now, does the AI have problems? Yes. Does the AI always have problems? No. Does it usually have problems? Yes. The AI is not a lost cause, but it will probably take some time to get right. While I am ranting let me make one further remark. The longer you play, the better you get at the game. It should not be surprising then that the AI will lag behind the player. That is why there are different difficulty levels. I never got beyond Noble, however, because the micromanagement started to weigh the game down for me. I think that I will be going a lot longer now. Back to actual problems, I did have to rename the CIV 5 DX 10 App as the Civ V DX 9 app to have DX 10 graphics. Check the steam forums for tech support if you having issues - some very smart people are there.

I know that some older players will miss some of the features and will also miss some of their strategies not working. They deserve to speak their minds. As do I. As I mentioned I think much of my enthusiasm comes from a streamlined experience. If that sounds like your kind of Civilization, you will be in luck. If you want the complexity that is Beyond the Sword, you might want to wait till the inevitable expansion.… Expand

The newest Civilazation entry is yet an another awesome advance in the series. Everything is more streamlined, but the depth is not really sacrificed (other than the omission of religion and espionage...which in my opinion were among the weaker aspects of Civ IV). My only major complain is that the diplomacy options in this new Civ are poorly handled. Diplomacy with City States is very clear, and you know exactly where you stand with each of them. Diplomacy with other nations is a total mystery though...you have no idea how they feel about you, or others, and the interface is not as clear as other aspects of the game. Since this will no doubt be addressed in a future patch, and does not break the game in any way now, it is a negative but does not lower the games score too much. Out of the box this game is a 9, but some clever patches/expansions could push it to a 10. Definitely worth buying...a marathon civ session awaits!… Expand

Civ 5 lives up to all of my expectations and continues with the strong traditional "just one my turn" game play. They have made some good tweaks to the game mechanics that I was hoping for and the graphics overhaul is very nice.

Definitely one of the most addictive games on this planet - beware!

The king of strategy games is back. It comes packed with plenty of new features and tweaks, but the most impressive part is the presentation. The audio and visual quality is stunning as usual. Truly beautifully done. Sid Meier, don't stop making games please. But a step in a new direction next time would be nice.

Not too many new features from the previous games. The additional features are minor and mostly unnecessary (the hexagonal tiles end up unmeaningful). Most of the old features are simplified; maybe oversimplified. And the game takes so much memory; around 1GB-1.5GB; textures never load completely after a load.

This seems to be a "love it or hate it" game. You have to like turn based strategy games, first of all, which is already pretty rare. Veterans to the series seem to not like this game because it's been "dumbed down." I still liked it, had over 200 hours of fun with it. Taking a day off school to turn a settler and a warrior into an expansive 20 city empire that leads the world in everything is a rewarding experience. I played Civ 4 and Civ 5, and I have to say I like Civ 5 better simply because of the better UI, the one unit per hex, and the combat system in general. The AI is pretty dumb, though. If you're buying this game for the multiplayer, all I can say is just don't, nobody plays it and the nature of the game just isn't conducive to it. In short, think of it as a more refined Civ 4.… Expand

Perfect instalment for Civ. Cities have been simplified to some degree, making specialized cities isn't quite as crucial as it was in Civ4 due to the fact that most national wonders aren't % increases. All the economy is a bit more steamlined. Combat is infinitely better then Civ 4 which is where Civ 5 really shines. No more stack of doom mass seige garbage. You need a good plan when warring and you really need to take terrain into account. Passing through a choke point will favor ranged units, wide open flat terrain will favor melee and cavalry. Great game.… Expand

Some good stuff in this game, but also a lot of idiocies. The good stuff, is that the multiple paths to winning really work. Previous versions were all about expanding, but in this version a compact civilization can do very well. The bad is that the game is unecessarily hard to manage. A lot of techniques that existed in prior versions are missing. Such as being able to set your city preferences across the empire from one city. Or, being able to go to a city screen from the F2 city summary view, or being able to change production in the same F2 view. It also is cheap that you the game does not take into account production to date when purchasing a building. All of these were probably left out to help sell the sequel in typical Sid Meir fashion.… Expand

I tried this game again after about 14 months, waste of my time. I am extremely disappointed the flawed gameplay mechanics are still around, I am even more disappointed about the technical bugs. There is no reason that my cursor should disappear in a section of city management after 18 months of release, It should support dual monitors, my cities shouldn't disappear occasionally, I shouldn't have red sprites appear, etc etc. I think these things are the biggest proof of what a failure this game is. People argue that the gameplay is well done and thought out, if they thought so they would have completed the rest of their game. If an Indie game had this many issues a couple months after release it would be unacceptable, for a series with this much renown to suffer from these types of bugs 18 months after release is completely unacceptable. I am in the camp of never buying another firaxis/2k game on day one, I'm going to wait for extensive reviews before I purchase one. I think this is an extremely good example of how ridiculous critic reviews are, for this to be one of the highest rated games of all time is shameful.… Expand

I played a few games of Civilization V and I have to say that it is clearly inferior to Civilization IV in tactics and strategy. The change from multiple units being allowed to occupy a single square to one unit per square severely limits a player's strategy, making combat cumbersome, and less interesting. The ability to defend cities without an army seems ridiculous, especially when combined with their ranged attack that is automatically upgraded as the game progresses; starting with a ranged attack even without the knowledge of archery. The scientific aspect of the game is much more simplified, and the amount of civilizations/leaders available to play is abysmal. The city building is more or less the same as in Civilization IV and Gandhi is still as treacherous as ever. In my opinion it is one of the more mediocre versions of Civilization, far inferior to the previous installment in the series.… Expand

I played Civ 2 but that was a long time ago. I really enjoyed how they've removed so much of the tedious parts of the game (micro managing workers for instance) and you can play a game in a couple of hours now although 3-6 is probably average. Lots more ways to win. The various achievements encourage you to try the different races. I was able to figure the game out without too much trouble. The multitude of difficulty levels means that players of EVERY ability will have fun. As you get better with strategy, you can slowly raise the difficulty level. This is important to keep frustration levels down. The graphics are really nice.… Expand

It's been a year since this game released. Many of the bugs were swept under the carpet. When I run the game it sputters and stalls through the intro. If you load an earth map it is still bugged since day one. Yet they are willing to sell more maps. There isn't much they aren't trying to sell in this game. It's the most over priced misleading pile of vomit ever released. Had they been straight forward with the fan base I wouldn't have so much dislike of it. They called it a big wet sloppy kiss to the fans, then said to those same fans they weren't the demographic. The AI is worthless, the graphics are over rated, the multi player is worthless, and the game itself is worthless. If you can grab it for 5 dollars don't bother. They have another $500 in DLC they'll try to sell you.… Expand

Nice turn based strategy game. You will be in charge of managing the development of a civilization. You will be challenge by other civilizations who will compete against you and others for land and resources; you can manage your victory in several ways: For example, a civilization can win by Cultural Victory or by Domination Victory (other victory conditions available). The game let you create military units that range from ancient times (archers for example) to modern era (tanks!). You also have to manage city resources (although it can be automated) like food, production and mines, for that purpose several buildings can be constructed. Also, community mods (extra content for free) is available. For those interested in achievements, this game has Steam achievements. I haven't play the multiplayer part of this game. Well, that's all.… Expand

It's actually insulting to think of this game as the sequel of the much-more-awesome Civilization 4. Besides the combat system, which saw some neat improvement, everything else was dumbed down to the point your only management consist of choosing what's next on your cities' production queue. Extremely accessible for newcomers, an insult for old gamers. The User Interface looks good if you say you're playing it on facebook though.… Expand

I have never played Civilization I, II, III, or IV.
I decided to try the demo and I was hooked.
However, after a few long games I think it is pretty apparent that the AI is severely lacking.
AI players don't appear to be motivated by anything but expanding their territory and conquest. They don't appear to ever attempt a victory through, diplomacy, culture, or technology. The leader/diplomacy screens look great and are fully voiced, but the AI doesn't seem to respond to diplomacy in any meaningful way.
Basically, in single-player, any type of victory besides conquest, and any action besides building up your military is a waste of time.… Expand

I hated it at first, and then I loved it.
I guess that at first I had an idealized image of what the series was, but after actually having gone back to play the old games I came back with a fresh look on CIV V.
This is now my favourite game in the series, although there are some things missing that I would like, but they're apparently going to be re-introduced in the upcoming expansion.

well, another game has been dumbed down in order to appeal to the WoW audience. CiV is a real crying shame of a game. Instead of building on the achievements olf Civ 4 they havespoiled it by making an entirely new game.

A game that is shallow, too easy, dumb and has very little going for it once you get into the industrial age. Be very aware that Firaxis employees are spamming Metacritic with good reviews in order to bump its rating up.… Expand

I got this game the day it was released. Previous releases have warranted this type of action, and, though enamored at first, I kept waiting for the challenge to appear in the game. I've run rampant through the game, getting achievements and it all seems so easy compared to the other incarnations of Civ. I gave up playing it after a month or two of decimating the game on all levels.

Steam just had a sale on all the expansions, so I grabbed them all and will be playing again. They've done a lot of patches to the AI, so we'll see what changes. The other reviews of the combat system are spot on, only 1 unit per hex is bothersome, and I'll carpet the world with units. This can be interesting for logistics of attacking, but makes it far too easy to defend.… Expand

My first time playing the civilization series and I got hooked on it. It is much fun and challenging - right when you think you just might have peace with your neighbor civs they attack you from all sides. A really fun game to play.

Terrible, played it for 4 hours, won, put it back in the box. Where is the 'civvyness' in it? My enemies never scheme against me, never see through me mechanations against them, Hard here feels like beginner in civ IV. If you're new to the series, don't like thinking too hard, love mediocre graphics and gameplay, then this is for you. And if all the Civ games had been like that I would not be nearly as disappointed, or for that matter, have bought it. But as a sequel it is an Elementary school play released after a Blockbuster movie, and it even costs more than the movie! Disappointing.… Expand

Good version of Civ games, new generation of victory conditions and interactions with other nations on map. Graphics good, replayability good, a knock on in game cutscenes being replaces with static images, and some on screen improvement tiles losing in game action. The mines used to actually have cars and flames, etc.

I have been playing Civilization since the first game was released back in 1991. I can only give this game 9/10 with all the expansions installed. Without the expansions and without the patches that have been released to day it is a 7/10 at best. I am a fan. I avoid multi-player because I ONLY play Marathon game-length. The AI is pretty stupid and predictable, but I play to win! It is an enjoyable game, and I am a fan of no unit stacking. I always hated that I could make an invincible stack that would move around the game as a stack of death razing every city I came accross until I won. Combat is great in this game! It requires strat. You have to move an army into place before-hand, plan your routes, use land and sea, you need to send in reinforcements to areas which are wearing down... and none of the pathetic click and win RTS style. I am a Big fan of this game.… Expand

It's good enough to almost make me forgets how much better Civ IV was.The AI still sucks. Diplomacy is impossible. The hex system, you can basically forget it's there. Its only purpose is to make the 1 unit-per-tile thing playable. The game-speeds basically boil down to unplayably fast (epic or faster) or mind-numbingly slow (marathon). Luckily though, they dumbed the game down so much that it can basically play itself while you're not at war so I just turn it to marathon and read a book while I play.. One thing they still haven't fixed with mods is the sound-track. it repeats a couple of stereotypical game tracks ad nauseum, but that's what ipods are for. Also its glitchy and the loading times are horrible. Without a bunch of mods it's not worth playing. I got it for 75% off though so I can't complain too much.… Expand

I never played the earlier versions of Civ but I got a good amount of enjoyment out of this one. The vanilla version became stale after a while (before Gods and Kings); I do have to admit that.

Even with that addition however there were still some very annoying/lacking aspects of gameplay. Luckily there is a decent modding community behind the game that ended up fixing a good amount of those issues for me.

The multiplayer is incredibly lacking- I could only stomach one game before giving up on it entirely.

Overall the vanilla version of the game seemed incomplete and lacking to me. I'm still not sure if I'll be getting the new DLC as my backlog is a bit deep but if you can get this game DLC on a steam sale I'd definitely give it a shot.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Civilization V was unfortunately dumbed down to the point which all the advanced features were gone, features such as espionage. Another disappointing feature was the victory screen, where was the video? where was the spaceship flying to alpha centuri? the victory screens were unfortunatly simple and boring. Not to mention the numerous bugs (such as the infinate iron and horse bug); Besides that, Civilization 5 had much more interesting game combat and the introduction of social policies was also exciting. 6/10… Expand

Sure, the game may be too dumbed-down for the experienced Civ. fans, but for newcomers like me, this game is good. I've already played more than 50 hours and I'm still enjoying it.

Take everything you ever loved about the CIV franchise and then delete half of it. Then dumb it up some more so a twelve year-old can play it on his X-box and that is CIV five. This game is a huge disappointment. The graphics upgrades are less than exemplary, almost cartoonish. The removal of all the sophisticated strategy elements leaves you wondering why. Recent patches have fixed some of the game imbalances and absurd city-state mechanics, but on a whole this is the worst CIV game ever.… Expand

In one word: boring.

A complete letdown for a long-time Civ fan (since Civ II). Abundant technical problems mar gameplay causing huge lags between turns that allow you to peacefully read Tolstoy's War and Peace and even finish it in between turns. Huge lags just firing up the game FGS! Continuous CTD ( I must have suffered easily over 200 CTD) litter gameplay killing off immersion. And yes my rig is high-end so I shouldn't be having these problems but I do. In fact I even upgraded specifically it for its release. What a sucker. Now let's talk gameplay. The biggest change by far is the one-unit-per-tile rule, which although opens up a bevy of new strategy paths and may seem interesting on paper, in practice kills all the fun and addictiveness the game is renowned for. Lack of movies on winning, lack of statistics, INDIVIDUAL DLC's for each and every additional civilization (WTF!! you have to be kiddin's us) at 7 USD the pleasure...I must have "rich civ sucker" tatooed all over my forehead and the list goes on and on. On the positive side, undoubtedly the most beautiful graphics and sound a civilization game has ever been graced with. But then again, strategy games are NOT about pretty graphics (SMAC I'm looking at you). If I want them, I pick up Crysis 2 instead. Strategy games are about gameplay. Let me write that gain, "gameplay". You know, immersion, fun, addictiveness (one-more-turn), wife yelling at me, playing until the wee hours of the morning with a coffee. That sort of thing. Let me just add the civic tree is a great addition that spices up the game.

I hope the Civilization franchise has not been killed off as a result of this disaster.

Conclusion:

It feels dumbed down from Civ IV and I wasn't even a great fan of the latter mind you. Hey, I LIKE MM my workers and fielding huge armies with hundreds of units you know...don't remove these things, make them optional at most.

My advise, wait until they release the GOTY edition and see if it's been patched up or something. Although the biggest killer, the one-unit-per-tile rule, cannot be fixed with a patch. Pick up Shogun 2 Total War instead. It crashes from time, but compared to Civ V it is "stable" and runs smoothly; worth every penny.… Expand

Wow, what a load of disappointing crap. If this game would just have the exact same graphics and the same game mechanics CIV 4 had, this game would be already better lol. But they dummed it down that my dicks dick could be my advisor in the game. Very dissapointed and sad :(

Huge disappointment. I've played all civilization games starting from the very first one 20 years ago. It could have been a great game but for a few issues that despite being minor make the game completely unenjoyable. 1) there is a severe limit on the size of your empire. once you grow large enough, unhappyness kicks in with severe penalties. When going for conquest victory I had to raze all enemy cities except capitals (that you can't raze) because I just couldn't afford the extra population (even as puppet cities). by the modern ages most of the map consisted of unworked, uninhabited land where barbarians roamed. Even if I didn't go for conquest and wouldn't burn the cities there still would be tons of unused land.

2) the game is slow. There is little to do and whatever you do is snail slow. Computer turns take forever despite my rig having latest gen CPU, 8GB of RAM and SSD.

3) AI is terrible. computer players don't take advantage of the new combat system (which is great by the way). You can have an unprotected archer slowly killing off a warrior from a distance with warrior making no attempts to attack your archer. Dumb!

4) Diplomacy is a random mess

5) all nice concepts from Civ 4 like religion, corporations, espionage are gone.

The only improvements are hexagon tiles and one unit per tile limit. But it doesn't nearly outweigh all the disadvantages listed above.

Mr. Sid Meyer, I'm very disappointed.… Expand

This is the most disappointing sequel I have ever played. I played Civ4 for well over 1000 hours of my life. I played Civ5 for 36 hours according to Steam, and I haven`t had the slightest urge to pick it up again. Civ 5 is like Civ4 with slightly better graphics, a hexagonal playing field and a whole lot of things removed including everything I considered fun, and it was clearly made by people who don`t know why gamers played the previous Civ games. Where do I begin... Let`s start with the AI. It has obviously not received any QA time whatsoever. You will repeatedly encounter the other civs behaving in a way that makes no sense whatsoever. The other civs will declare war at random, and ask you for help and then brand you a warmonger and hold a grudge against you for thousands of years because you did what they asked for and helped them. The other civs have a way of ganging up on the human-controlled civ and making demands of it that they don`t make of each other. Wonders feel useless, and instead of animations you just get a cheesy image.There is no technology trading. The technology race feels irrelevant. Making research pacts is idiotic. Renewing research pacts is idiotic. Neutral nation states that give you `missions` -- idiotic. Punishing civs for expanding by making cities exceedingly expensive while half the world map remains empty well into the industrial age -- idiotic. On occasion, other civs won`t bother to build a second city or any units for that matter. Cities are weapons -- idiotic. Archers can fire over hundreds of kilometres. Only one unit can fit per tile, meaning that vulnerable units often have no protection. This game feels like the war is actually happening between 10 soldiers versus a tank rather than a unit that symbolizes a whole infantry or armored division. The war is a cartoon of Civ4`s war. Hexagonal tiles are a very lazy improvement, and the game gains little through them. There are no ending animations and no summary of history, probably because it would expose how broken the AI is.

If I were to make a real sequel to Civ4 here`s what I would include: 1) theatres of war: when you fight inside a tile the camera zooms in to a strategic view where your divisions are split up into smaller units that you can move around on the zoomed-in map. These units support each other with indirect fire, flanking and fighting at short range. This would be far better than having one unit per tile or having stacks of doom like in civ4. It would also be a lot more work to implement, but that is exactly what I expect from a whole new game -- which civ5 is not

2) Better population dynamics. Assuming I have the same amount of food, it shouldn`t make any difference whether I train settler and split into two cities or not. My total population should be the same. In civ5 the population dynamics make no sense.

3) Intead of building an army, I should build equipment and employ a segment of my population to use it. You can`t build soldiers, only give birth to them.

4) Smart and logical AI that doesn`t attack at random.

5) More techs and more units, including many more in the modern era.

6) Allowing backward civs to get third-rate versions of modern weapons (the equivalent of African AK47s) without a lot of research.

That is the kind of civ game I would like to play, but of course it would take some thought to appreciate and lots of time and effort to construct. Civ5 on the other hand was rushed and designed to look good for 5 hours, just long enough for the reviewer to give it its high mark and then give up on it.… Expand

I played Civ 1 right at the beginning, and then Civ 2. Missed the other iterations. Coming back to Civ V is a big disppointment. Very dumbed down version of what I remember Civ to be. No complexity, no challenge, no fun. Boo. UPDATE: I've now bought Civ IV, and played it for a few hours. Immediately obvious that its much better than Civ V. Its what a Civ game should be; not dumbed down for the button masher crowd.… Expand

A great addition to the Civilization series, but not quite as good as Civ IV. The removal of things like espionage and religion, only to be re-added in a later expansion, is very disappointing. It does try to shake things up by not only going to a hex tile system instead of squares, but only allowing one unit per space when before you could stack up an entire continental army on a single space. A lot of players see such a huge change as a bad thing but being different isn't necessarily being worse.… Expand

Total Disappointed... CIV 5 is a FAIL game.. with a fail AI and a fail strategic concept. The only thing I liked is the introduction of city-states and the particular attention to the graphics. The rest is all garbage. Poor diplomacy. Ridiculous combat system. Accelerated timing too much. Do yourself a favor: play CIV III, is the best of the series.

If you haven't played another civilization game before and are looking to start I suggest you go out and buy Civ 4. Its significantly better than this one. I was amazed when I first saw the graphics of this game. They are beautiful and seamless. I also liked the idea of resource scarcity where an iron supply can allow you to build up to 5units. (For example) In Civ 4 once you have the critical resource there is no incentive for you to get another one of it. You'd have to be stupid to trade it and so except for the shield bonus it goes to waste. I was unsettled by the move to hexagonal tiles and the no unit stacking. Also cities acting as their own (Flawed it turns out) defense. However I found all 3 changes tolerable and even enjoyable for a time. I like the move to range units however what unit is "ranged" seems kind of arbitrary. The fact that two units can attack each other for a few turns without utter destruction of one in a way compensates for the lack of "stack".

The main thing however that I cannot abide is the dumbed down gameplay. I only played 1 game on medium difficulty. Won with the top score. And uninstalled the game knowing I never want to do that again. There was no challenge to it. Worse it felt like the game was steering. To do modestly well I needed only to click whatever was flashing and do the suggested thing. Same with suggested buildings/units. It was the difference between strategizing and being the guy who says "I approve this message".

Due to the lack of stack it is quite easy to gang up on individual units making military conquest quite easy. Even when you are the supposed underdog. While I initially enjoyed the city states they quickly turned into an annoyance always demanding gold or new things to stay payed off and under my influence. I started wiping them out to build my empire and was glad I did. Even though it did mean they ganged up on me and all declared war. Nothing came of it. Just more cities for me. I found it was more efficient just to have the city then to be trying to bribe my way into their good graces.

When it came to technology I understand the move away from tech trading. Much kinder on isolated starts. But doing so removed 90% of diplomacy for me. The "research deals" which replaced them were a sad surrogate. As well sometimes a civic would make a research deal with you and then break it prematurely. Costing you both gold to no ones benefit. That is either spite or poor game design. All and all this game is beautiful. But being a strategy game stripped of any real strategy it is quite pointless. I wish they would re-release civ 4 with this level of graphics.… Expand

This review was a long time coming. I basically have 3 different reviews based on performance. When I first bought the game, I had technical issues with game performance. I couldn't get DX11 to work and the game played like a 15 year old game on my fairly new desktop. The game was simply unplayable. When the game does work, it's one of the most complex and entertaining games I have ever played. Absolutely outstanding. Very deep and has almost endless replay value. The DLC is abundant and still likely to see some new releases in the future. The game on Steam also has a great modding community. Makes it easy to try out other people's creations. All of the extras are just gravy as the base game is the best strategy game of its kind in the world. Civ V will probably hold this title until Civ 6 comes out in half a decade or so.… Expand