Having played Civilization I, II, III, and IV constantly since they were first released, and through the various incarnations of Warlords, Beyond the Sword etc., but having never played Civilization Revolution, I was looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to the release of Civilization V.

I cannot remember the last time a PC release found me waiting in the damp chill of autumn air outside my local game store before opening, but Civilization V managed it. I know I could have bought it on Steam, but old habits... Having played the new version for the past few days, I would make the following observations:


Civilization V reminds me of a camera I once bought - it had an "auto" mode, which did pretty much everything, and which did not need any great experience with photography to use. Clearly, it was doing a great deal behind the scenes, - and I wanted to know what it was doing, but was frustrated that I could not figure it out. With Civilization V, it is similar: The turn-by-turn element is presented as simple, elegant, and most of the important information can be seen at a glance. But it does not go into enough detail for me. As a veteran player, I want more, not less.

Civilization V, I feel, forces a certain gameplay on me. In Civilization IV, I have more variety on how to play, but in Civilization V I think I have to build armies early, or the barbarians will become a major issue. I have to adopt certain policies in early gameplay, as the benefits of a few outweigh others in a developing civilization. I must micro-manage my workers, or they do something silly. The early choices in Tech are now massively simplified as religion does not play a part, and this seems to give less choice early on as to what direction to take.

Some common-sense programming standards are missing; when I click edit, to change a city name, the focus is not on the name change box until I click it. And hitting return afterwards does nothing, I have to click on accept. This lack of attention to detail does point to a rushed release, and, more importantly, it is a lower standard than I would have expected from Firaxis and Sid. My choices on the graphics menu are not always remembered on re-launch, but some are. This seems random, like some sort of annoying sub-game where you have to choose items in the correct sequence to get them to stick.

I actually like the zones of combat and one-unit-per-tile restrictions. It forces you to think about terrain, and the strategy of 3 and 4 tile bombardment, whilst using faster forces in reserve. However, you can end up with grid-lock during large and busy campaigns, especially if many civilizations attack you. This can lead to a severe lack of movement options, so that you are forced to pull out some units. And that big red bombardment arrow is out of place, I would have expected it to be the color of your leader, but beyond showing you where you are going to hit (and you knew that anyway, as you just chose the tile), it has little purpose.

The leaders screens are great design-wise, and in DX11 they look brilliant, but the responses are laughable - if I hear "would you be interested in a trade agreement with England" one more time, I will go to war. Seriously Firaxis, if that is the best you can do, leave them out. Marvin, the Android from the text-based Infocom HHGTG twenty years ago, had a better range of vocabulary and responses. The diplomacy feels shallow in Civilization V, like an afterthought, but I do like auto-expiration after thirty turns. It makes you to cultivate relationships. You have to renew them, otherwise you go to war, depending on how badly you need those relationships.

The [current set of reported] bugs frustrate enough to ruin the experience. Whilst I can recall that Civilization IV had a few issues on launch, I cannot recall them being this severe, or wide-ranging. Civilization V feels like a release that is rushed, and not exhaustively tested on enough hardware platforms. The trouble is, it now ruins the experience for me. In each turn, I am dreading another issue, rather than focusing on the game itself. The most recent annoyance is a cease-fire with the Siamese nation that steadfastly refuses to expire for either side, despite both parties having enough weaponry facing each other to provoke annihilation. The other things which makes me sorry for the release is how few people on various forums are raving about this release. Surely, they should be talking about the game in a positive light, rather than having to report bug after bug.

The AI again struggles with large wars over continents and shows a distinct lack of imagination, especially with ships and aircraft, leaving them sitting in unimportant locations, ready to be taken out. The AI also does take strategic or luxury resources as much it could. However, since I have not yet played at the highest difficulty, I reserve judgment on the AI until I will have done so.

The "advisors" are laughable - worse than the over-acted, strangely likable characters from Civilization III. They now look exactly like the rest of the interface, more like a console port than a PC game. It is Civilization, but "dumbed down" and simplified, perhaps that is the intent? I cannot see what benefit that brings, except for really inexperienced players to the genre.

Civilization V is a bitter-sweet experience overall. If you look "under the bonnet" there are some detailed and intricate mechanisms at work; however, they are often just out of reach, you can see what is happening, but not change it with enough granularity to really make the game experience unique. On the surface, its far too basic in my opinion - as my 10 year old son observed the other night - why do you just keep clicking on "change production" and "next turn" - where is the fun in that?

Graphically, Civilization V is great in DX10/11, and to be fair not terrible in DX9 with the fog of war tweaked. However zooming feels like a retrograde step as well. Zooming out completely to see the full planet is missing, and I miss it. Also zooming in is less detailed, it ends further away than Civilization IV. I would have expected a much higher detail of zoom, especially when zooming in, after all "black and white" managed that years ago.

For me Civilization V should have been the pinnacle of the evolution of the Civilization series, but somehow, even though I keep playing, it feels a step back. I wanted more in every sense, not a re-working, and not a change in the strategy. With modern computers, and that the only processor intensive tasks are the graphics and the AI, I expected really customizable units, not only down to the name, but also colors, standards, and individual upgrades, that manifest themselves not just with combat capabilities but graphically as well. I wanted to see much more city-details. I wanted to zoom into the streets, and perhaps manage trade quarters, commerce buildings, and ports. I wanted to control the local government and see how the military controlled rioting, in graphical detail. I want vassal states back, but with the ability to mutiny, and broker deals behind your back. I want rogue states, which threaten the peace of the whole planet, and which have to have sanctions laid against them. I want to terraform and customize the landscape after the technology is available. I want mountains to be something more than useless. And I want religion back, for all it represents both good and bad in the Civilization, it is part of the inherent ideology of our world; perhaps an early choice would be nice where a civilization can choose to embrace it or not. And is it beyond the scope of the game to consider late-game satellite colonies, space stations and moon bases? After all, this game is about exploring of what is and what could be.

Overall, I am disappointed. I keep playing, because I like Civilization V, and I feel I owe it to the obvious skill and dedication of the programmers to see if it gets better, and to find out what is round the next corner. So in that sense, it is addictive to me. But it could have been so much more, and better.

But there is one good thing: This will encourage competition. If Civilization V represents anything, it is what can happen without challenge or review, the perfect world of the monopoly. Without any competition, the designers have simply had to create something they feel works and will sell in 2010. Something that they are happy with, and that meets the designs of their brief. Sid / Firaxis cannot be wrong after so many successive and successful titles. They saw off the competition years ago when Call To Power started pushing up the daisies. Without the spirit of competition, without the drive to be the best in a field of many, you get stagnation, a lack of innovation and dearth of new ideas. But, sincerely - thanks to Firaxis and the designers, the field is now wide-open once more for a third-party to step in and declare "we can do this better". And that can only be good for the rest of us.