First Impressions

[Proteus_MST]

Seems likely...
I played the Demo with Difficulty Warlord
and despite after ~75 turns only having 1 archer, 1 warrior and 1 scout unit
(as well as 2 cities) historians ranked my military as 4th (with at least 6 nations in the game)

(and the civilizations at place 1 and 2, which were visible to me, didn´t appear to have that many more units compared to myself)

[Nikolai]

The AI prioritize military more after it has got the economy going IIRC, so expect more units after a while.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Proteus - I always thought you are in Germany - is the game released there already but not in the UK?

[Boris Godunov]

I played 45 turns of the game this morning on Warlord, Standard Size Map, default settings. I played as the Romans. Some quick observations:

1) Game runs fine, had no technical problems at all
2) The graphics are definitely better than Civ IV, but don't bowl me over. The rivers look bad. The color pallette seems a little Civ 3ish (too much yellow).
3) Tech advancement seems very slow at first.
4) The game is a little obtuse on instructions. I actually miss some of the Civ IV pop-ups.
5) Turn changes are kinda slow, even very early on.
6) The minimap is ugly. Why is it completely featureless?
7) The one AI civ I encountered was Montezuma (oh joy!). He founded some new cities quite a distance away from Tenochtitlan. Is there no longer a distance to capital penalty?
8) Naturally I went to war w/ Monty. Combat is fun, definitely better than any Civ game so far. The tactical scope of it makes it far more compelling.

I won't be able to get back home to play it until around 8 PM tonight! Grrrr.

[Proteus_MST]

Proteus - I always thought you are in Germany - is the game released there already but not in the UK?

Nope, unfortunately not...
activation date is 24.9. according to the client, although the client seemed to have believed for a brief time that I were in the USA and therefore showed a wrong activation date (but even if it were today, it were of no use to me, because I ordered Civ V by Amazon UK [who haven´t delivered it yet])
Everything I talked about comes from the Civ V demo, which is also available in europe
(just have to install the steam client, register with Steam and then download ~4 GB )

[Aro]

Great intro and etc. I can't play the game full yet, 2 days more, so I'm playing the demo. Only 100 turns can't show you what the game really can do...
But I am, so far, a bit disappointed. My computer deals fine with the game, all set to maximum and all. Runs fine, no delays, everything is ok. But something is not exactly what should be...
Maybe is the demo. I can't plan ahead with only 100 turns... Yeah, it's certainly this. I hope.

[Nikolai]

7) The one AI civ I encountered was Montezuma (oh joy!). He founded some new cities quite a distance away from Tenochtitlan. Is there no longer a distance to capital penalty?

No penalty except roads cost money, and without a road connection you loose out on some good money. At one point, distance is no longer viable economically.

[Aro]

I agree, combat is way better.

[Nikolai]

Tip: City States are great. Befriend them. But make sure to take out one early on. You are sure to get some great resources, and they have probably still poor defences. Send f.ex. three archers and two spearmen, and they are toast. Archers are strong early on. Probably an idea to puppet the city though, that way it doesn't increase the culture demanded for a new SP, but it gives gold, science and culture still. And cost less happiness.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

OK - I am sort of holding off from the demo as only two days to wait... want to play until the end so the demo will be skipped.

[Aro]

The demo was made by evil goblins. 100 turns is just unfair. But I'll try that right now... ;-)

[MxM]

My impressions are to be found in my review posted on WPC, if anyone is interested. On the front page.

It is very nice review. However, if you focus just on single player, can you say why do you think that Civ 4 is better than 5? I could not get it from your review, because everything you told there sounds extremely interesting and positive about Civ V. I am getting impression that EVERYTHING is improved, then how can Civ 5 being much improved version of Civ 4 and still not being better?

[Nikolai]

Civ5 is very fun. I won't got back. But it's not as polished yet. It has balance issues. For example too little money in the late game, the importance of taking out a CS in the early game no matter if you want to play peaceful, the AI while being good sometimes doing idiotic choices(like giving up 13 of 14 cities in a peace deal because I kick its ass). I think it is a good game, I think it might be superior one day, but it's not polished enough. And MP is important. I don't play much MP, but MP being in such a poor state together with the aforementioned issues IMO warrants it to not be quite up with Civ4 yet.

[Boshar]

Played throug the demo twice. I'm kind of dissapointed. The game feels slow. The interface sometime works agains me (units that move into harms way instead of making a ranged attack, units on aut crossing borders, generals that need to be shepherded).

Building is slow. Getting more cities is slow. Building more units to get a good army is slow. After 100 turns there is barely something to rule over.

The city states idea is kind of nice. The borders, combat bonuses and rstore rules make you defend your land on the border which is a beter sollution but with building being slow as as it is making a good army is hard work and costs to much time. After playing the demo I won't be buying this game.

[Nikolai]

In my current game, I had 5 cities before turn 100. Could have got a couple more, but then I would have been dangerously close to -10 happiness and would have had to neglect the military.