Sid Meier’s Civilization V Review (PC)

Divide and conquer in this new installment of the Civilization franchise.

Divide and conquer with a massive army, use cunning diplomacy and negotiations to woe foes to allies, or dazzle and confuse enemies with your technology; these are some of the ways you can dominate the world. Sid Meier’s Civilization is known for its extensive and immersive strategy, where you must understand and utilize each factor of war. Foreign relations, commerce, religion, technology, defence, and many other factors must always be taken into account as you advance and grow your own personal civilization into the super power that carries you to victory.

It would be almost improper to categorize Sid Meier’s Civilization V as a simple video game, due the enormous mass of detailed, intense and deep strategy, and the balanced and complicated system. However, it provides the satisfaction and enjoyment of a simple video game with no hassle from complication or too many options. This game is for thinking, and Civilization V makes their process of thinking as beautiful, simple, and enjoyable as possible. Clean menus, choices with a grave impact on your civilization, and interesting choices make thinking like a politician or ruler rewarding and fun. You are constantly being thrown choices, and when I say constantly I mean every turn, with every unit, at every point in the game. Civilization V does not leave you a boring turn or a choice that seems unimportant. Even choosing the route which your worker takes will cause ramifications to your civilization. For example: do you take the quick route to your next town where you must cross a lake and possible death or do you take the long route? It is this constant importance looming during every turn and every decision that makes every second of reading details, calculating strategies, and thinking about each turn a complete and utter enjoyment.

Civilization V gives you complete immersion into the honest growth and expansion of your civilization. I cannot emphasize how much this game makes you feel like it’s your own civilization, your own country, your own world. I am new to this genre and franchise of the game; however, after playing my first game I was so attached to the system and concept of creating your own world that I couldn’t stop playing this magnificent game. After winning and defeating your enemies it even gives the option of something along the lines of: “No!one…more…turn…”.

You have the choice to play the game as a tyrant that doesn’t care about individual and detailed complaints, or you can pursue the ways of culture and use great scientists and engineers to expand and conquer. You can even rush science and have space stations and use late game mechanized units to crush your foe, in fact you can use none of these strategies and still win. Gamers rave about having a non linear game, well folks here you go. From day one you have no help, no checkpoints, just build your world as best you can for victory.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V is a beautiful game that holds some amazing and breathtaking details

As great as Civilisation V is at allowing you to build your own world, the turn base system has some slight problems. Firstly let me explain how the system works: You are given a turn to set up moves and do as many things as you like. However, everything has a limit of what it can do per turn. For example : a worker can only move one or two spaces per turn (depending on what terrain, if you have roads, if there is a river that must be passed etc…). You set your units to move, pick your future research, and choose what to build on the empty tiles, all in one turn but it takes a certain amount of turns in the future to complete it. After each turn the computer will take some time to calculate the moves of the other players in the games, when that is complete you have turn number two and must continue making choices and watching the progression of what you picked last turn. This system is amazing and could possible be underrated, as recent video games…Final Fantasy XIII…think that real time turn based is better. Sid Meier’s Civilization V turn based system might take away some of the adrenaline but instead it gives you the proper and needed time to make decisions that will reflect the entire future of your civilization. You can read about your next choice, check in game charts and tables which give you detailed information about your cities, and a lot more. You can take time to negotiate multiple trades with city-states or civilization or just work up a war plan to conquer your neighbouring enemy. Another important part of this system, which differs from the older Civilization games, is that you can’t stack units on the same tile; therefore, strategy and realism becomes more of factor. The only small issue which seems to be present is the late game turn based system. When you play on bigger maps and you have progressed to the late game, turns can take a good couple of minutes. The computer, just like your self, has a lot to deal with and multiple units to move. The longest I had to wait was about five minutes. This is not as bad as it seems because usually units move much more late game and not just one tile per turn but it can get rather annoying when you have to wait five turns for a nuke. 5 turns x 5 minutes is 25 minutes…

Sid Meier’s Civilization V is a beautiful game that holds some amazing and breathtaking details to units, landscape, and character art. I am able to run this game on full graphics across the board so it truly is magnificent. The music can be slightly weird at times but also epic. This magnificent game is really not for everyone. If you are interested in complicated and difficult political decisions, and the industrial and warfare consequences that follows; this game is indeed for you. Give this game a try and watch your civilization grow and conquer the ones around it, watch it blossom and get attached to not only the beauty of the game but the beauty of all your decisions. Watch how every turn you chose will come together to make your civilization become the ultimate super power. Wage war, make peace, negotiate trades, make pacts, make enemies, bring happiness, bring sadness, the possibilities are endless as well as the entertainment. Sid Meier’s Civilization V is nothing but exceptional.