Civilization V !!!WARNING!!!

[Runaway!!!]

If you liked Civilization IV you’ll most likely hate Civilization V.

Aside from being super slow even on the top of the line gaming computers, Civ. V is also extremely buggy and sometimes even crashes. You can forget about any map that is larger than small, no matter how many AI players you chose. Once the map begins filling up with cities, the game will freeze up. All in all the game is broken and seems rushed. I’ll bet some jacka$$ MBA graduate said, “Not done? ... So what? ... We need cash now!! ... Send it out anyway.” I for one am disappointed with what (IMO) is a steaming turd ball with little resemblance to what was once a well rounded and enjoyable series of Civ. Games. :mad:

[Pak_43]

I disagree, I loved Civ IV and am having a blast on Civ V

[Other Means]

I can't see why it takes up so much processing power. It nearly freezes your machine - to animate little units? The rest of the game is a spreadsheet so it seems odd.

[gunnergoz]

I did not want to buy it initially because of Steam (ugh!), but I bought it in the end, anyway. It is quite unstable and crashes about once in every 3 launches. I can run huge maps but sometimes reloading saves is problematic. It is quirky. I run it best under DirectX 9, though I have Vista and had to d/l the runtime version of 9. It does demand a lot of your video GPU for some reason. Is it the buggiest Civ ever? Maybe.

As for gameplay, it is elegant, but in a dumbed-down, formulaic way. The key seems to be the luxury resources, for without enough of them your empire gets unhappy pretty quick and all growth stalls. And if you can't locate iron or horses (each resource hex has a quantity of units it can support, either 2 or 6) then the mid game gets pretty dicey. But I find cities can be breached if you bring along enough units to wear them down.

The AI is sort of dumb. It is not very aggressive building wonders and I can usually build two or three before other civs get into the game. The key one I find is Stonehenge, for it awards a whopping 8 culture points while other wonders only do a paltry 1 or perhaps boost culture by some percentage. Get stonehenge early and you can run for all those policies that help you quite a bit by speeding production, improving combat, making money, etc.

I miss the complexity of Civ IV, with religions, spying, expanding cultural frontiers - especially the latter - in Civ V, once two culture's borders meet, they stay there. There is no pushing back a less cultured civ's border any more it seems (at least I've never seen it, other than the artist culture bomb, which I've yet to experience.)

But my main complaint is having to worry about these nasty total crashes that require a system reboot. That's damn annoying. At lest with DirectX 9 I can run windowed and most of the time only the window crashes. But it is a nuisance.

Some other things I miss from earlier Civ versions is the data displays. For instance, there is no way to see all of the luxury resources that you own, though you can use the diplomacy screen to see what extras you have. The UI is nice, but a bit too simple for my tastes.

The only thing I like about Steam so far is the modding part of it. It is easy to peruse new mods and download and install is a no brainer now that they fixed the initial bugs in it.

It's a pretty game, but you need a beefy system to see the tinsel and even then there are people with high end systems reporting problems. 2K has lots of resources, though, and I expect the issues will be dealt with. They've already come out with three patches since release on the 21st so that's commendable. But it ain't quite stable yet, at least not for many.

Do I recommend it? If you are a Civ grog, sure, but be ready for a bit of a letdown compared to Civ IV. If you are new to the genre, give it a whirl, but be sure your system can handle it and your drivers are up to date.

[Wicky]

26 Hours on Civ V without too many problems (Space Ship Assembly a PIA) then the steam update is causing a lockout and when working issues with lack of audio and crashes. Steam forum has a lot of not many happy customers...:mad:

[Stalins Organ]

Here's a review of it from downunder - this guy likes it, acknowledges that it does things differently and therefore some ppl will hate it just for that, but overall sees it as an improvement.

And if it wasn't different why would you buy it anyway??!!

[MeatEtr]

Wow, it's getting great reviews averaging 90% out of 25 reviews over at GameRankings. Although I haven't got it yet, will eventually, it appears the tech problems aren't that widespread as the OP makes it out to be. At least judging by some of the reviews anyway, one reviewer listed a pro as "stable as the place you store your horses".

[gunnergoz]

I don't take much stock in the reviews since most of them are beholden to the producer one way or the other...especially a big house like 2K and Sid being a household name.

Having played over 100 hours on it so far, I still find it annoyingly unstable, buggy and the AI is still pretty dumb. I do think it can be improved though so I am hanging in there. It's simpler, smoother playing style does make it more of a beer and pretzels kind of civ, but that's hardly surprising given the attention span of today's game buyers.

[dieseltaylor]

What about using Clash of Steel for your fix?

[MeatEtr]

I don't take much stock in the reviews since most of them are beholden to the producer one way or the other...especially a big house like 2K and Sid being a household name.

Well I like to get many opinions when making a game purchase. The few that post feedback here in the GF is woefully inadequate. Although it's much appreciated since I have similar gaming habits. But when there's alot of reviews out there like this, the ones that are biased either pro or con usually stick out like sore thumbs.

[Pak_43]

metacritic is your friend

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sid-meiers-civilization-v

[Terahn]

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sid-meiers-civilization-v

Interestingly from that page...

9.0 ... based on 53 [critics'] reviews.

7.4 ... based on 128 [users'] ratings.

The Universe continues to escape simple understanding.

[Michael Emrys]

So the critics feel they owe something to the game company and the people who had to pay for theirs don't feel under the same obligation. What's not to understand?

Michael

[Pak_43]

Or possibly the critics didn't play it long enough to actually encounter some of the problems the players had?

[Other Means]

Actually, these Civ V reviews have made me go back and play Civ IV. I never liked it much but I'm enjoying it more now. It's nice to whack Culture up and take a few border cities.