2001

I don’t have the Americas map in the D2D release of the Deluxe edition. Nor did I get the Mesopotamia map that is exclusive to the Steam pre-order. So I suspect the Americas map was part of the bonuses of buying at Walmart.

Edit: Yup, here we go. Here is a list of the bonuses for buying Civ 5 at various outlets. For buying at Walmart, you get the Americas map.

2002

Just an update on this: I looked around in the Civ5 directory in Steam for anything that resembled the Celtic civilization that Kael added in his mod, but I couldn’t find anything. Anyone know how you install mods after you download them within the game?

2003

Anyone know how to stack a combat unit and a non-combat unit so they move together?

2004

So the AI does seem rather dumb at warmaking which is disappointing but not really unexpected for a new Civ release. I trust mods and patches will fix that soon enough.

Troy’s complaints about diplomacy seem rather strange, though. Why is it a bad thing that AI empires now agree to buy peace when their capital is threatened? I wish they’d done that in Civ4 where they all were suicidal maniacs! The shift of “friendly” diplomacy from competing players to city states sounds in line with what I expected from all the previews and podcasts; not sure how this is a bad thing, either. It really was always somewhat strange that you could make competing AI players friendly enough that they let you win…

2005

I don’t think that was complaint. The complaint I’m seeing around the net is that the AI is very poor at evaluating when to go to war / sign a peace treaty / whatever.

2006

But that’s hardly news in the Civ series… if they at least try to buy peace when their capital us threatened, that’s better than any previous Civ!

2007

Only got a half hour in this morning before work but I will agree with Troy’s review that the UI is outstanding. Easy to read, easy to manipulate, gets out of the way when not needed, excellent use of visualization techniques like color, font and layout. Really great stuff there.

2008

It does seem probably the most polished UI I’ve seen in a game of this nature.

2009

I played the demo quite a bit today. It runs pretty well on mid-low settings on my wimpy netbook and isn’t too ugly either. I really shouldn’t be spending the money right now, but I’m considering make a poor decision.

The UI is really, really good. I really like how the military game has changed as well.

2010

Yea, most people don’t remember that the AI on Civ games always isn’t perfect on release. It had its blind spots in Civ IV upon release and for some time after. Same with every other version. It’s going to take some heavy duty play-testing for Firaxis to tweak the strategy AI and the leader AI - the kind of testing that only comes from release. And I’m sure there are new concepts that either people don’t realize or aren’t properly explained that result in some of the cause/effect things reviewers are talking about.

One thing I’ve noticed about the reviews - and I’m not saying they’re incorrect - is that Civ V is really being judged against a different standard. Civ IV is probably the best game in the series and quite possibly the best TBS game of all time. It’s still fresh, even after 4 years. The expansions, especially BtS, added enormous depth to an already deep game. It’s still in many folks’ gaming rotations, including mine.

As such, Civ V is often compared to an expansion-improved Civ IV. It’s not entirely unfair to do so, but meeting (never mind exceeding) the bar that Civ IV + BTS set is almost impossible to do on release. I’m glad they took the game in some different directions and it’ll be interesting to see how they tweak it and how it stands the test of time. That test will include expansions and mods, just like Civ IV benefited enormously from BtS and Fall from Heaven. I think that’s one of the great things about the entire Civ series…they keep on providing new challenges even years after release.

#$#%~@@!..5:00 PM can’t come fast enough so I can get home to play!

2011

Playing it during my lunch hour; my laptop workstation isn’t built for power gaming, which left the game crashing every two minutes till I switched to the DX9 version and toned down the graphics a bit (almost everything on Low). A little clunky. Getting through a map now as the Mali. So far… yeah. Very different. Liking it so far. The UI seems to be well polished to me. Diplomacy, yeah, much more simplistic. One area that I wish they borrowed from the latter TW series (as far as options go). I do like the secret treaties thing though.

Somehow I lost my Warrior unit. Maybe I accidentally disbanded him, but I moved it back into the city and now can’t get him anymore. Argh.

— Alan

2012

Tried playing in strategic view? (Hex-shaped icon in lower right corner of screen.)

Turns everything 2D, a much more low rent way to play. Hopefully if Firaxis puts Civ 5 out on iPhone, this is what it would be.

2013

Not yet. It works decently at this point.

Ah I figured out my Warrior was Garrisoned but wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get him back out of it. I’m guessing you can click on the icon next to the city name–I went into the military list and found him.

— Alan

2014

Because my army has gotten smaller and a turn beforehand they wouldn’t even talk to me. Now peace is worth all their gold, two cities (effectively taking themselves out of the game), horses, ivory and a partridge in a pear tree.

It’s the sudden shift from nonchalance to panic that gets me.

Troy

2015

As mentioned in some of the reviews, the diplomacy options are not documented very well in game. Here’s the official word on some of them:

A Pact of Cooperation will get you better deals with that AI player provided that you reciprocate. It’s an option meant to foster a positive relationship. Likewise, a Pact of Secrecy (where the AI asks you to work against another Civ) will also build a better relationship, provided you actually follow through, and do not cooporate with the target Civ.

2016

Noticed just how loud the fans are going in my PC. It’s like I’m playing Crysis. Yowsa, this game is a beast.

2017

Two annoyances so far:

  1. Why can’t I rename cities?
  2. Why are the wonderful editing tools released with Civ4 apparently absent from Civ5?

Otherwise, interesting. I’ll post more impressions as I get deeper into the game.

2018

Cause you’re not seeing the edit button.

2019

To dump the intro video (From Octopus Overlords:)

SA wrote:
Go to C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 (For Vista/Win7) and load UserSettings. Search for SkipIntroVideo and change it to 1. SkipIntroVideo = 1

2020

Good review, but this quote mystifies me:

…this Civilization feel like new wine poured into an old wineskin.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

The UI, art, and presentation seem very new and innovative.