Sid Meier's Civilization V - Review
Originally published February 2016Once I've exhausted my taste for the rising and falling empires and feel I've gotten a grasp on everything Civilization V has to offer, expect a Late Bird Review or Completion Report.
My tastes have definitely been exhausted.
No Civilization V does not suck. If you read my initial impressions of it, you'd have seen that I thought the game good, though flawed. It's a very competent game with many sound mechanics and it has sucked away plenty of my time as a result. That time suck, however, is one of the main reasons I've decided to walk away from it. I was deep down the rabbit hole and I got sick of Wonderland after the fifth 10+hour game. Who wouldn't get tired of a game like Civilization V after 50 hours?
It wasn't that I was deeply involved during that time either. I was just playing it casually while doing something else. Nonetheless, it had enough of my focus during that time for me to determine that it was no longer worth the time or hard drive space, which meant it was time for a Late Bird Review. It'll be a little different this time as I don't want to rip on a game that is actually good, but I want to go over why I got sick of Wonderland.
Image: Firaxis
Presentation
Let's just get the presentation out of the way since it really doesn't matter that much. If you're playing Civilization V for the presentation, you're playing for the wrong reasons. The game is certainly the best the Civilization franchise has looked and hasn't gotten any more impressive in Beyond Earth, but it's not like it's going to blow you out of the water with its physical detail. You're looking at a grid-like map of an imaginary world 90% of the time. So, physical graphics are barely worth noting. The presentation of Civilization V shines for the small touches and little details.
This includes the effort the developers put into the music and what plays in the background, depending on your selected civilization and the time period you are currently in. When I played Ramesses of Egypt, the music throughout the entire playthrough sounded like it was inspired by the traditional music of Egypt and had a focus on chimes and bells. Whereas, when I played as the Vikings from one of the expansions, the background music used instruments and rhythms more akin to that region of the world, with a focus on drums and horns.
Image: Firaxis
Civilization V has small touches to its look that help elevate its presentation as well. When your city increases in population, or a particular structure is completed it appears on the map and gives that small endorphin release of accomplishment, even though you did next to nothing, similar to what one may get from the little achievement notifications. Much like how I enjoyed the items you added to your commander in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, I enjoy seeing the things reflected physically on the map after I've made some changes. Then again, it is all just a map.
The main superficial detail that I enjoy in Civilization V is the presentation of the leaders from other countries. I don't think there are enough options during these interactions to actually make the mechanic work, but I enjoy listening to the leaders of their respective nations address me in their native tongue with the various hints of emotion they may have towards me. It's a small touch, but a welcome one.
Image: Firaxis
Gameplay
Let's break down the meat and potatoes of the game: the gameplay.
Winning
Winning in Civilization V is not so easily done by simply taking over the world with your military, however, it is possible. There are several different avenues a player can take to achieve victory in a game. Science, culture, military, and politics all have their parts to play in achieving total victory. When I played Civilization V, I beat it in a couple of different ways based on the nation I commanded. I could tell which method seemed like the least effective strategy based on the mechanics, yet it managed to be the most engaging to me. Regardless of which victory method you choose, just know that you are in for a long haul because your civilization is meant to last the length of 4 if you play it from the beginning of history.
Civilization V allows you to control and set up your game. You can choose your civilization, the map type, the map size, the number of competitors on a map, the difficulty, and the speed at which the game moves—the speed of the game is definitely a gripe I have, but we'll get to that later. Over the course of 4,000 years, you act as the leader of your people by telling them what to build, where to settle, and what to study.
As time passes, buildings are constructed, either physically on the map tiles by your workers, or within your city. Map tile improvements increase your resource acquisition rates and sometimes boost other resources as well. These improvements can be built all around your controlled region by multiple workers at a time. City buildings, meanwhile, often add more strategic values to your nation and give their own unique benefits, especially if the buildings are wonders. Some wonders, such as the Great Pyramids, can only be constructed once by a single nation, so there's a certain strategy for building wonders before the other nations to gain the competitive edge. Even though you can have multiple tile improvements being constructed at a time, cities can only construct one unit or building at a time, which adds to the pressure of the wonder race.
Image: Firaxis
In the meantime, your civilization is also conducting research. There is a technology tree that leads a civilization down the various ages of technology, from the Stone Age to the modern age. As your civilization becomes more advanced, new buildings and military units become available for purchase or construction. You also are constantly accumulating science points, so if you decide to study a specific group of technologies to gain the technological advantage over your opponents, you can go back to research the other ones later in a shorter amount of time. By focusing your country's resources on science, it's possible to make it further through the technology tree than the other nations and achieve victory upon building a space shuttle.
Being proficient in science is crucial to discovering new buildings and wonders to construct, but it also helps improve your military capabilities. As your nation goes through the various ages, your military units go from basic axe men, to swordmen, to knights, to musketmen, to infantry, to tanks, etc. Having a more scientifically advanced nation is always advantageous against your opponents, it just depends on which parts of science you wish to focus on, so it's important to consider your technological focus early.
In addition to the scientific tech tree, there are multiple culture trees for your nation to go through. These provide strong benefits to the country and are unlocked as you gain culture points through the various buildings you have in your cities. If you accrue enough of these cultural benefits, you can create the ultimate cultural wonder and win that way as well.
Image: Firaxis
Finally, if you happened to play a nice diplomat the whole way through, and have managed to make it to the modern age in one piece, you can construct the UN building. Here, various city-states and your allies can possibly vote for you as a world leader. This grants you a political victory.
Expansion Packs
With so many methods of winning, along with the numerous nations you could play as it seems like the variety would be endlessly satisfying. However, Civilization V focuses on some methods of victory more than others and further complicates things with its expansion packs when it adds the benefits of spies, religions, and a world congress to the mix. I tend to feel that these new mechanics don't add as much to the game as the developers intended, and only further complicates an already dense game. The combination of the Brave New World and Gods & Kings expansions brings with them a multitude of changes:
Some of the culture trees are replaced
Benefits of Wonders are removed
New wonders are created
The technology tree is broken up more
New mechanics are added to balance out the gameplay
One of the new mechanics is the espionage mechanic. You can plant spies in other nations to steal technology or information and further progress your civilization in the race to the finish line. As cool as that sounds, there's very little control over what to do with your spies, as is typical of Civilization V, and it really is little more than a waiting-game mechanic. I often forgot about it entirely until a notification popped up that I had something new from my spy.
Image: Firaxis
There's also the religion resource that's been added. Now, you can construct buildings and control territory that adds religious value to your nation, which accumulates religious points. These points can be used to purchase units or further improve the religious faith and add benefits to your nation. If your religion is spread throughout the world and enough followers believe in it, it can help gain you a cultural victory in the game. It works in theory, but in my experience, it barely added anything to the gameplay and just made me have to pay attention to one more resource. Pretty much the same can be said about the tourism resource nonsense, so let’s just skip it.
Actually Playing the Game
So, you might be wondering what you're actually doing in Civilization V. What it really comes down to is that it's a resource management game. It calls itself a turn-based strategy, but that's not the whole story. While it's true that turns progress time in the game, and there are various strategies to follow, the core of the game is managing your resources. This can be science, culture, gold, religion, political alliances, whatever. You also have to concern yourself with the happiness of your people, the population growth, income, etc. There's a long list of details that you need to track to optimize your efficiency and you have to manage these things to make sure your civilization will make it to the end first as best you can. Notice how I didn't say military? There's a reason.
There is no military resource in Civilization V. You have military units that cost gold to maintain, and you can use them to destroy cities and declare war. Despite how the various cinematic cut-scenes of the game indicate that using a military should be a strong tactic, and despite the fact that many civilizations get military bonuses, such as special units, it is probably the least effective method of winning. After my initial victory as the Russians, I soon realized how much Civilization V actually hinders your military, in comparison to everything else. The more cities you control, the more unhappy your people get, especially if you have claimed another city from an enemy. If you annex too many cities, you're seen as a warmonger and are given a penalty. It's like the game is punishing you for using a military strategy.
Image: Firaxis
You can see how the military is hindered in the other systems as well. For instance, the technology tree has numerous branches that contain different buildings and benefits, but the ones that contain the biggest technological leaps in military improvements do not share as many benefits. This means that, if you want a strong military, you have to forgo everything else, which is a bummer, considering the fact that I want to have all the things when I play Civilization V! I want to have a lot of wonders, an advanced civilization, and the ability to crush another nation if they look at me funny. I don't want one that is culturally advanced but is constantly begging for peace treaties because I don't have anything to defend myself.
Part of the reason I want a military is for the sake of keeping the game interesting too. So much time passes in Civilization, both in real life and game time, that I started wars just to make the game feel like something was actually happening. When all you're doing is looking at spreadsheets, optimizing your resources, and clicking the Next Turn button, the game gets dull. Why wouldn't you do what I did and just suddenly declare war on Queen Elizabeth I? Well, unfortunately, even if you do, the warring part can be tedious too. It takes a long time for your units to travel the world, or get the technology necessary to travel to the cities and lay siege to them; not to mention the fact that the AI opponents are very proficient at destroying your units, further stretching out the fight. This leads me to my biggest gripe and why I've called it quits.
Progression Problems
This game takes too long. Period. I know you can adjust the settings to make it take less time for things to be constructed or researched, but I'm not sure that will improve much. I was playing on the regular speed and it felt extremely tedious and you can actually play even slower than that too! Regardless of what speed you choose to play, it doesn't change the core gameplay experience of the game, which can be summed up in 4 words: "Hurry up and wait." The whole game is centered around queuing up tasks and then hitting the Next Turn button. If you didn't have any plans for the military, you could queue up your technology tree, unit construction, building construction, and cultural benefits 100 turns in advance if you wanted. You could even use this strategy to play the game with everything queued up:
Regardless of what you choose to focus on in your country, the whole point of the game is that you are in a snail's race to the finish line. You may know where the finish line is, how to get there, and who you're up against, but it doesn't change the fact that you are going to have to wait a long time to get there.
You can control at what technological age your civilization starts, but I found that most of the satisfaction I got out of the game was knowing that I had brought it up from humble beginnings, not the middle of the race. The most satisfying parts of the game were at the very beginning and the very end. I enjoyed the beginning because it had the exploration element of trying to find the best spot for your nation's capital and searching for the best resources available, with the open-ended opportunity of determining the various tech trees to go down. I liked the end because of the fact that you could see the finish line and completely focus your efforts on one thing. It was the fun type of stress in trying to make sure you don't lose your hold on victory. This middle is where the game feels empty. Every nation is trying to gain speed over the other but nothing is going to happen for a while, so why not just declare war on each other?
Image: Firaxis
TL;DR (Conclusion)
I may have been a little harsh, but don't misinterpret the review. Civilization V is a solid game and it certainly consumed a fair amount of my time. The more I played, though, the more I became frustrated by the design choices and disconnected gameplay that prevented me from getting really involved in what was happening. I want more out of my strategy games than just resource management. I actually like Civilization V and would recommend it to anyone who thinks it might be what they want out of a strategy game. In fact, if they made a good mobile version of the game, I might be inclined to play it. However, after traveling deep down the Civilization rabbit hole for a good 50+ hours, I've had my fill of Wonderland and would like to return to strategy games where I do stuff.