It’s official! Civilization V is coming this fall, and the first trailer has been released for the latest in Sid Meier’s epic legacy. After the solid Civilization IV and it’s expansions, then the amazingly popular Civilization Revolutions for console (and soon to be ipad), Meier and Firaxis yet again look to bring the hammer down and set the stage for what is almost assuredly to be an instant hit.
Now I’ll be the first to say (and I’m sure the civvies are going to love this) that I do not like the Civilization series very much, particularly Civilization IV. Yes I know, I should be burned and doused with holy water for such heresy, but hear me out. Civilization IV isn’t a bad game; it just has several glaring flaws that can make or break the game at several points depending on how you play, and tends to suffer from a bit of melodramatic advertising. At higher levels (from about noble up) the series feels less like a game and more like an exercise in mathematics, micro-management, and patience. Expanding your empire becomes an experiment of trial-and-error to find the right formula to expand quickly and efficiently. Negotiating with enemy rules became a game of finding the magic number, and sometimes followed illogical rules (not taking peace when offered and outnumber 10:1 just because I’m three squares away from his cities instead of two).
The most frustrating thing however, was the military aspect of the game. Several million times I had to question if the visionary who created the formula controlling the outcome of different battles ever passed Algebra. When a simple rifleman can kill three units of modern infantry, you know there’s something wrong. Even without the usually impossible outcomes for certain matchups, the results of battles in general are often tipped heavily in favor of the CPU (anything under a 70% chance to win is usually a loss). This resulted in several huge stacks of troops being needed to pursue any real military campaign, even against small nations.
Why am I bringing this up? Because, as usual, Firaxis is claiming that their latest installment has fixed, improved, and revolutionized everything their last installment did. Perhaps it will this time, but let’s get into some detail as to what we’re dealing with first.
The first, and the most obvious if you’ve ever played a Civ game before, is that Firaxis has foregone the normal square tiles in favor of a hexagonal spread. This is already getting mixed reviews from players since it cuts off two directions of attack/defense. However this is likely a smart move because of this next new feature: Units will no longer be able to garrison within cities to defend them. Instead, all cities will defend themselves based on their current growth level and any defensive structures you may have built inside. All troops will need to defend the access to the city, holding chokepoints and building forts to aid any troops defending the routes to the city itself. These are some of the more drastic changes, and may be a welcomed change depending on how well the replacement features work.
Also making a significant change is the terrain and how it affects units. While no specifics have been released, it has been announced that mountains will now be traversable, getting rid of valuable choke points, yet giving a new layer of defense to mountaintop cities. This compliments the new abilities of artillery and archers, as they can now fire from a distance instead of needing to be right next to the unit they are attacking. No word yet on how this will work with the modern era and guns, but it is sure to be an interesting sight to watch a regiment of swordsmen charge up a mountain with arrows raining down from above (300 anyone?).
Oh yeah… that reminds me. No more stacking. Only one unit per tile people, be it friend or enemy. Now before you go saying that’s not enough, the majority of units have changed. Instead of two or three units in a small group, units will have anywhere from nine to fifteen troops formed into a variance of formations (no word on whether the formations will have an effect on combat).
With all these new changes, Firaxis and the Civ team have certainly stayed true to their reputation of taking chances. However, I find it a little hard to believe they have fixed all the issues, particularly with the military system, just from what they’re advertising. We’ll just have to wait and see, and with any luck fall will be here before we know it.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Nice Article. I never played Civ IV, but only because my computer was not capable. I played the first three and Civ Rev, which felt more like Civ Lite. I did not enjoy how every match essentially played out the same way. Maybe through some miracle of science I’ll have a decent desktop by the time the fifth one comes out.