Civilization V
Civilization V | |
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Developer(s) | Firaxis Games |
Publisher(s) | |
Director(s) | Jon Shafer |
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Artist(s) |
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Genre(s) | Turn-based strategy, 4X |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Sid Meier's Civilization V is a
In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally generated map, attempting to achieve one of a number of different victory conditions through research, exploration, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. The game is based on an entirely new
.Its first expansion pack, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, was released on June 19, 2012, in North America and June 22 internationally. It includes features such as religion, espionage, enhanced naval combat and combat AI, as well as nine new civilizations.[9]
A second expansion pack, Civilization V: Brave New World, was announced on March 15, 2013. It includes features such as international trade routes, a world congress, tourism, great works, nine new civilizations, eight additional wonders, and three ideologies. It was released on July 9, 2013, in North America and in the rest of the world three days later.
It was succeeded by a new entry in the series, Civilization VI, in 2016.
Gameplay
Civilization V is a turn-based strategy game, where each player represents the leader of a certain nation or ethnic group ("civilization") and must guide its growth over the course of thousands of years. The game starts with the foundation of a small settlement and ends after achieving one of the victory conditions—or surviving until the number of game turns end, at which point the highest-scoring civilization, based on several factors, such as population, land, technological advancement, and cultural development, is declared the winner.
During their turn, the player must manage units representing civilian and military forces. Civilian units can be directed to found new cities, improve land, and spread religion while military units can go into battle to take over other civilizations. The player controls production in their cities to produce new units and buildings, handles diplomacy with other civilizations in the game, and directs the civilization's growth in technology, culture, food supply, and economics. The player ends the game when a victory condition is met. Victory conditions include taking over the entire world by force, convincing the other civilizations to acknowledge the player as a leader through diplomacy, becoming influential with all civilizations through tourism, winning the
The
As in previous versions, cities remain the central pillar of Civilization gameplay. A city can be founded on a desired location by a settler unit, produced in the same way as military units. The city will then grow in population; produce units and buildings; and generate research, wealth and culture.[11] The city will also expand its borders one or more tiles at a time, which is critical in claiming territory and resources. The expansion process is automated and directed towards the city's needs, but tiles can be bought with gold.[6][12]
Siege warfare has been restructured from previous Civ games. Previous cities games relied entirely on garrisoned units for defense, whereas cities in Civ V now defend themselves and can attack invading units with a ranged attack expanding two tiles outward. Cities have hit points that, if taken down to zero, will signal the city's defeat to invading forces. Surviving an attack allows a city to recover a fraction (approximately 15%) of its hit points automatically each turn. In addition, any melee unit loses hit points upon attacking a city, dependent upon the unit and strength of the city which can be increased by garrisoning a unit or building defensive structures (e.g. walls).[12]
Captured cities can be annexed, razed, or transformed into a puppet state, each option having distinct advantages and disadvantages. For example, puppet states will provide resources, give less unhappiness, and provide smaller increases to the cost of cultural policies, but have reduced science and culture yields. Also, puppet states are directly controlled by the A.I. instead of by the player.[13]
In this iteration of the series, tactical gameplay in combat is encouraged in place of overwhelming numerical force with the introduction of new gameplay mechanisms. Most significantly, the square grid of the world map has been replaced with a hexagonal grid, a feature inspired by the 1994 game Panzer General according to lead designer Jon Shafer.[14] In addition, each hexagonal tile can accommodate only one military unit and one civilian unit or great person at a time. This accommodation forces armies to spread out over large areas rather than being stacked onto a single tile and moves most large battles outside of the cities, forcing increased realism in sieges. City attacks are now most effective when surrounding the city tiles because of bonuses from flanking.[6][13]
Units can now be more precisely moved with increased movement points, simpler transportation over water (embarkment instead of unit transport with water vessels), ranged attacks, and swapping of adjacent units.[6][13][15] Ranged and melee units are now more balanced. Ranged units can attack melee units without retribution, but melee units will normally destroy ranged units.
In an effort to make individual units more valuable to the player (compared to previous games in the series), they take longer to produce and gain experience from defeating enemy units. At set levels this experience can be redeemed for promotions, which provide various bonuses for increasing their effectiveness, or to substantially heal themselves. In a further departure from previous games, units are no longer always destroyed if defeated in combat. Instead, units can take partial damage, which can be healed at various rates depending on their type, location, and promotions earned. However, healthy units can still be completely destroyed in a single engagement if the opposing unit is much stronger.[16]
Special "Great Person" units are still present in the game, providing special bonuses to the civilization that births them, with each Great Person named after a historic figure such as
Civilizations can no longer trade technologies like in previous versions of the game, instead civilizations can perform joint technological ventures. Two civilizations at peace can form a research agreement, which requires an initial investment of gold and provides both civilizations a certain amount of science so long as they remain at peace.[17] Prior to the 1.0.1.332 PC version of the game, civilizations were provided with an unknown technology after a set number of turns of uninterrupted peaceful relations. It is possible for a civilization to sign a research agreement for the sole purpose of getting an enemy to spend money which could be used for other purposes; AI civilizations are programmed to sometimes use this tactic before declaring war.[18] British actor W. Morgan Sheppard provides the narration for the opening cinematics to the original game and its expansion packs, the quotations at the discovery of new technologies and the building of landmarks, and the introduction of the player's chosen civilization at the start of each new game.[19]
City-states
City-states, a feature new to the series, are minor civilizations that can be interacted with, but are incapable of achieving victory. Unlike major powers, city-states may expand in territory but they never establish new cities (they can conquer other cities with their military units). In addition to outright conquest, major civilizations have the option to befriend city-states, via bribery or services. City-states provide the player with bonuses such as resources and units, which increase as players advance to new eras. In the Brave New World expansion pack, city-states grant allied players additional delegates in the World Congress starting in the Industrial Era. There are three types of city-state in the base game, each with different personalities and bonuses: maritime, cultured, and militaristic. Two additional city-state types (mercantile and religious) were added in the Gods & Kings expansion pack to complement new gameplay mechanics. City-states play a prominent role in diplomacy among larger civilizations, as well as make specific requests and grant rewards.[20]
Culture system
In a change to the culture system, Civilization V players have the ability to purchase social policies with earned culture.[21] These social policies are organized into ten separate trees each containing five separate policies. Prior to the Brave New World expansion pack, the player was required to fill out five of the ten trees to win a cultural victory. Social policies replace the "Civics" government system of Civilization IV (where players had to switch out of old civics to adopt a new one) while social policies in Civilization V are cumulative bonuses.[22]
According to Jon Shafer, "With the policies system, we wanted to keep the feel of mixing and matching to construct one's government that was part of Civ IV, but we also wanted to instill a sense of forward momentum. Rather than having to switch out of one policy to adopt another, the player builds upon the policies already unlocked. The thought process we want to promote is 'What cool new effect do I want?' rather than the feeling of needing to perform detailed analysis to determine if switching is a good idea."[22]
Victory
As in previous games, there are multiple ways to achieve victory. The player may focus on scientific research and become the first to assemble and launch a spaceship, winning a Space Race victory. The player may focus on a diplomatic victory, which requires support from other civilizations and city-states in the United Nations. In the new culture system of Civilization V consisting of social policy "trees", the cultural victory prior to the Brave New World expansion pack involved filling out five of the ten "trees" and completing the Utopia project (reminiscent of the Ascent to Transcendence secret project in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri).[13]
World domination is an option, but the victory condition has been simplified compared to previous games in the series. Rather than completely destroying the other civilizations, the last player who controls their original capital wins by conquest.[23] Since the Brave New World expansion pack, the player must control all original capitals (including their own) in order to win by Domination. The player can also win by having the highest score at the year 2050 AD, or all victory conditions can be disabled. This and other settings, for example turning off city razing, can be modified in the "advanced setup" screen while setting up a game.
Civilizations
There are 18 playable civilizations available in the standard retail version of Civilization V. 7
The 18 base game civilizations were:
was added as a preorder DLC, until October 25, 2010, when it was made free.Six other DLCs were added:
.Development
Firaxis began work on Civilization V sometime in 2007.[26] Initially, the team working on the game consisted of seven artists led by Jon Shafer; this team gradually grew to 56 members.[27] For initial tests of gameplay ideas, the team used the Civilization IV game engine (Gamebryo), while a new graphics engine was built from the ground up; this new engine, called LORE, came online only 18 months prior to the game's release.[27] Teams working on different aspects of the game were located close to each other, which enabled the developers to solve some of the issues they were facing quickly.[27]
According to producer Dennis Shirk, the move to one unit per tile had a great impact on the game's core systems. This forced the developers to create an entirely new AI system and caused the game's later eras to lose emphasis.[28] The increased emphasis of the game's new features also meant that the developers had to trim some of the systems that existed in previous Civilization games.[29] The developers also lost critical team members and lacked members working on the multiplayer aspects.[30] After approximately 3 years and 3 months of development,[27] the game was finally released on September 21, 2010.
LORE
LORE (Low Overhead Rendering Engine) is the name of the graphics engine used by Civilization V (and its successor Civilization: Beyond Earth). There was a presentation of LORE at the GDC2011. While
The native ports to OS X (November 23, 2010) and Linux (June 10, 2014) use an OpenGL rendering path.
Patches
As of November 21, 2012[update], the Windows and OS X versions of Civilization V have had regular patches since being released, which included major gameplay alterations, numerous crash fixes, and other changes.[31][32][33][34][35][36] Patch support for OS X has often been delayed, with some patches being released more than a month after their Windows counterparts.[37][38][39]
Using released
Release
A special edition of Civilization V was also set for worldwide release on the same day as the standard edition. The package consists of a 176-page artbook, a "behind-the-scenes" DVD at Firaxis, two-CD game soundtrack selections, and five metal figurines of in-game units, as well as the game itself.[46]
A Game of the Year edition was released on September 27, 2011. It includes all four of the "Cradle of Civilization" map packs, as well as some of the new civilizations (Babylon, Spain, Inca, and Polynesia), their respective scenarios, and the official digital soundtrack. However, the "Explorer's Map Pack", "Civilization and Scenario Pack: Denmark - The Vikings", "Civilization and Scenario Pack - Korea" and "Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack" are not included.[47]
A Gold edition was released on February 12, 2013. It includes all "Cradle of Civilization" map packs, the "Explorer's Map Pack", the "Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack", all the DLC civilizations and the Gods & Kings expansion pack.[48]
A Complete edition was released on February 4, 2014. It includes both expansions and all the DLC packs.[49]
Additional content
Besides the 18 civilizations available in the standard retail version, additional civilizations can be downloaded.[50][51] Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar II was announced as a bonus civilization included in the Steam and Direct2Drive Digital Deluxe Editions,[50][52] and later offered for all on October 25, 2010.[53] Mongolia under Genghis Khan as well as a Mongolian themed scenario was added with a free update on October 25, 2010.[53]
On August 11, 2011, a "Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack" was released adding three new ancient wonders –
Additionally, several downloadable map packs were offered as a pre-order bonus from various retailers: Steam, "Cradle of Civilization:
An independently developed software known as Giant Multiplayer Robot makes use of the hotseat multiplayer mode in Civilization V to mimic the play-by-email functionality that was present in previous Civilization series titles.[60]
Expansion packs
Gods & Kings
On February 16, 2012, an expansion pack titled
Brave New World
On March 15, 2013, an expansion pack titled
Reception
Aggregator | Score |
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1Up.com | C[71] |
Eurogamer | 8/10[73] |
G4 | 5/5[67] |
Game Informer | 9.75/10[74] |
GameSpot | 9.0/10[72] |
GameTrailers | 9.4/10[66] |
IGN | 9.0/10[69] |
PC Gamer (US) | 93/100[70] |
MMGN | 9.5/10[75] |
Civilization V received critical acclaim, achieving a Metacritic score of 90/100 after 70 reviews[68] and 89.17% after 49 reviews in GameRankings.[65]
Some reviews were less positive, with the most common criticisms being directed at the game's artificial intelligence.
During the 14th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Civilization V for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year".[79]
Legacy
Nearly ten years later,
Lead designer Jon Shafer did reflect back on the project, and acknowledged criticisms of the game's AI, noting that the player's opponents "were completely enslaved to their gameplay situation, and as a result they appeared random", and that the AI "floated from one 'strategy' to another without any real cohesion behind [its] decisions."[82]
Despite this limited AI, fans of the game tried player-less games, pitting the game's AI against itself.[83]
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