My belly tickles of the tought of playing Civ V. Cant wait until my download is finished!!!! :-)
Sid Meier's Civilization V Updated Hands-On - Exclusive Multiplayer and Editing Tools Report
We get a close-up look at Civilization V's extensive editing tools, and then jump into multiplayer with the creators of the game itself and get horribly slaughtered.
Civilization V is the fifth chapter in the beloved turn-based strategy series, and it's one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. And it's going to be here soon. We recently had a chance to visit the home of developer Firaxis to get an in-depth look at the game's editing and modification-making tools, and then we hunkered down for a multiplayer session with Firaxis staffers who have played the game much more than we have, which is why they beat us so badly. That's what we keep telling ourselves, anyway.
Our visit to the studio space began with a tour of Civ V's worldbuilder and other editing tools, which were built on the core of Civ IV's scripting and code base but have been streamlined and made much, much more user-friendly. The tools let you create maps of all sizes in the game, up to the "huge" size of 128 by 80 tiles (which we can tell you from experience is really quite huge).
The worldbuilder itself is remarkably easy to use, since it can generate a new map in a matter of minutes. While you can painstakingly build a giant map tile by tile, you can also use the random map generator to create one of the game's basic map types (Pangaea, archipelago, and so on) and use a paintbrush tool to change any and all of the terrain on the map (so you can add a nice schmear of forest through your pregenerated desert with a single stroke of the mouse). The worldbuilder also has numerous "ploppers" that let you drop down resources, starting cities, city-states, initial units, ruins, barbarians, and whichever other features you prefer, with a single click. You can even adjust the starting fog-of-war level to clear however much, or little, fog from the map's starting state you like, essentially to create a scenario where the "known world" extends only so far.
And you can easily tweak your own custom maps after saving what you're working on and then exiting the tools, firing up the game, and loading up the map to play it immediately. You can also use the game's "tuner" tool in-game, which lets you change in-game values and units in real time over the course of an actual game (making it a powerful cheating tool as well…but who'd ever cheat in a game of Civ, right?). Of course, if you prefer to go more in-depth, you can dig into the game's mod tools, which are, like Civ IV's, based on LUA and XML scripting languages contained in configuration files that can be freely edited.
Civ V's mods can take pretty much any form, from small-scale tweaks, like reskinning the user interface, to full-on total conversions, such as the test mod we saw in progress: "single large units," a tactical mod that starts all players with a preset handful of military units, which appear to be gigantic on the world map, and that plays less like a game of traditional Civ and more like a game of chess. As it turns out, you can set Civ V's mods to work directly with other mods (or to be exclusive of other mods), and as we've mentioned in our previous coverage, Civ V will let you search for mods using an in-game browser so that hopefully the work of diligent mod-makers can be found and played by more-casual users who might have otherwise been intimidated by having to search for them on the Internet, download them, and install them separately.
We then prepared ourselves to do battle in a four-man multiplayer match with several Firaxis staffers, including lead designer Jon Shafer, who, for the record, is a bloodthirsty monster and is not to be trusted in a Civ V multiplayer session. Civ V's multiplayer is powered by Steamworks, with all that software's accoutrements, such as Steam-based chat, friends lists, and support for voice chat that can be called up at any time. The actual in-game multiplayer interface is extremely clean and simple to use and resides entirely in the upper-right corner of the screen, where you can send chat messages to all players (or to a single player), keep track of each player's relative score, and even do a little wheeling and dealing to trade resources and other diplomatic goodies with each other. However, multiplayer is decidedly different from single-player, especially if you're up against aggressive opponents. While Civ V has many intriguing new strategic nuances, such as neutral city-states that can be joined as lucrative trading partners and a new cultural victory condition based on unlocking social policy trees, you're probably not going to want to spend all your time building peaceful wonders of the world if your buddies are breathing down your neck a dozen hexes away or so.
Our first match took place in the ancient era, and our indecision and lack of focus led to a horrible death. We played as China, a warlike nation with the powerful Chu-Ko-Nu crossbowman (which can fire twice, instead of once, like the standard crossbowman) and a national leader who produces great general units more frequently than other nations do. Great generals are one of the game's great people (along with great engineers, scientists, merchants, and artists), and they provide combat power bonuses to any allied units standing within two tiles, and China's great generals provide a larger combat bonus than the generals of other nations. But like all of Civ V's great people, these legendary units can also be expended within your national borders to immediately trigger a prosperous golden age, in which your nation produces more gold and more production resources.
99 comments
Really.... no review yet?...you did this with reach too. I like my reviews the day the game comes out.
Very very cool, this game looks to be a winner. I'm gonna wait to get it though so that way I can get a Complete edition with all the bells and whistles. Did that with Civ IV, and don't regret it at all.
Looking forward to seeing this game in my D Drive. I have no doubt that this will be a great game.
one of the few new games i really want to buy immediately but the steam requirement really makes me doubt :( ... it's a relative 'light' drm according to today's standards but why should i risk having potential trouble in the future just because i payed for my game? so i might just buy a full package with all expansions in the bargain bin later on when all the best mods are out, maybe i'll have a pc which rocks also by then because i can not afford any new one for the moment :).
Seems like a great game, looking forward to its release. Let's just hope it keeps to the expectations created around it!
I don't know how I feel about the lack of religion, espionage and many of the civilizations that were added in the Civ4 xpacs. Feels a bit like The Sims, we'll see xpacs that will add stuff we already had in Civ4. That's kind of worrisome, they should really try to make the game the best game possible on release day and come up with new ideas for expansions, not milk us. I'll probably still buy it anyway.
@Humor_guy I can see where you're getting at and partialy agree. However, specifically oncerning Civ, I;ve been plaing computer games for 25 years and that includes all the civ games up to now. You can't say that civ II and IV (in particular IV) were just an "resoup" to the same concept just to make more money. Civ IV is competely different than II and has it's own merrits to, shall we say, stand the test of time. I hope part V will advance the gameplay concept to the same degree
I never liked Civilization games. It was too strategic and not enough explosions in it! But I am going to give Civ V a try.
I really wish I had a computer that could run this. Ah well, there's still Civilization II to keep me happy for another 15 years.
Ah Civilization, we gotta prepare to lose some sleep when this game hits store shelves ....... Oh well that damned "one more turn" addiction :(
I do agree, Civilization 2 is the best one in my opinion and I still play that one from time to time. However, I've seen a gameplay of Civ 5 and I would really like to try out hexagon tiles with no more stacks of doom. So, you'll need to plan your attacks and movements of your units, I feel more tactics involved is this release.
I've had a civ game on every computer i've ever owned. I like the fact they try to keep improving the game. I don't think a new game every 4 to 5 years is excessive. As a old wargamer i look forward to the hex grid and unit stacking limitations. Its always been the one of those games I can play until something pulls me away. (hurricane, volcano, asteroid, etc) :)
I think the game is just being milked now. It's a marketing exercise. I stopped buying into it after Civilization II and even today many say that is the best version. It is the same with my Copy of Railroad Tycoon II Deluxe. Certainly the best version of that game and much better than what came afterwards. Same with Pirates Gold, much better than that disneyfied console version they came out with a couple years back! Is it any wonder we get so little innovation in games today, when so many of us jump on these marketing bandwagons buying the same game over and over!
the civ 4 has few good mods like fall from heaven and so on. If they make them on civ 5 I think it will rule. Still this is one of the games I just can't wait. Damn good old turn-based strategy game.
The only thing I am worried about is how the Steam version has the pre purchase reward of "Purchase now and get your next premium content for free." Are the features that made the previous versions modable still in the game? I hope they don't rip those out(Easy select a mod feature.) just so they can realease their crappy new nations,ect... that should have been in the game. Purchasble addons or a programmers way of selling you a chess set, one piece at a time.
have they released minimum specs for this game yet? my laptop would take several minutes between turns towards the end of games on larger maps in civ 4 and it made it difficult to play.
i like strategy games ..........................only when they look as interesting az this one.
I normally don't play multiplayer with Civ, but with Civ V it sounds good. Also the worldbuilder editor sounds like it will be tons of fun to play around with. ^_^ The can't wait to play the game.
I have never really going into the Turn Base Strategy games (I love RTS) but I might have to check this one out. I heard some many good things about this franchise so I think its time to give it a shot.
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Game Info
- Release Date: Sep 21, 2010 (US)
- ESRB: E10+Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older.
- Release Date: Nov 23, 2010 (US)
- ESRB: E10+Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older.
Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Publisher(s): 2K Games
- Developer(s): Firaxis Games
- Genre: Strategy
- Release:
- ESRB: E10+
Civilization V Navigation
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