Just like GamerDad himself, I’m thoroughly impressed with the newest incarnation of the Civilization line of PC games, Civilization V. From its earliest incarnation, including its roots in the world of boardgames, I’ve been a big fan of the genre and the Civilization series in particular. However, they have always been in danger of suffering the fate of too much stuff. Too much information, too much micromanagement, etc… Civ V manages to take several steps back from previous versions to simplify things for the player without sacrificing much of what makes the game so great.

Players start a game of Civ with a lone settler who is used to found a city. That city then produces food, knowledge, gold, and culture to provide population, research, money, and territorial expansion respectively. By choosing what buildings to add to one’s city (and empire) as well as which technologies to research, a player can customize their empire building experience to match the style of game they wish to play. Do you want to go into early military and rampage across the land before anyone else develops very far, or do you prefer to dig deep into technology and use your more powerful high-end units in the later game to destroy your technology-poor rivals? Of course, you could avoid war altogether and win the game through special economic, cultural, or technological victory conditions as well.

Traditionally, turn based strategy games, such as Civilization, haven’t been too much of a resource hog. However, in line with most modern PC games, you will need a fairly recent machine to handle the default 3D graphic modeling of the terrain and troops. Thankfully, there is a strategic view option which pitches the entire world in a 2D style which makes the game playable on older machines like my trusty laptop.

I’ve tried the various incarnations of Civilizations, and all of them provide me with a great game experience. I enjoy playing the game at my own pace (no real-time “strategy” here) and exploring the many different ways to play the game while trying to take advantage of the benefits given by my chosen nationality. A significant chunk of my understanding of the history of technological development has come through playing the game. (I still miss the cool little historical excerpts presented for nearly every new development in the original game.) The impressive flexibility of the game is seen by the many different ways a player can play and win. Not only does the game allows players to focus on military, economic, technological, or cultural victories, but one can also tune your civilization to become a sprawling country or a smaller domain with an impressive central capitol city.

The newest version has one of the best advisor interfaces I’ve seen in awhile. Players can not only turn advice on or off but can even set the level of detail of advice given. At any given time, you are presented with opinions from your diplomatic, military, economic, and scientific advisors. What to do with that advice is up to you. Another new feature are the city-states with which you can interact. Small mini-nations are scattered around the map and if you make them happy (help them out or give them gifts) they will favor you with their specialties of military units or economic benefits.

The newest incarnation of the Civilization franchise brings it back to its roots. The recent Civilization: Revolution pared the game down to its barest levels, and thus gutted the game of much of its depth and replay value. This is not the case, however, with Civilization V. While the unit and empire management has been somewhat streamlined, there are still plenty of options available to pursue in the realms of technology, city development, and other specializations. Strategy gamers looking for a deep game without the burden of too much micromanagement should look no farther than Civilization V.

Kid Factor: I think GamerDad hit the nail on the head when he recommended the game for teens and older. There is very little to cause offense within the game, but the game requires a fair bit of complex strategy. Reading isn’t necessarily required, but much of the game would be over the head of anyone who can’t read the various updates and hints during the game. Gamers who go the extra step to read up on the various wonders and developments along the way will even find the game fairly educational.

Tags: Game Reviews