Introduction
Whoooooooooooop
it’s time for a new game review! With Christmas right around the corner, it’s
time to get seriously festive, be it with family, friends or relatives. But of
course, with festivity comes Steam Christmas Sales which means games, games,
games and they are all cheap, cheap, cheap!
Okay
enough of my festive spazz, let’s get into this review!
In
this review, I’ll be taking a look at one of the best 4X games I’ve ever
played. What does 4X mean you may be asking? No they are not a company, nor are
they an instrument, 4X refers to a genre of strategy-based games. The 4 X’s
stand for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate, why they don’t
call it 4E games is beyond me.
Alright, so
what is this 4X game? It is none other than Sid Meier’s Civilization V, released
4 years ago, by Firaxis Games, a company also known to be the ones behind
X-Com: Enemy Unknown, among other games. A review for another day, to be sure!
What is Sid Meier’s Civilization V?
Civilization (the whole franchise in
general) is a turn-based strategy game at its core; it tasks the player with
controlling his/her civilization, starting from humble beginnings of a small
town, it is then up to the player to decide how they wish to eXpand their
civilization as they progress through the years turn by turn, either by being a
warmonger and declaring war on all the other city states and civilizations
(yolo right), or by being economical and slowly but surely build up by creating
other towns and establishing trade routes and becoming the most reputable
leader in all of history leading up to the present and the future, thereby
cementing your place in ancient history for the future people to see and
remember, but that’s boooooring.
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| A gameplay screen of a regular Civ 5 playthrough |
Each civilization
in this game is unique in the way they work, with different civilizations
having different units they can utilize starting from a specific era onwards,
all of the civilizations also have unique abilities that carry them through the
entire game, this results in amazing replayability value as each civilization
has their own positive traits and are weak in certain aspects as well,
depending on what civilization the player is controlling.
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| The description of the leader and the civilization he leads, his ability below, and his unique units below that. |
Civilization
V consists of the base game and two DLC’s, the DLCs add extra civilizations for
players to control, and the later DLC, titled Brave New World, refines and
improves certain gameplay aspects of Civilization V, making it more replayable
for players with different victory conditions.
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| The more recent DLC |
Speaking of victory
conditions, victory in Civilization V is achievable in many ways. Space victory
requires the player to assemble parts of a spaceship and send all of it to the
capital for launch; a diplomatic victory requires the player to form the UN and
call for votes. There are several other victory conditions, but all of them are
common in that they require a lot of effort and researching to achieve, as all
players start out during the prehistoric era, and progress through the eras as
certain technologies are researched. Victory conditions can only be fulfilled
in the last era, the Information Era.
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| One of the many eras, the Atomic Era. |
Alliances
and trade requests can be made to other civilizations as well to allow the
player to gain an advantage, be it through players or AI characters, with fully
animated civilization leaders (e.g. Augustus Caesar who is in the leader of the
Roman people) and dialog that is spoken in the native tongue of that leader’s
civilization, from the English of England to the Mayan language of the Mayans,
watch as they go through the journey with you thanks to their timeless age, and
watch as some of them totally flip out because you defeated them or how they’ll
smile at you and then plunge a knife right into your back, the AI’s cool that
way. But, seriously, these leaders help to immerse you into the game, as you
will soon feel like you are waging a personal war against one leader of an
entire other civilization, *cough* Gandhi *cough*.
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| DIS GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYY |
Is this game good?
Yes.
Seriously,
it is. Civilization V is those kinds of games where once you start and you have
a game plan in mind, you’ll get sucked in very easily. In your mind, you’re
like “I’ll research this and I am done”, “I’ll destroy the Hunnic Empire and
then I’ll sleep”, then you look at the clock and realize you’re half past 5 in
the morning hearing that Singapore morning bird’s annoying chirping (or your
regional equivalent). I cannot recall how the tutorial is like in this game,
but it was good enough that it allowed me to understand how the game’s base
mechanics work, and that was enough for me to get sucked into all the various
playthroughs I’ve played.
No flaws? Nothing?
Nope.
Really?
Uhhh nope.
You’re pulling my leg, right?
Alright, if
there’s one gripe I have with the game is the extremely similar progression all
civilizations seem to have. I understand they all have differences in terms of
units and their different abilities, but that difference is so slight that
usually it does not affect the way you would play if you had a mindset on how
to play in the first place, like “okay, I’ll start by building up an empire
before attacking other civilizations”, chances are, this strategy works for
almost every civilization, with no regard to their specialty unit or ability.
The randomly
generated maps help to mitigate this slightly, and the random opponents you
will meet during each playthrough, as each opponent AI have different
personalities and do things in the certain fashion, some would befriend you
THEN backstab you (how civil), others would be loyal to you once you’ve gained
their trust no matter what (is dis reel lyfe?). The game does manage to put you
in enough situations that require you to think on your feet and handle it accordingly,
making the civilization progression part more varied and random.
Although,
honestly, I can’t really say much as I’ve only clocked 69 hours (lel) into the
game. And within those 69 hours, I was definitely captured by the game’s level
of detail and its level of complexity, and despite my complaints above, I
definitely do not regret playing those 69 hours, whilst others who have
reviewed the game, unlike myself, have clocked up to 2000+ hours playing the
game. The reviews on Steam about this game pretty much speak for themselves,
and my complaints above are probably the result of my habit of nitpicking at a
game’s level of replayability.
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| Yeah... just a little |
So do I buy it or not?
YES, DEFINITELY. The
game has very good replayability and has tons of different civilizations to try
out. If, as a child, you ever played Heroes of Might & Magic II, III or IV
and you LOVED those games, let me tell you, you’ll have an absolute ball
playing this game. It’s like those games and way more!
With
Steam Christmas Sales currently on, you can get the complete pack, containing
the base game and ALL the game’s DLC for 12.25SGD, so why not?! 12.25SGD is
about 2 Temasek Polytechnic McSpicy meals, so you’re honestly not losing out at
all! The offer is only lasting for an hour at the time of this writing, so grab
it if you read this review! It’ll probably be about 15SGD+ after the offer,
which is still solid in my opinion.
Conclusion
Civilization
V is truly one of the best turn-based strategy games out there in my opinion,
with X-Com following after. The amount of depth and thought put into the
production of the game really shows in its gameplay, and that itself makes it a
successful game. With depth, comes replayability, and this game delivers a ton
of it, so enough reading, get into the game, pick whoever looks the most
badass, and build a civilization that will stand the test of time!
Thank you all for reading! Have a Merry Christmas!
