First Impressions: Civilization V

I've finished my first game of Civilization 5 and I really enjoyed it. There are many changes from the earlier installments including things like hex tiles rather than squares and no more unit stacks. Some changes took more getting used to than others but overall the changes all seem to be for the better. The whole thing seems lot more streamlined while still feeling like Civilization. Graphics and performance were both good and I had no crashes or issues.


I decided for my first game to play as Egypt with Ramesses II as leader. He gets a nice bonus to the build time of wonders which is very useful. The previous picture is my capital Thebes in 1927AD. I concentrated a little too much on wonders early on and so never had a particularly powerful military, just enough to make my enemies think twice. My empire was mostly geared up for science so I ended up winning a space victory, leaving the planet bound for Alpha Centauri by 1996. (Warlord difficulty level)


There were two and a half minor disappointments. First was the wonder building complete screen. In Civ 4 there were great mini movies of them being built here we only get a picture. Sure it's a nice picture but it seems like a bit of a step back. The half is an extension of the same problem only this time for the ending. There was no complete movie only a picture and some text which is a shame considering the excellence of the intro. The other problem was also related to the end. In Civ 4 after a game was complete there were a lot of stats and replay options so you could view and analyse the game but that has been completely stripped down to only a couple of basic stat screens now. I miss sitting back and watching the replay map at the end.

Still it is a great installment of the Civilization franchise and should keep my busy for some time and if a patch or expansion could add the stats back in at the end at some point in the future even better!