Steam. Like Civ V I believe this will be Steamworks game
I still think that most of the “improvements” from IV to V were a mistake. Yes, IV and earlier had “stacks of doom”, that were hard for a defender to counter. That’s kind of the idea. Of course having a really big army is an advantage. And hexes are superior to a poorly-implemented square grid, but the solution to that is to implement your square grid well, which previous games mostly did. A properly-implemented square grid is superior to hexes.
Ok…
Definitely do not agree here.
The stack of doom was hated because it didn’t add anything of value to the game. Having a single unit per hex made combat more tactical, more engaging, more fun. All pluses. Well, ok, micromanaging was a bit tedious. Would have liked to see a single move command for an entire group.
And hexes >>>>>>>>>>>>>> squares any day of the week, son.
I loved the new combat in V. I hated the stack of doom at every end game. I’m excited about the creation of C and armies.
Looks interesting. I will probably wait a few years once the price comes down and an expansion pack or two are released. I still have a lot of play left in Civ 5.
I agree that the graphic style doesn’t look too impressive but the gameplay additions like linking technology and geography and city districts look good. They give the players interesting choices to make and are rooted in actual history; these are the two things Civ is all about.
wow I think I just got civ 4 and 5 heh last year I’m behind …
On one hand I’m extremely excited because I do love the Civilisation games.
On the other hand, Civ V took a really long time to find its feet and I’ve got an awful feeling this will be the same.
Is it wrong that I’m still stuck on Civ 2? I tried Civ 3, didn’t like it, went back to Civ 2. I own Civ 4 and played through some of the tutorial, and it looked pretty good.
In response to the idea that 1 Unit per Hex (1UpH) was an improvement on the Stack of Doom (SoD), I, as a long-time player, disagree.
Hexes were an improvement, sure. The appearance was an improvement. Many other neat things were improved-- notably religion. Unfortunately, The AI was a major step backward in terms of military ability, which led to drastically limiting expansion by the player and putting the priority on peaceful victories, especially in the expansions-- which is, of course, when many fans found the game become playable. Putting the emphasis on peaceful victories is just as well, of course, because managing your own military quickly becomes a chore-- even more so than the late game in previous versions, due to 1UpH.
Seriously, the AI in Civ III was better at warfare. I can still remember a particular surprise attack from Elizabeth, aided by railroads, and, of course, a nice fat SoD. And that was with vanilla Civ III, IIRC, because I don’t think I ever bought the expansions until well past Civ III’s use by date. No AI player could pull that in V because they have to inch toward your border like a glacier the size of Europe. Not that hard to spot, really, and due entirely to the decision to go with 1UpH. And the game devalues war in other ways as well-- the military Social Policy, Honor, is by far the weakest one to pick as a starter and will handicap any player, AI or human, that chooses it.
Players were used to a decent AI-- not great, but competent. And what did they get with vanilla Civ V? An AI that could be beaten on deity, with a civ cherry picked for being the worst (the Ottomans), in a succession game, one month after release. Not just beaten-- crushed on turn 210 with a science victory (1500 AD).
I can’t help but notice that the Civfanatics Civ V succession game form has only 2 pages. The Civ IV succession forum has 31 pages. I chalk this up to V being too easy for an interested set of players, and too dependent on a single strategy: go Tradition, stay small with 3 or 4 cities, and prioritize the National College. I happened to like Civ succession games, and I’m ashamed to say that I’m salty about this.
As I recall, very few players complained about the SoD, and I followed the game closely for a time. The devs seemed to hate it, though, and permanently handicapped an AI that wasn’t all that great to begin with. John Schafer, I believe, wanted to have a game that told a story, which is why you get to be whisked away to Montezuma’s temple every time he has a spare horse to trade in authentic Nahuatl. Well, that’s neat, but what if the story I want to tell is about a big ol’ empire? No, not really viable, at least not for me on the higher difficulties. And that’s because I’d steamroll them if not chained down by global happiness mechanics and stiff warmonger penalties.
There was so much middle ground between the SoD and 1UpH that it is, actually, quite funny that they went with gimping the AI and making the late game even more tedious than it already was by going entirely 1UpH. How about a cap on the number of units you could stack, with the limit dependent on things like your traits, stack composition, or discovered technologies? How about getting rid of units altogether at some point and you just set the military budget, handle the diplomacy, and make key decisions like when to drop the bomb? They had a gamut of possible “solutions” to a problem that most players didn’t care about, and they picked a set of handcuffs and lost a few fans, or at least made us wary. That last thing didn’t need any help after the awful Colonization remake, and then they made Beyond Earth to really drive home that they’re not to be trusted.
I wouldn’t usually make this suggestion, but in your case, pre-order. Definitely pre-order.
Adaher and I are alike in this matter: Civ 2 has always been my favorite iteration and it upsets me that I can’t play it on my W8.1 machine. 
I play Test of Time, which is compatible with a simple patch.
A tactical battle screen was often suggested (a la games like Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic), but just as often scorned. If logistics were modeled, that might quell the spectre of the SoD, but there’s yet another but of micromanagement hell to deal with (which I to a certain extent am in agreement with). In any event I found the combat with the SoD systems to be too dry and uninteresting.
When Civ V was announced, I recall reading over a list of “improvements.” The only one I thought was a good idea was going to hex tiles. Everything else seemed like they were dumbing the game down. The deal-breaker was one-unit-per-tile. I never wasted my time or money on the game. My best friend did, and after a month or two he got bored with it and went back to Civ IV.
So, we’ll see, but I’m not very optimistic about this one.
I unfortunately bought CIV V, and had the same reaction: Hexes are cool, the rest of the game is dumbed down to the point of not being challenging, except for the 1 unit per hex which is just tedious. I played it for a few weeks, and went back to IV, which is still challenging. I am still trying to beat the Earth: 18 Civs scenario using the BTS: NextWar mod, starting from ancient times, on Deity. I can win it on Immortal, but not Deity yet.
I can barely play Civ5 on a modern laptop… the game can’t handle higher resolutions well at all… so you are squinting to see anything.
If it helps there are work arounds that have allowed people to play Civ2 on a current machine (usually windowed). I haven’t used them but they appear to work.
Not wrong at all. It’s a classic game, but it was amazingly fun. I put many hours into playing Civ 2.
Me also.
Civ 2 was a great game, particularly the advisors. “All the world marvels at our superior intellect, sire!”
I’m still on Civ 4 BtS. I don’t mind the stacks of doom so much, but I get pissed that the AIs seem to want to cooperate to make life miserable for the human, trading techs with each other, waging war simultaneously on the human, etc.
I have 5 but still haven’t really played it, it just seems like a bother.
I’d like to revisit Civ 1 sometime, unfortunately some of these earlier games (like Myst and Riven) just don’t play on modern PCs.
I think there is a happy medium between SoD and 1 unit per tile. A big problem with SoD is that it makes geography insignificant. For example, consider a city behind a river guarding a strategic mountain gap. In Civ V that makes a difference. In Civ IV in doesn’t. The second big issue is that the collateral damage mechanism makes essentially all combat offensive.
1 unit per tile has the opposite problem. A strategically placed city is essentially invulnerable to attack. Any sort of geography is problematic to overcome due to the inability to concentrate forces. On top of that, the AI is awful at tactics. After the initial rush it’s pretty unlikely that you will ever lose to the AI in a war.
Seems like the best is a compromise with limited stacking ability. I would also like to see mechanisms that put geography into play. For example, army size can be limited by the road/river network supporting them.