Civ V Impressions [Game Overview]

So I’ve been playing Civ V this week. It’s pretty awesome. Here’s what I think so far:

– Unsurprisingly, I don’t miss religion in Civ. While it did legitimately affect the game in important ways that reflect how important religion is in real life, yadda yadda, it just dominated everything about a playthrough. I’m glad to be rid of it.

– Now that units don’t stack and cities have offensive and defensive capabilities of their own, I’m going to have to change my early game build order. Do I really need to defend my cities as hard right away anymore?

– I love the way that all world leaders speak in historically accurate languages. Gandhi has an Indian voice, Bismark speaks German, and Alexander the Great was taunting me in Greek.

– Foreign relations seem more obtuse now that the numbers behind them are more obtuse. Sure, it’s more realistic, but I wish I could tell how much they liked me a little better.

– City specialization remains a strong focus. The quickest way to bankrupt yourself is to build stuff that’s not meant to be in a particular city.

– I like not having to fiddle with tax percentages any more.

– Unit combat is much improved and a welcome change from the way it was handled in Civ IV.

– I like the new wonder reward screens. Better than the lifeless movies of Civ IV and the neat quotes are almost at Civ II levels of awesome.

– New advisers…I guess I like them, but their information seems to be a little less interesting and redundant. Can’t I click “Yes. I know,” and not see that advice again?

– I find information a little harder to find in the new Civilopedia, but that might just be me

– The new social policy system that replaces civics and governments from old games is way cool. I’ll have to fiddle more with the way that I distribute my policies instead of obsessively focusing on each branch until I finish in my next game.

– Puppet states are cool

– City states are a little game-y with the whole friend/ally system. I wish that the benefits lasted longer, but that’s just nitpicking.

– I still haven’t found where all the information lives in the UI, but I’m getting there.

– Great game. Buy it if you even kind of like Civ.