First Reviews of Civilization V 380
An anonymous reader submitted linkage to a story explaining why Hemos has been twitching for a week in anticipation: "Defying the urge to phone-in an unambitious sequel and coast on past successes, Sid Meier's Civilization V is anything but a lazy rehash. It feels almost as if someone described the concept of the renowned 19-year-old turn-based strategy series to a talented designer who'd never played it, and let him come up with his own version. It's similar enough to be familiar to veterans, different enough to be fresh, and its polish and accessibility make it a great place for new players to pick up one hell of a Civ addiction."
My Review... (Score:4, Informative)
Been playing it all morning.
Be back later.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't see anything in the review related to DRM. That's an essential subject for any game review these days.
It uses Steam, the opinions on which are divided. You might like it, or you might not.
Multiplayer is done over Steam.
The demo also requires Steam.
Even if you purchase an actual retail box with the game, you still have to create a Steam account. The only thing the box gives you is less time spent downloading the initial game. But you'll get your patches through Steam, not separate downloads.
That's pretty much it.
And for those who don't use Steam (Score:5, Informative)
An explanation of how their DRM works:
The executables for the game are built to need to launch Steam (it can be cracked, of course). When you run the game, Steam must be running on the system. If it is not currently, it will be spawned. Steam will then need to log in with a user and password that has purchased that game. By default, it will log in online which gives access to things like achievements, online chat, multi-player and so on. Also any game the person has purchase is available. If it is not installed on the system, it can be downloaded. There is no restriction on the number of downloads, you can download to new systems or reinstall as often as you like.
However if an Internet connection is not available, or if requested by the user, it will log in offline mode. You will have access to any games that account has purchased that are currently installed on the system. Obviously you can't download any new ones if you aren't online.
As you might guess you do require an Internet connection the first time a game is installed. You either need to be online to download it, or if purchased retail, online to activate it and add it to your account.
However no matter what, Steam has to be running and has to be logged in with a legit account, be it online or offline.
Also because of the activation, the game may not be resold. It becomes tied to your Steam account. I suppose you could make an account just for that one game and then sell the account with the game, but as a practical matter Steamworks games cannot be transferred or resold.
So it is not the least invasive DRM, but it isn't horrible. It does come with some bonuses too, like the download capability. Buy a game retail, it is associated with your account. Losing the DVD is no problem, just redownload it. The Steam interface provides nice perks too. However it does mean no resale and you have to run Steam to play.
I consider it an acceptable DRM, but some do not.
Retailers probably (Score:3, Informative)
Like it or no, most games sales still happen in the retail market. Don't believe the online surveys, they suffer heavily from selection bias and are not properly conducted. Go ask a developer/publisher (Stardock has talked about this, as they do both). Retail still outsells online by a large margin. That means you have to keep retailers happy and part of that means not selling online before they can sell it retail.
As to why it is taking longer to get to retail there, that's the real question. Did they fuck up the shipping? Were the EU retailers pushing for a later date? Was there some EU reg they and to deal with?
That's the reason though. They don't want to sell it online early and anger the retailers. Retailers have limited shelf space and if you piss them off, they might not give it to you.
Re:DRM? (Score:3, Informative)
I agree. I refuse to purchase anything contaminated by Steam.
Sorry, Sid. I've bought every Civ game that's ever come out, but you've lost me as a customer.
Re:Warfare "Enhancements" vs City Simplification (Score:1, Informative)
I suggest that you try Hearts of Iron III
Re:Can we have a Linux version... Please... (Score:1, Informative)
It runs great under wine/crossover.
Re:CAN'T FREAKIN WAIT (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My Review... (Score:5, Informative)
>>Is it actually any good?
I'm enjoying it. Playing it on normal difficulty (prince), and I've made it to 1500AD without going to war with anyone. No real pressure to, either. Peace has a lot of benefits - earn gold, bribe city states, and they supply you with lots of resources. If you start blowing up city states, though, they get annoyed at you, and the present parade ends. They also give you lots of quests to earn reputation with them as well.
Culture is now like science - earn a certain amount, and you get a culture tech. (Remember fascism and the like? That's how you get them now. I love how it's implemented.) Instead of culture pushing boundaries out in all directions all at once, it's broken down to just one hex at a time of expansion, but a lot more often. Another good change.
Money can be used to buy units right off the bat, which means that gold is a lot more useful in Civ V than in previous versions (when you'd have thousands sitting around without much to do for them.)
Naval adventures are a lot better, with an early-ish tech allowing land units to build their own transports. They can't defend themselves, but it eliminates a lot of the annoyance of building transports and microing units on and off of them.
Diplomacy seems kind of limited. I miss the old diplomacy screen that shows all the plusses and minuses enemies have toward you. I think there's something missing here.
Overall, a very good game. It's nice to see that they didn't make another shit game like their latest Colonization attempt.
Re:Goddammit stop being so happy you guys (Score:2, Informative)
And you won't get it since Firaxis doesn't have the rights to it.
Re:Goddammit stop being so happy you guys (Score:4, Informative)
Not really (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. Or rather, not really like in Civ 4. In Civ 4 you can basically have a monopoly on religion, so to speak. Historically that didn't work anywhere near that good.
E.g., sure, you can superficially say that the Egyptians did the same, but really they didn't. Each city has its own deity before Narmer even came along, and really mostly stuck with it. Even afterwards, there were several competing systems even inside the country, with the Ennead being severely at odds with the Ogdoad and both being at odds with Akhenaten's monotheism or with the Hyskos cult of Set.
And then Egyptians having polytheism didn't stop the Greeks from having their own different version, nor the Akkadian zone from having its own, nor the Mayans or Azteks across the ocean from having their own, and so on.
Even stuff like "Hinduism" or "Monotheism" that's in the game, really weren't anywhere near a monopoly.
E.g., Hinduism... which Hinduism? It's a blanket label applied to a multitude of religions in India ranging from polytheistic to monotheistic to technically atheistic. It's about as accurate as saying that everything from England to Persia is Abrahamic.
Monotheism? Which Monotheism? Judaism didn't prevent Zoroastrianism from existing in parallel (and while some versions were strictly dualist, some were really monotheistic), nor the monolatry of Marduk in Mesopotamia taken to near-monotheistic extremes, nor most of the Phoenician city-states from really having each their own monotheistic cult of Ba'al. Was it the same religion? Nope. Check out the whole Jezebel episode in the Old Testament for an example one monotheistic religion kicking out another.
Heck, even Judaism had splintered relatively early. Ever hear of the Good Samaritan? There's a reason a Samaritan is chosen there. Because Samaria had its own version of One True Judaism and were bitter religious enemies with Jerusalem over that. That parable chooses for "even he counts as your neighbour" an example as extreme as that. So there you have it. Two countries with their own version of it.
Even when technically there was one religion, having a grip on it world-wide proved to be a nigh impossible task. Christianity was splintered majorly for a few centuries, with competing schools including Arianism, Pelagianism, etc. Even just the major interpretations of Christianity were a battle royale between monophysitism (Jesus had only one nature, which in turn split into those who made him 100% human and those who made him 100% god), dyophysitism (natch, he had both natures), and miaphysitism (dude, he had two, but _inseparable_.) And if you think the last two are just splitting hairs, they had schisms and purges over that. In fact so severe was the purge done by the Byzantines in Armenia over such a hair-splitting issue that it basically removed any Armenian support or know-how in dealing with the Turks and, in a too long story for this message, it paved the road for Manzikert and the start of the fall of Byzantium.
And then political or nationalistic interests caused further splits. E.g., the Husites ravaged Germany in the name of their own interpretation of the bible, but that in turn was more fuelled by anti-German sentiment than by actually what was in the bible. E.g., earlier, the fight for religious hegemony between Rome and Byzantium ended up with something as ridiculous as the Pope and Byzantine Emperor excommunicating each other over whether the communion hosts (the Jesus-flavoured chips;) should be leavened or unleavened bread.
Really, nobody could have a monopoly on a religion like in Civ 4, much less a monopoly on a _type_ of religion. Inventing Monotheism didn't prevent someone else from inventing their own, much less keep it from splintering.
Re:Goddammit stop being so happy you guys (Score:5, Informative)
Why wouldn't they? It was a unique Firaxis product. That's like saying MS doesn't have the rights to Windows. You're confusing it with Civ itself, which used to be a MicroProse IP.
http://www.firaxis.com/company/faq.php [firaxis.com]
Question :
I really loved Alpha Centauri! Are you planning to make Alpha Centauri 2?
Answer:
We’re all big fans of Alpha Centauri as well. However, the rights to that game are owned by Electronic Arts (we were making games for them at the time) so any decision to make a sequel is up to them..
Re:A veteran Civilization fan... (Score:3, Informative)
What?
Did you forget your meds this morning.
$100 is the price for a 9800 equivalent in a desktop (sorry, I made the mistake of assuming you were smart enough to figure that out on your own).
If you have trouble meeting the Civ V minimum specifications, you will have trouble affording the game.
Here you go [dell.com] and these are Australian prices, which due to the Indian-Pacific Price Dilation Field are significantly higher then US prices despite the AUD fetching 0.95 USD today. Look between option two and three, same proc, different GPU, A$115 in it. Also that's a geforce 310, a bit more advanced then an old 9800.
Now sod off and take your trolling meds.