Greg Recommends Sid Meier's Civilization V : A Brave New World

Price : $32.99 for base game + $32.99 for Brave New World
Website : STEAM

I'm not sure how I could possibly do justice to a game as big and as in depth as Civ 5 without writing far more than most would venture to read. The Civilization series, if you've never played it before, is one of those rare video game gems that was foundational to all PC games way back in the stone ages of computer gaming (1991) that people still talk about and play. Even more rare is that the many remakes of the original Sid Meier's Civilization have been excellent games in their own right that the fan base fully endorses and celebrates, building on and improving the already excellent titles that came before. If you're totally new to Civ then Each edition of Civilization is essentially an enormous electronic turn based board game where you must lead your chosen civilization from humble stone age wanderers to a sprawling modern superpower (hopefully) head and shoulders higher than all other nations in the world. Placing cities, moving units, building improvements and wonders, it is essentially placing and moving pieces in a complex (and absolutely gorgeous looking) board game. As the turns go by your nation grows, your technology improves, and the game becomes increasingly complex but in all the good ways that make you crave to play just one more turn... Is Civ 5 worth playing if you already have and love Civ 4? Yes it is. Is the A Brave New World expansion really worth it? Yes it is. More on that later.

For anyone who has never played a Civilization game before here's how it basically goes. You begin by choosing from among a dizzying number of nations to play as, each with its own special perks. You start off with a settler and a warrior with a handful of tiles revealed around you and a huge map to explore. Once you build your first city with the settler you can work the tiles around that city to gain resources which affect how quickly that city grows, can build things, as well as your national gold / culture / faith / science / happiness points. If you want to build things quickly you can assign your city to work production heavy tiles like forests or mines. If you want them to grow quickly you can assign them to work grasslands, fishing tiles, and farms. Every building you construct adds a bonus to that city, a granary produces an extra +2 food per turn, a monument +1 culture per turn, a barracks for slightly stronger military units, etc. Everything takes time to build and gold to maintain and it is up to you to figure out what you need the most and what you will need to set up now so that you can gain greater returns in the future. Thankfully the user interface is friendly and useful, able to display a lot of information without becoming overwhelming.

The first turns are very quick as everyone only has one city and one or two units. You have a lot of encouragement to explore the map at this early phase. Being the first to uncover ancient ruins can net you free technologies, extra population, and free units. Locating city states (neutral one city AI controlled nations) will also net you a reward which is doubled if you were the first nation to find them. You'll want to be on the look out for good spots to build future cities so that you can claim special resource tiles (cattle, iron, spices, horses, cotton, etc) and strategic locations (rivers, bays, bottlenecks, etc). You'll also spend time avoiding barbarians who are roving the map looking for things to kill.

Strategy takes off in other ways as even just a few turns in you will be able to pick your first cultural tenant, start building the first wonders, found the first religions, and choose which direction your technological advancement will take.

Once you are ready to expand you'll find yourself pushing against those filthy barbarians and while it is unlikely that they will be able to take one of your cities, they will still capture workers / settlers, and lay waste to tile improvements (farms, mines, pastures, etc). You'll need a small squad to clear them out but if you are unlucky enough to be neighbors with a leader that wants to expand quickly (George Washington), or an overly aggressive leader (Gangis Khan), then you may want to adjust your expansion plans to accommodate for their competitiveness.

Two cocoa resources side by side in city view.

Once you've got your borders more or less established and those nasty barbarians have been beaten back it will be time for foreign relations. If you are of the 'conquer the world' mentality then this will mean building an army and taking over cities. If you want to be friendly or if war just isn't the best option yet then you can trade resources with other civilizations or try to impress city states by fulfilling quests or giving them gifts. If they view you as a friend they will give you a small bonus (extra food, culture, faith, or happiness) and if prove yourself as an ally they will give you a larger bonus plus all of the resources in their territory. Acquiring new types of luxury resources (even if they are only on loan) is the quickest and easiest way to boost national happiness which takes a hit every time you build a new city or grow in size.

You will constantly be competing with the other nations on various levels. Militarily, if you are at war, politically to keep city states as allies, racing to build world wonders, getting ahead technologically, culturally, and geographically. The amount of points required to unlock new technologies and cultural tenants scales according to the size of your empire so depending on your strategy you may want a sprawling empire of many cities or a small empire with large cities. By the middle of the game (Renaissance era) a whole new level of diplomatic opportunities becomes available through the use of spies (God's and Kings Expansion) and the convening of world congress (A Brave New World expansion) where every nation gets to vote on global proposals that will help some and hinder others. Every turn is full of choices where you can get to choose one of several possible bonuses and need to weigh the pros and cons of each. This is where Civilization-addiction starts. A city has finished building something, do you want to build a university in 13 turns (+2 science per turn +17% science for the city as a whole) or is it better to get the artist guild in 5 turns (begin generating Great Artists) or maybe you should try to build the Hanging Gardens in 22 turns (+6 food per turn, 25% bonus to generate Great Persons but if someone else builds it before you do then all that production is wasted...) Your laborer unit has finished constructing a farm on the wheat tile outside a city, is it better to chop down the forest in the next tile for more food or should you build a lumber camp for more production? Oh, now you can choose another cultural tenant and you get to pick from a large number of possible bonuses. Research is finished, what new buildings / units / abilities will you work to unlock now? All those little bonuses and decisions stack up together and by the industrial age it will be apparent which victory condition each nation is striving towards (military, cultural, diplomatic, or scientific) as the turn by turn decisions have evolved into distinct and substantial advantages.

By the end game you'll be working with some very impressive units, buildings, cultural and diplomatic options. Even if you were not able to rise above the pack of competing nations Civ 5 (with A Brave New World) allows for the underdog to still have options to be influential and win which is a welcome change from previous titles. Eventually someone will take over everyone else's capitals, build a space ship to colonize Alpha Centari, or pull off a cultural or diplomatic victory (see below) which ultimately ends the game.

Sometimes the border can get a little tense...

For everyone who has played Civilization before Civ 5 took a few departures from previous titles and I am among the many who are glad for this.

Combat has had a complete revamp. For starters, the square tiles were replaced by hexes but more importantly units can no longer be stacked on the same tile and much more emphasis has been given to the advantages and penalties for how you are attacking. In past titles players could just pile their army into a single doom tile and just roll over all but similar sized doom tiles but now positioning your troops is vital to a successful military campaign. A well placed pikeman unit fortified in a castle on a hill across a river can hold against many foes (even early gunpowder units) while your archers rain damage down upon them. Cities are now formidable combat 'units' in their own right able to take and dish out a lot of damage. It will require multiple turns of constant attacks from multiple tiles to capture cities. Over all combat now feels 'Chess-like', which adds a welcome depth of interest and complexity to what was a rather simple 'Risk-like' system.

Culture was also completely revamped. While it still causes your national boarders to grow it will now also unlock a plethora of 'cultural tenants' which will give you specific advantages and in the A Brave New World expansion, allow access to even more powerful ideology tenants which have a drastic affect on how the late game is played. The cultural victory condition is another innovation in Civ 5 wherein you generate 'tourism' (the amount by which other nations are envious of your culture) by displaying great works and historical artifacts in your cities, building world wonders, and choosing certain cultural tenants. You can multiply your tourism output through trade, espionage, open border agreements, technology, religion, and ideology. As your tourism rating starts to over take other nations' cumulative culture you will receive bonuses when when attacking, trading, or spying on them. If they follow a different ideology than you do then your tourism rating will start creating unhappiness in that nation as the people want to adopt your way of life. If you're tourism rating overtakes every other nation's cumulative culture totals then you win.

At the beginning of the game you only have a few trees to choose from.
I usually choose liberty because the free laborer and setter really fit with my play style.

Religion also got an overhaul in the Gods and Kings expansion. Similar to culture points you can acquire faith points through a variety of means. If you can get enough you will be able to start a Pantheon, a pre-religion, which can grant you one out of a dizzying number of small bonuses that you will take with you throughout the game. Later, once you have enough faith points a great prophet will spawn in your capital and you can use him to create a formal religion. Similar to a pantheon you will be able to choose two bonuses from a dizzying number of options, one bonus for the religion founder (you) and another bonus for every city that follows that religion (you + others). The next Great Prophet allows you to pick two more 'reformation tenants', one for the founder, another for every city that follows that religion. While religions benefit every city they spread to it is almost always in your best interest to spread your religion as much as possible as your founder benefits are often dependent on how many cities follow it and you get a tourism bonus with nations who share a common belief. Choosing which religion to create or embrace is a very strategic option. Extra culture for specific tiles worked, or extra gold per 4 followers, or being able to purchase military units with faith points (maybe a religion you would rather not spread) are just a few examples of what religion can do. These subtle benefits can change the outcome of the game over time, especially if your play style or other bonuses can be used to multiply or leverage those benefits.

The dynamics of the middle and late game were the target of the A Brave New World expansion. The option to create trade routes with AI controlled caravan / cargo ship units opens up gold based strategy like never before but also affects the spread of religion, tourism, and science. The amount of gold generated by trade routes is substantial and, just like every other aspect of the game, can be improved upon depending on how your cities are structured, which wonders you've built, your religion, technology, and cultural tenants. Trade routes can be raided though, and the AI caravans / cargo ships will stick to their shortest route regardless of danger. Hunting down enemy caravans and trade ships is an excellent way to hurt your foe while also netting yourself a substantial gold boost.

A Brave New World also adds the world congress which is founded when a civilization has met every other nation and has discovered The Printing Press. The host nation and the nation who has the most representatives both put forth a global proposal that everyone gets to vote on. The resolutions passed affect everyone and range from military tax to trade rules to naming a world wide religion / ideology to influencing the rate at which specific 'Great Persons' (Artists, Generals, Prophets, Architects, Scientists, etc) are generated. The number of delegates you get primarily depends on the world era, and how many city state allies you have. This means that city states become a resource in and of themselves and a savvy political player can win the game with a world leader vote if he has enough support (or close to enough support with good espionage). The addition of the world congress makes the middle and end game more interesting and can shake up an otherwise inevitable outcome. Higher military taxes, a trade embargo, and being unable to use specific luxury resources will create all sorts of problems warmongering players while resolutions that boost tourism can make pacifist players a serious threat.

Take away everyone's whales or make it so that artists are more common and scientists / generals / engineers are not. Hmm...

There are other features and tweaks made in Civ 5 that I just don't have time to cover. Over all, compared to previews titles, the game pacing is better, there are more interesting and deeper features, and all of the features intertwine with each other allowing for a multitude of diverse strategies and approaches. The classic strategies of rushing certain techs / wonders / unit types are greatly augmented by the new cultural / religious / diplomatic options giving way to a multitude of new strategies. The improvement of the middle and late game in A Brave New World are especially pronounced and even though I thought Civ 5 was amazing before the expansion now that I have it I can barely imagine how game didn't feel incomplete or broken with out it.

As for Gods and Kings my personal recommendation is to skip it or wait for a really good sale as all of the features added in God's and Kings also carried over to A Brave New World with the only exception being following nations: Austria, Byzantine, Carthage, Netherlands, Celts, Maya, Holland, Ethiopia, Huns, and Sweden. Given A Brave New World's inclusion of Gods and Kings' features and the large improvements game I highly recommend A Brave New World for the definitive Civ 5 experience, it really isn't the same game without it.

Civ 5, even without any expansions, is without a doubt a quality game both deep and wide. It will consume your time by the hour and playing a round of Civ can take days if not weeks or months. Here is to the 5th edition of the quintessential grand strategy PC game.