Sid Meier's Civilization V

I'm not here to recommend Civilization series in general: know that it is awesome.

But why do I think Civ V is the best of the series?
First of all, the empire building has got more interesting: the boundaries develop now in much more amorphous manner, and much more consideration needs to be paid to the terrain: it is no longer sensible to spam the whole realm full of railroad and mountain chains are important. Also for some strategies having a small empire is sensible and viable, but the upkeep for big empires is not as crippling as in Sid Meier's Civilization IV either.

Various civilizations still have their individual strengths, but much more customisation and differentiation is allowed via social policies. Religions also have now their own gameplay differences.

Since I personally like exploration and building more than warfare, I also think the combat system has become more interesting, requiring now more consideration how to position the troops (and pay attention to the terrain) instead of the old system of just creating a big bunch of troops and moving them against the enemy (or suddenly finding one in your doorstep).

From this comes also the biggest weakness of Civ V: AIs are not particularly good at handling war and are here quite passive: this sometimes leads to situations where halfway through the game it becomes obvious how the game will go, if you have managed to take enough lead you'll probably keep it unchallenged and the endgame can become something of a grind, and if someone else has pulled ahead it is not easy to catch them the other AIs at least won't hinder the leader effectively.

Also the vanilla game itself is not quite as great as it becomes with the expansions. And I can see that someone much more into warfare would prefer e.g. Civ IV over this, but for a more peaceful builder like me this has brought hours of joy and will continue to do so.

Probably the greatest case of "style of substance" in video game history.

The core mechanics of Civilization 5 are lacking, and effectively fall apart on higher difficulties. There's no reason to ever deviate from Tradition/Rationalism, you always have to prioritize science no matter what (don't come at me with "it's realistic", it's a video game), cavaley and its successors are near completely useless, the AI cheats to a level where it's effectively impossible to contest any wonder at higher difficulties, country bonuses range from "meme tier" (Denmark, Mongolia) to "hilariously overpowered" (Poland, Korea), and so on. I don't know if Glitchwave reviews have a character limit, but I'm fairly sure that I would hit it if I just continued to list the inherent flaws of the game.

But the aesthetics? My god, the aesthetics.

Civilization 5 is, for the lack of a better word, dignified. It's a game that takes itself very seriously, and it pulls it off so convincingly that you just have to go along with it. Everything from the oil painting-like map to the fairly realistic character models and the absurdly beautiful wonder artworks work together to create a "classic masterpiece" atmosphere, and this alone is enough to turn the game into something worth playing. It may not have the best gameplay, but the atmosphere more than makes up for it.

I loved Civ 2-4 (was a little too young for Civ1). This one never quite sucked me in though. A few game design problems.

1. The AI simply can not play the game properly. And, the multiplayer was too buggy to play.
2. The diplomacy seemed rather meaningless and opaque.
3. Too many of the gameplay systems are "trees". It feels too gamey. Compare and contrast civ4 and 5:
Tech:
-Civ4 is a tree to put points into
-Civ5 is a tree to put points into
Government:
-Civ4 was a list of different specializations to choose
-Civ5 is a list of trees to put points into
Religion:
-Civ4 had a dynamic system related to trade routes and tied into diplomacy
-Civ5 is a list of trees to put points into

Used to be in love with Civ 5. Unfortunately no longer - for one main reason, and that is that it gets very repetitive after the tenth playthrough. I forced myself to do a difficulty 7 playthrough on every civilization and it eventually just got tiresome. The diplomacy system could definitely be more robust and a lot of the time things aren’t very well explained unless you hunt down the information, which was annoying to me as a newer player (although it is a very accessible game nonetheless). It’s worth hours and hours of fun but my rating goes down with every single time I touch the game again after my last time.

this is the steam game I have the most hours on. no surprise considering it's a pretty fantastic game but I do wonder if the reason I prefer this over VI is simply because I've played more. oh well, who knows!

The replayability on this game is insane. It's a history game for which no history knowledge is required (it can kind of help though). This game can make/break friendships. Some of the best moments I've had in college have come from locking a number of people in a room until we finish a game of Civ.

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Gameplay: A strategy game for the history nerd, but one that requires very little actual knowledge of history to play. Each game is unique, each civilization a complete new set of tools with which to build your empire. A strategy game done right. 9.5/10

Graphics/Visual Experience: For a top-down game, Civ is easy on the eyes. I don't feel like I'm staring at maps for hours on end despite the fact that that's exactly what I'm doing. There's a bizarre sense of pride seeing the tiny buildings in your city sprawling out more than ever as your civilization grows. 8/10

Sound: While the sounds aren't as iconic as Civ IV's, Civ V's soundscape sets the mood quite well. 7/10

Replayability: Quite high. As long as you don't settle into a single strategy, it's unlikely that the game will wear on you. 9/10

How it Runs: It's somewhat demanding but, as a strategy game, it's not going to have any sudden jumps in how badly it grills your computer. I've seen toasters run this game.