Civilization V

crazy slow, awful UI

Civ 5 with the expansions and certain mods is the best the Civ series has gotten, and is responsible for several timejumps to 4 a.m. in my life. Still could have room for improved diplomacy, trade & espionage.

I've been a life-long Civilization, and the shift to hexagonal tiles, actual ranged combat and the end of unit-stacking was the most-brilliant update to the series formula in the history of the franchise. Unfortunately, this change came at the expense of a gutted diplomacy, game-balance issues, and a monotonous late-game that was improved upon slightly with the expansions.

i was genuinely expecting something of a lightweight history lesson when i got this, so i was really disappointed when i found out that all the historical names, countries, landmarks, were all nothing but pretty packaging for an admittedly decent strategy game. you could replace everything with star wars lingo and it wouldn't make a damn difference.

I think the gameplay is kind of tired after a few games but I do get ensnared by all the achievements that can be made!

A buggy multiplayer is the only reason my friends and I ever had a problem with this game.

The 'one more turn' nature of this game seems more of a hindrance than help in my eyes. Games so long and complicated that they are all too often given up on and abandoned because the game just can't keep my attention long enough. Some fun to be had on the shorter game modes but honestly the slow pace just isn't for me.

Never say just one more turn. Next thing you know it will be 4:00 am on a school night.

It's not bad, but it just didn't grab me the way II and IV did. It's very balanced and every game feels exactly the same. Nothing that interesting ever seems to happen. War is tedious and nothing happens but it takes a long time for all that nothing to happen. A lot of the game mechanics and trees are cool in principle, but don't seem to make much difference in practice. I still play it once in a while because I love having hundreds of steam achievements.

A fairly solid game that has all the addictive just-one-more-turn mindset that Civilization has always had. It is a bit thin on the ground though and the combat is shockingly unrefined. If you are a fan of the series, this is another solid entry but it won't win you over if you've tried to like it in the past.

A big disappointment after Civ 4. Some people say that the new "one unit per turn" rule was too big of a challenge for the AI designers, but I suspect they deliberately kept it stupid. Do you think the mass market would reward games with good AI that can outsmart people? Nah, beating up idiots is way more fun.

With all the expansions.

No stacking and launch was rough. The final game is quite something though.

"I'll just play 1 more turn, finish this wonder, and then go to bed." *5 hours later* "Just 1 more turn and I'll finish this rocket artillery that will be really helpful for this war and then I'll be done...ah fuck, it's 5 am."

Odd game to rate. Vanilla is 65, but with mods I'd put it at a 90. The vanilla game has some of the dumbest ai ever, some dumbed down mechanics from IV, and is generally really fucking slow. Mods fix a lot of things I disliked about the vanilla game, and adds more. I've played a lot of Civ IV modded as well, and frankly, modded Civ V is much better by comparison. Despite my criticisms, the vanilla game looks visually striking, the music is fantastic and the diplomacy screens are beautiful.

I adore the world building RTS genre and this one with its DLC and mods is even better. It's amazingly easy to lose entire days to this son of a bitch.

Not as deep of a strategy game as its predecessor, but the presentation is fantastic. I love the clean artstyle that makes me feel like I'm flipping through the pages of an atlas, and the gorgeously animated and voiced leader screens (Dido is a total babe.) Vibrant modding scene ensures eternal replayability.