Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. It is a new era, the surrounding lands spread in new and unimagined directions – it is time to build a great civilisation to stand the test of time! Sid Meier's epic world-conquering franchise has been the undisputed master of turn-based strategy PC gaming since the original title in 1990, spawning dozens of expansions, sequels and homages. I must confess, I've wasted many hundreds of hours conquering virtual empires over the decades. I'm happy to report that the latest iteration, Civilization V, has proven just as compelling and addictive. Read on to see why.

One of the most hyped changes in Civilization V has been the move from grid to hex-based gameplay. This is a perfect fit for a strategy title and, having experienced it, it's hard to understand why it wasn't done earlier. City zones of control, exploration and military endeavours all greatly benefit from the third axis of movement and it certainly adds to the visual fidelity of the landscape (which looks fantastic). It's of particular import in conjunction with the change to unit stacks – marauding stacks of death are a thing of the past, as each tile may now only host one combat unit. War has become a far more strategic affair, with front line troops protecting the more vulnerable ranged units behind and having oversight on all six surrounding tiles. It's also now possible take the measure of an incoming army at a glance, rather than manually examining each stack. This appears to be a conscious design choice throughout - almost all information is readily visible on-screen as opposed to being buried away in sub-menus.


The changes don't end there. Many core systems have been overhauled, most notably the “culture” system. Cities still expand based on their own culture score, but the empire also has an aggregate score which is used to purchase Social Policies. These are a direct replacement of the civics system in previous version and provide a range of policy trees with targeted benefits to science, commerce, military might, etc. Some trees are mutually exclusive, so wise choices must be made according to your civilisation's goals; it is possible to switch, albeit with the repercussions of a time of anarchy. I have as yet never managed to take over an opponent's city via cultural effects – invasion seems to only option to shift national borders.

Independent city-states also make an appearance, consisting of a single city and surrounding territory. Donating gold or units will elevate your influence with them; a positive status will result in access to their resources and, if they are friendly enough, will provide you with regular unit and great people donations. Those pushing for a UN victory would do well to curry favour with as many as possible as each city-state gets a vote. Conversely, angering them will lead to hostilities with the added result of any opponent pledged to protect them also declaring war. It's a very welcome addition to the political dynamic in the game and provides a quest subsystem of sorts – in which cities will regularly ask for assistance of various forms, in exchange for increased status.



The user interface is clean and functional and takes advantage of increased resolutions where possible; visual alerts buttons appear along the side of the screen for any important event, allowing immediate access to the relevant screen, city or unit. Citizen allocation in cities has also been overhauled and is much more intuitive, but still allows micromanagement if desired.

Ground units can now embark and traverse oceans, albeit at some risk from rival navies. Cities have an innate ability to defend themselves and even bombard approaching units. Conquered cities can now be razed, annexed (with ensuing unhappiness issues) or made into a puppet city (which is not directly controllable but otherwise works like any other city in your empire). Technologies are also no longer directly tradable but are rather co-operatively researched for gold, allowing much greater disparity in civilisation technology levels. Setting a Giant Death Robot up against a division of lancers never gets old.

I did note the removal of religions, espionage, corporations and a number of wonder and civilisation choices from the game – fodder for future expansions, perhaps? User mods are again directly supported in-game, but were locked in the press preview, as was multiplayer.

All in all, I was very impressed, especially after the execrable Revolutions release. Streamlined it may be, but this is by no means a dumbed-down Civilization. Rather it's now an exceptionally polished and intuitive title, reinvigorating the series for veterans and newcomers alike.