I got the chance to take a look at the brand new Civ 5 for a good 70 turns yesterday. And while I was still stuck in a era slightly better than the barbarian horde, I had a pretty good look at what to expect come 21st September – release day, mark it down!
I’ll be brief on my 1 hour preview of the game, it’s pretty scant but this would definitely be a release day buy for me.
Onto the game!
Multiplayer was the option that was released on the day I test drove the game. No one had played it before save for the 5 of us on site.
It’s rather odd playing it over LAN because, well, you could peep at your opponents location and check out what they are doing.
The cool thing is that everyone takes their turn at the same time. And once you have moved all your units, the game completes your turn and everyone waits for the last player to finish up his action.
The game would alert you if you have an action you can perform but it is tucked away in the corner and doesn’t really scream at you for any action. This could be a small problem especially since Civ games are very very long drawn. Unlike Risk when you can slap your friend to hurry him up, your next turn is pretty much as fast as the slowest player..
Which is why I guess I got to play only 70 odd turns, cos I was busy checking out the tech trees in the game and held up the game.
Sorry guys!
Imagine playing the game over the net and then someone has to go AFK. There appears to be no option to allow the AI to take over and autopilot as you take a break
Thankfully, I was told that the option to play the game via email very much still exists and is one feature that I thank the devs for retaining. Push mail anyone?
One major gameplay change that I noticed was that Cities are very much able to hold their own even without being garrisoned by any defenders. Additionally, they are able to snipe units from afar before they are able to launch an attack. I believe that as a city levels up the damage should increase, but a city with no upgrades does a mere 1 hitpoint damage which is pretty laughable.
That pretty much rounds up my preview of Civ V. I hope to be able to get hold of a preview copy to provide some in depth insights on what to expect once the game is out.
Contact the author of this post, Gerald Chan, at geraldchan@qisahn.com
