Ars Technica Full Review (21. Sep)

[EmpireOfCats]

They're a bit late to the party, but here you go:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/09/statecraft-as-entertainment-ars-reviews-civilization-v.ars

Verdict: Buy. Well, duh ...

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Good find. I love Ars (no arbitrary score = instant props).

 

[Auncien]

uh oh...

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

A few facets of the game that were cartoonish in the past have been simplified. Diplomacy is now conducted with still pictures of leaders that look somewhat like royal portraits. Likewise, the advisors are not live or animated—just pictures next to text boxes of their advice. I found that I missed the occasionally snarling CGI leaders of Civ4, as it was much easier to like or hate something that visually liked or hated you back—now all we have to go on are single facial expressions.

Uh...

Graphics settings not all the way up maybe?

 

[Zhahz]

Uh...

Graphics settings not all the way up maybe?

Always gonna be some opinion in any review.

A very long review with a lot of good perspective and insight from someone who seems to have a clue, if not a particular style.

For ex, the reviewing doesn't seem to think much of social policies when I think it's one of the best new features, but I tend to be a builder first, war monger second. If you expand/conquest a lot you will likely not get as much out of SP, like he suggested.

We'll see in a few hours.

 

[V. Soma]

finally we have the info about SP switch:

If a player decides to change over, they can adopt the conflicting tree, but lose all of the time and resources they spent developing the opposing policy.

yes

 

[Lancor]

And only comment about AI problems:

Sometimes the AIs appear to be not-so-intelligent, despite their name. For instance, I once offered Siam five gold per turn for 10 turns, and their leader offered me a nonsensical 39 gold in exchange. It's hard to say whether the AIs were designed to be facetious, but sometimes basic math seems to elude them. Maybe it is just a way to figure out how they really feel about you—see if you're money's any good to them.

Seems like something a quick patch could fix

 

[Thormodr]

Could be an older build. The Khmer statue in the Siamese diplomacy picture is still there.

Nice review anyway. One of the better ones.

 

[Lancor]

Another interesting bit for some people:

The graphics are very pretty and not terribly demanding on the system; the settings have a good deal of flexibility.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Interesting:

Without stacking, arranging units for an attack on a specific tile becomes an exercise in choreography. The process might become more automatic and take less time with practice, but when you're new to it, the approach will give you a little pause as you try to strategize the best way to arrange everyone. The game will help you out a little by voiding tiles as destinations if you've already scheduled a unit to move there in a few turns.

 

[City Builder]

With the addition of city-states, there are so many more diplomatic entities to deal with that it creates these realistically complicated social webs that must be navigated. And in a relationship like the one described above, there are many fun diplomatic options: cut ties with Geneva and re-align yourself with Bucharest (even though they don't have any resources you want), kill off Bucharest and risk Persia's ire, or wait it out and hope that the tensions dissolve.

Which leads me back to wondering if there is a way to see the advisor information when in the diplomatic screens to see this web (or if the diplomatic screens provide this information themselves which would be great too), and if not, it's really going to hamper my abilities to be diplomatic in a way that is thought provoked instead of a whack a mole style of just guessing what my relations are with whom, and who the Queens relations are with before I sign off on some diplomatic action.

I guess we find out in about 7 hours and 7 minutes but it would have been nice to know 7 days and 7 hours ago when the question was first brought up.

 

[SevenSpirits]

And only comment about AI problems:




Seems like something a quick patch could fix

Are you kidding?? It's AWESOME that the AI understands the time value of money and is willing to loan it to you for interest.

It's too bad the reviewer appears to be clueless about economics, as well as graphics settings and I don't know what else.

 

[Xzylvador]

Sometimes the AIs appear to be not-so-intelligent, despite their name. For instance, I once offered Siam five gold per turn for 10 turns, and their leader offered me a nonsensical 39 gold in exchange. It's hard to say whether the AIs were designed to be facetious, but sometimes basic math seems to elude them. Maybe it is just a way to figure out how they really feel about you—see if you're money's any good to them.

I find that making a lot of sense really... If I borrow 10k from the bank now and promise to pay back monthly, they don't expect me to pay exactly 10k in total, they'll ask me to pay 11 or 12k spread over a 5 years or so.
You urgently need cash? Great, I'll help you out now, but in return I want some interest.
Kind of made me doubt the reviewer's intelligence... (You can argue maybe that 11 gold interest on a 39 gold loan is far above the normal rate of interest and that such steep rates will only slow down economic growth and thus may cost more than it gained... but asking more money in return for what you loaned out makes perfect sense.)

 

[Mallipeep]

Yeah, that sounds lot like a loan.

 

[Dearmad]

Are you kidding?? It's AWESOME that the AI understands the time value of money and is willing to loan it to you for interest.

It's too bad the reviewer appears to be clueless about economics, as well as graphics settings and I don't know what else.

Agreed. Wow people are pretty clueless about some things. And also the reviewer pointed out some "facts" about the graphics that are not true- portraits of leaders that do not move?

 

[Meneer Popken]

Do the portraits of the leaders move when doing diplomacy? Or only when you first meet them?

I think the 11 gold premium on the loan is not too bad, after all it is a loan you can walk away from if you don't like the other civ anymore.

 

[bhavv]

finally we have the info about SP switch:



yes

So if you plan on using rationalism, you should never adopt Piety or waste any policies in there?

 

[Delgar]

Agreed. Wow people are pretty clueless about some things. And also the reviewer pointed out some "facts" about the graphics that are not true- portraits of leaders that do not move?

I have a feeling that the review copy did not include leaderhead animations but just a static picture.

 

[Plotinus]

They keep saying "unlike previous versions", when what they mean is "unlike Civ IV". A lot of the "new" features they mention, such as set-period diplomacy deals, are present in Civ III.

 

[Delgar]

Overall this is the most balanced review I've read and makes me even more excited to play the game. What I don't get though, is when he said 'The overall design and behavior of the new game feels slightly more cartoonish than Civ4 did'. I would have thought that Civ4 was more cartoonish??

I also take heart from the fact that he was more positive than negative about the diplomacy (especially when he talked about city states), when almost every other review seems to claim that diplomacy is too simplistic.