Snackbar Games Civ V Review and Giveaway!

Thrallia

Prodigal Staffer
GOTM Staff
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Hey all!

To showcase our review of Civilization V, we're having a giveaway over at Snackbar Games for a steam code for Civilization V! The full details are here:

Snackbar Games: Win Civilization V

Here are the two ways to enter. You can do both to get twice the chance!
(1) Post a comment on the SB post (not here) explaining why you want Civilization V.
(2) Retweet this tweet (and follow the account so we can contact you if you win).

Good luck and happy gaming!

Shawn Vermette
Staff Writer, Snackbar Games
 
Sorry, that is part of our standard template for giveaways. You can go ahead and enter if you don't live in the US.
 
I'm curious, why do you need to be 18 years old or older to enter?
 
Seriously? Twitters get a second vote? That is just cheap.

Though I won't be entering anyways, as much as I'd like to win a free copy I fully intend to get a physical copy to add it to my collection.
 
Generally our giveaways are limited based on the fact that we usually have physical products, and shipping outside the US and Canada is too expensive. Since it is just a Steam code this time though, we're waiving that requirement.

As for why you must be 18 to enter, I believe we require that due to legal issues.
 
I wouldn't think so, since Snackbar Games is a video game review site, not a civilization website.

Plus, lots of other sites were posted here in relation to having reviews posted on them for Civilization V.
 
Except for the blatant contest advertisement. ;)
 
Except for the blatant contest advertisement. ;)

well, we gain nothing from the promotion other than traffic, and I figured that people here might welcome the chance to get Civilization V for free :)
 
Hey Thrallia:

Read the review ... have a couple of questions.

On what difficulty level of play is the sense of the AI being better based on? I am working up the diff levels (in part inspired by the Steam achievments at each level, and in part to get up to speed) ... up through warlord, the AI is pretty brainless. Hopefully, I will be seeing that get better with prince and beyond?

One particular issue is the "pseudo-capitualtion" peace deal the AI will offer after minimal war losses ... Japan offered 250 gold and a city after I killed one roaming scout in a war (on warlord). Again, hopefully not to be seen at higher levels.

The review talks about a few hiccups ... so I am wondering what system specs you guys played it on and whether the copious bugs listed here at CFC were not issues for you?

In particular, the ones annoying me are problems with local saving (not fully working, and the save system being consolish rather than a PC design [which Civ 4 saves were]) and screenshot dysfunctionality.

For multiplayer, I miss my direct IP connection option ... how will we play pitboss style MP? And no saving of MP games that I have found, except maybe autosaves.

I don't have a complaint about the Civ 5 game concepts, but AI delivery, and some of the creature comfort functionality I have taken for granted in Civ 4, seem to be missing ... from the game (and also from the review?) ;)

Wondering about your take on these issues ... :goodjob:

dV
 
Those of us who already have the game know that, unfortunately, it cannot merit 5/5 stars out of the box. The AI military tactics are just broken, and that skews the game. Now, these issues might be fixed, and if they are, I can certainly see the potential for 5/5. But it's not there yet.

It's hard for me to believe a reviewer who had played much Civ IV could give such a glowing review as yours. And if a reviewer of Civ V is unfamiliar with Civ IV, then I respectfully discount their opinion. I guess if Civ V were the first Civilization game I'd ever played, I'd be blown away, but a lot of the great things about the franchise are also available on the cheaper, more challenging, and less buggy Civ IV platform. Don't get me wrong, I still think (hope?) Civ V is going to be fantastic; but realistically, it's at least a patch or two away from getting there.

A 5/5 rating at this point should at least come with an asterisk, explaining some of the gameplay problems that have been detailed in these forums.
 
Hey Thrallia:

Read the review ... have a couple of questions.

On what difficulty level of play is the sense of the AI being better based on? I am working up the diff levels (in part inspired by the Steam achievments at each level, and in part to get up to speed) ... up through warlord, the AI is pretty brainless. Hopefully, I will be seeing that get better with prince and beyond?

One particular issue is the "pseudo-capitualtion" peace deal the AI will offer after minimal war losses ... Japan offered 250 gold and a city after I killed one roaming scout in a war (on warlord). Again, hopefully not to be seen at higher levels.

The review talks about a few hiccups ... so I am wondering what system specs you guys played it on and whether the copious bugs listed here at CFC were not issues for you?

In particular, the ones annoying me are problems with local saving (not fully working, and the save system being consolish rather than a PC design [which Civ 4 saves were]) and screenshot dysfunctionality.

For multiplayer, I miss my direct IP connection option ... how will we play pitboss style MP? And no saving of MP games that I have found, except maybe autosaves.

I don't have a complaint about the Civ 5 game concepts, but AI delivery, and some of the creature comfort functionality I have taken for granted in Civ 4, seem to be missing ... from the game (and also from the review?) ;)

Wondering about your take on these issues ... :goodjob:

dV

Our sense that the AI was better was based primarily on the fact that it runs its empire better and actually tries to win the game. As far as military tactics, unfortunately the AI isn't great, but it is good enough on higher levels to keep me from winning on King yet, the level I was on in Civ IV.

We never checked out screenshots, and the save system worked perfectly for both of us involved in writing the review. As far as bugs are concerned, Graham Russell played in bootcamp on a Mac on medium graphics(don't know his specs), while I played on a computer that is technically below minimum specs, but has enough RAM to power my way through the game anyway, and never experienced any bugs that either of us could recall.

As far as MP, we lament the lack of saves, but don't recall ever being able to save in MP before(outside of Pitboss and PBEM) anyway, so that wasn't exactly a negative. I suspect the MP problems we had, which were solely based on actually connecting to each other, are partly due to my system's specs(and the fact that it likes to overheat and shut down while running Civ V), and partly due to faulty code.

Those of us who already have the game know that, unfortunately, it cannot merit 5/5 stars out of the box. The AI military tactics are just broken, and that skews the game. Now, these issues might be fixed, and if they are, I can certainly see the potential for 5/5. But it's not there yet.

It's hard for me to believe a reviewer who had played much Civ IV could give such a glowing review as yours. And if a reviewer of Civ V is unfamiliar with Civ IV, then I respectfully discount their opinion. I guess if Civ V were the first Civilization game I'd ever played, I'd be blown away, but a lot of the great things about the franchise are also available on the cheaper, more challenging, and less buggy Civ IV platform. Don't get me wrong, I still think (hope?) Civ V is going to be fantastic; but realistically, it's at least a patch or two away from getting there.

A 5/5 rating at this point should at least come with an asterisk, explaining some of the gameplay problems that have been detailed in these forums.

The thing is, our review scale differs from that of many sites. For most sites, 5/5 means that it is a perfect game, or as near as you can get. For our site, 5/5 means that it is a game that any fan of the genre should purchase.

Between Graham and I, we've played at least a thousand hours of Civ IV, and during the week between release and review we played a combined 30 or 35 hours of Civ V. Maybe we just aren't good enough at the game to notice the AI being completely broken, but we felt the AI was competent enough up through King difficulty to give us a run for our money(and neither of us were able to win a game on King). Regardless, we saw none of the various gameplay problems that I've seen mentioned on this site, and without experiencing them ourselves, we can't comment on them in our review.

Thanks all for your comments and interest! I'm always willing to answer any and all questions :)
 
Our sense that the AI was better was based primarily on the fact that it runs its empire better and actually tries to win the game. As far as military tactics, unfortunately the AI isn't great, but it is good enough on higher levels to keep me from winning on King yet, the level I was on in Civ IV.

Between Graham and I, we've played at least a thousand hours of Civ IV, and during the week between release and review we played a combined 30 or 35 hours of Civ V. Maybe we just aren't good enough at the game to notice the AI being completely broken, but we felt the AI was competent enough up through King difficulty to give us a run for our money(and neither of us were able to win a game on King). Regardless, we saw none of the various gameplay problems that I've seen mentioned on this site, and without experiencing them ourselves, we can't comment on them in our review.

Steam tells me I have played 44 hours of Civ 5 so far. Like I said, working up from the lowest level. I am curious, did you guys play much on the entry levels? For example current game at warlord level, after I have taken about 4 cities from Bismarck, 5 from Darius, three from Monte ... I come up to China ... and she is playing an occ! :eek: Just her capital, and she is gone. And none of the AI seem to have troops in any significant numbers (three direct and 3 ranged units in formation seem to me to be a minimun brigade ... they don't even have that). And the silly peace deals (hopefully patched lately) that I have already mentioned ... not very impressive.

But that may be by design ... so if you played some at lower levels, did you see similar bad AI play (which may be programmed in on lower levels, I think I read somewhere) and was it gone at higher levels?

About the AI trying to win the game, in BTS they would go for culture and for space, for sure. In what additional ways is Civ 5 AI trying to win the game, and how can you tell?

We never checked out screenshots, and the save system worked perfectly for both of us involved in writing the review. As far as bugs are concerned, Graham Russell played in bootcamp on a Mac on medium graphics(don't know his specs), while I played on a computer that is technically below minimum specs, but has enough RAM to power my way through the game anyway, and never experienced any bugs that either of us could recall.
Screenshots save automatically as .tga files, and nothing stock on my computer would open them. And no option to name the shot as it is created, just default 0000 to infinity numbering. After trying four suggested programs, found two that will do the job (gimp and irfanview). Why fix what was not broke, and break it in the process?

So you could type a name in the box for a local save, and actually generate a save? Several of us have reported that typing a name in the box and hitting save does nothing. I found that if I manually populate the target saves folder with dummy saves (multiple copies of a game which I generate in "windows explorer" [not really that name anymore, I suppose]), then I can overwrite the saves with current games. Steam cloud and quick save worked fine. It is as if the save programming is now designed to fill defined slots, but won't make them. Seems like a console program, did they borrow it from Rev? And, I dont see a way to view the file paths in the save window, like Civ 4 did ... a real PC save system. Why fix what was not broke, and break it in the process?

As far as MP, we lament the lack of saves, but don't recall ever being able to save in MP before(outside of Pitboss and PBEM) anyway, so that wasn't exactly a negative. I suspect the MP problems we had, which were solely based on actually connecting to each other, are partly due to my system's specs(and the fact that it likes to overheat and shut down while running Civ V), and partly due to faulty code.
I played a lot of MP with a buddy of mine in Civ 4. We could save the game any time we wanted, into the MP save folder, during the game. Other than autosaves, I did not see a way to do that in Civ 5 when we played Friday. Which meant we played a small map, to finish in one sitting. We did have to both play in dx9 to get a connection, as he can't support 11 (I can) and mismatched, he could not find my game on steam (please bring back direct IP ... but I bet that violates the Firaxis-Steam contract :()

The thing is, our review scale differs from that of many sites. For most sites, 5/5 means that it is a perfect game, or as near as you can get. For our site, 5/5 means that it is a game that any fan of the genre should purchase.
So 4/5 means only 80% of fans should buy it? How do you know which should, and which should not, and which bucket a person is in? :mischief:

Thanks all for your comments and interest! I'm always willing to answer any and all questions :)
As you can see, I am holding you to that! :goodjob:

Complaints actually come in several flavors:

Gameplay items:

1. You changed my game! (no cottages, people make science, etc) Correct execution of a change that someone dislikes. Not much to be done in most cases, I suspect.

2. Nice try, but ... (AI insanities, for example) An improvement that did not achieve the intended aim. Bring on the fix.

3. Exterminator please (take your pick) The bugs, or coding typos. Patch me!

Creature Comforts:

1. Green Acres (dumber save system, harder screenshot system) User friendliness features present in 4 but worse or gone in 5. Some nostalgia please?

2. Thanks for the fruitcake (the coin heads in the city screen) New things that just get in the way ... bring back the cleaner circles, and let's move the demands, buy tile and price bars to the EDGES of the city screen, where they don't block my view. Again, some nostalgia please.

My issues are mostly about creature comforts, which I see as fixable. But I think this breakdown of issue types in a useful way to sort the complaints (which are many).

dV
 
Steam tells me I have played 44 hours of Civ 5 so far. Like I said, working up from the lowest level. I am curious, did you guys play much on the entry levels? For example current game at warlord level, after I have taken about 4 cities from Bismarck, 5 from Darius, three from Monte ... I come up to China ... and she is playing an occ! :eek: Just her capital, and she is gone. And none of the AI seem to have troops in any significant numbers (three direct and 3 ranged units in formation seem to me to be a minimun brigade ... they don't even have that). And the silly peace deals (hopefully patched lately) that I have already mentioned ... not very impressive.

But that may be by design ... so if you played some at lower levels, did you see similar bad AI play (which may be programmed in on lower levels, I think I read somewhere) and was it gone at higher levels?

I've played games at settler, warlord, prince, and king. From what I could tell, though I've seen varying reports of AI intelligence across this board, the AI did indeed get smarter as I went up in difficulty, though whether the AI's tactical abilities improved equally with its empire managing skills, I couldn't say for sure. I do know that I handily beat settler and warlord, struggled on Prince, and have yet to win on King. Also, by the time I got a chance to play above settler, the first patch had already downloaded, so I've not seen any of the silly peace deals I've heard of.

About the AI trying to win the game, in BTS they would go for culture and for space, for sure. In what additional ways is Civ 5 AI trying to win the game, and how can you tell?

I've noticed the AI attempt to win both diplomatically and militarily in Civ V. I had a game where Bismark declared protection and support of every city-state that he met, even going as far as to actually declare war on me when I tried to take over Budapest :lol: and I've seen Napoleon methodically take down every other AI before running into my Musketmen and Longswordsmen. I haven't played deep enough into a game to actually have any diplomatic, cultural, or space wins be feasible yet, but I expect to be fighting for those wins as well.

So you could type a name in the box for a local save, and actually generate a save? Several of us have reported that typing a name in the box and hitting save does nothing. I found that if I manually populate the target saves folder with dummy saves (multiple copies of a game which I generate in "windows explorer" [not really that name anymore, I suppose]), then I can overwrite the saves with current games. Steam cloud and quick save worked fine. It is as if the save programming is now designed to fill defined slots, but won't make them. Seems like a console program, did they borrow it from Rev? And, I dont see a way to view the file paths in the save window, like Civ 4 did ... a real PC save system. Why fix what was not broke, and break it in the process?

Yes, I've done that with all my saves, haven't bothered with the Steam Cloud yet. I did notice, however, that the save screen starts out with the text box already selected, and if you click it again, it deselects it. You then have to click it a second time to actually get it to accept any text. It is possible that is happening with you, and possibly others.

I played a lot of MP with a buddy of mine in Civ 4. We could save the game any time we wanted, into the MP save folder, during the game. Other than autosaves, I did not see a way to do that in Civ 5 when we played Friday. Which meant we played a small map, to finish in one sitting. We did have to both play in dx9 to get a connection, as he can't support 11 (I can) and mismatched, he could not find my game on steam (please bring back direct IP ... but I bet that violates the Firaxis-Steam contract :()

Interesting. I never played Civ IV MP outside of pitboss, as GameSpy hates wireless connections, so I was never able to connect to a game for more than 2 turns. I did desire the ability to save MP games, and hope they will add it in a patch.

So 4/5 means only 80% of fans should buy it? How do you know which should, and which should not, and which bucket a person is in? :mischief:

Our scoring system actually goes like this:
  • 1/5- Don't bother playing it
  • 2/5- Worth a rental(or purchase if the same or cheaper than a normal rental price), but not much more than that.
  • 3/5- Bargain Bin- Worth playing if you wait for a price drop or can get a good discount on it
  • 4/5- Niche- Worth purchasing at full price for some people, bargain bin for others (basically, look at the review to decide which category it sounds like you would be in)
  • 5/5- Purchase- Worth a purchase by anyone who appreciates games in general (sorry, I said 5/5 was for fans of the genre, that is generally relegated to 4/5 by most other reviewers on my site)
As you can see, we do have a completely different point of view when we rate a game. Which is why it is always best to read the reviews, rather than just relying on the numerical rating given to a game :)

Complaints actually come in several flavors:

Gameplay items:

1. You changed my game! (no cottages, people make science, etc) Correct execution of a change that someone dislikes. Not much to be done in most cases, I suspect.

2. Nice try, but ... (AI insanities, for example) An improvement that did not achieve the intended aim. Bring on the fix.

3. Exterminator please (take your pick) The bugs, or coding typos. Patch me!

Creature Comforts:

1. Green Acres (dumber save system, harder screenshot system) User friendliness features present in 4 but worse or gone in 5. Some nostalgia please?

2. Thanks for the fruitcake (the coin heads in the city screen) New things that just get in the way ... bring back the cleaner circles, and let's move the demands, buy tile and price bars to the EDGES of the city screen, where they don't block my view. Again, some nostalgia please.

My issues are mostly about creature comforts, which I see as fixable. But I think this breakdown of issue types in a useful way to sort the complaints (which are many).

dV

I agree with your description of all of those complaints :) And as far as the creature comforts are concerned, we did put the removal of some elements in our Cons section...we just didn't feel their removal warranted reducing the score of what we felt was otherwise a very addictive game still. In essence, we decided that the track record shows that Firaxis will fix whatever bugs are present, and I'm sure there are plenty even though we didn't run into any in our reviewing, and that the horrible case of one more turn-itis that we've both been infected with warranted a 5/5 score in the end.
 
"Must reside on USA or Canada"?
Why? It's a steam code, not a actual game that you guys will have to ship.

I had retweeted and was dollowing you guys on Twitter. I'm unfollowing and deleting the retweet right now.
 
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