Civilization V



Sid Meier's Civilization V (also known as Civilization 5) is an upcoming turn-based strategy video game by Firaxis. In the game the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a randomly-generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. It is the latest game in the Civilization series, due for release on September 21, 2010 in North America, and September 24 internationally. The game will contain community, modding and multiplayer elements.

Civilization V will feature an entirely new game engine scripted in Lua, as well as a hexagonal map instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. The combat system will also be overhauled, including allowing only one unit per tile and giving cities the ability to defend themselves. Many elements new to Civilization IV and its expansion packs will be removed or changed in the game, such as religion and espionage. In addition, the maps will contain a number of computer-controlled city-states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy and conquest. A civilization's borders will also expand more realistically, favoring more productive terrain, and the concept of roads will be changed

Civilizations and Leaders
There will be eighteen civilizations available in the standard retail version of Civilization V. Additional civilizations are available as DLC; so far Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar II has been announced as a bonus civilization included in the Digital Deluxe Edition. Civilization V will also be the first incarnation of the series where the leaders speak their native languages.

AI
The game's AI will work on four levels: Tactical (unit battles), Operational (The entire War Front), Strategic (Manages the entire empire) and the Grand Strategic (how to win the game).

All AI-controlled leaders will have their own personalities, which are determined by a combination of several different 'flavours' along a ten point scale. In every game, these flavours are either increased or decreased by 2 points to accommodate variation. There are 25 such flavours, grouped into several categories including Wide Strategy, Military preferences, Recon, Naval recon, Naval growth, Expansion, Growth, and Development preferences.

Units
The most notable change in the game is its inclusion of hexagonal tiles instead of the traditional square-based grid map. Combat has been changed to make it more tactical: each tile accommodates only one unit, for three types: Military, Naval and Economic units, including city tiles. Unit movement has been increased to 2 tiles by default, and ranged units can fire from more than one tile away. Units can be swapped with other units surrounding them. Units will take longer to produce than in previous games from the series, making them more valuable. Another departure from previous games is that units are no longer always destroyed if defeated in combat. They can be upgraded and made veterans, as in Civilization IV.

While previous games required that units be transferred to troop transports for naval passage, units in Civilization V will automatically transform into troop transports on sea.

As before, all civilizations have at least one unique unit assigned to them. Some civilizations have an additional unique unit, while others have a unique building instead.

Research
Technology trading has been removed in favour of joint technological ventures. Two allied nations can research a technology together, which allows the tech to be researched faster, and for both nations to share its benefits.

The Technology Tree has been revamped with a three-way path, each yielding unique benefits.

Cities
As before, cities remain the pillars of Civilization gameplay, producing game-critical elements such as units, buildings, culture, research and gold.

Cities, when first built, will have a 3-tile radius instead of 2, but additional expansion is more difficult, expanding only one hex at a time. Difficult terrain is more time-consuming. While gold can be used to speed up the process of land acquisition, it can earn unfavourable diplomatic reactions.

City warfare has been revamped: cities will have a set of hitpoints that, if taken down to zero, will signal the city's defeat to invading forces. The hitpoints can be increased by merging other units with the city.

Capturing cities will allow the formation of a Puppet State, which will allow the winning side to reap the benefits of the city's research, culture and gold, but have no say in what it produces.

City States
City-states is a new feature in the game. Similar to barbarians, city-states will be independent and weak civilizations that will not seek to compete with other major civilizations, and not expand beyond their initial city. While they can be attacked and taken over, they provide significant bonuses, such as access to all of the city-state's resources, if allied with instead. There are three types of city-states, which determine the nature of the bonuses received: maritime, cultured, and militaristic. A city state can only be allied with one major player at a time and will often make requests of the other players, such as attack another city state or clear away local barbarians.

City-States will have their own technology trees and they will have their own personalities, which will affect what bonuses are provided to their allies.

Win Condition
A new win condition, a break from the Spaceship victory in previous games, is completion of the Utopia project (reminiscent of the Ascent to Transcendence secret project in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri). In Civ5, there are ten social policy "trees" which can be pursued separately and offer bonuses as you progress through a tree. After completing six trees, the player can build the Utopia Project, which wins the game.

Release
2K Games intends to release the game on September 21, 2010 in the US, and September 24 in the EU, through retail and the Steam content delivery system. There is no set date for the game's release for the Mac OS X platform, but a representative for Firaxis said that a Mac version would be released eventually.