Civ 5 first impresstions

Here is a list of things I have had to do to get Civ 5 to run.

• Install, and re-install the game
• Reinstall DirectX
• Reinstall Video Drivers
• Edit a .ini file - everything else was fine but this is a step too far

It still crashes. I'm fairly good at computers, I fix them for a living. Surely I should be able to get the game to run smoothly. Alas, this dream eludes me.

This is a real problem for PC gaming. When I got Warhammer Online, I spent the whole first day just getting it up and running. It has been great to see the PC game market recover somewhat this year, thanks in large part to Steam and Blizzard, but this kind of thing has to end.

I don't need or even want it to be as straight forward as console gaming. But when I get home form the shop, or finish my download, I want to be able to jump in.

Anyway, on to the game. I'm half way through my first campaign, and it has thoroughly sucked me in. One of the major changes is that you can only have one unit per tile. In the previous Civs, my military strategy usually consisted of building up one huge army, grouped on a single tile, and steam roll the map. If I decide to go down that path in the later game, I will have to think very differently about it. Its become alot more like Advance Wars, strategy wise, and it means that even with a much smaller army, you will be able to succeed with good choices. I think that this has been a very successful addition.

The other great success of the game is the UI. I've played civ since the first one, and there were core concepts in the game that I didn't get till now. Huge amounts of information are layed out in meaningful easy to absorb ways. But the best part is, that the game lets you know why you should care about this information, and how it will impact your game. The designers have put the credit for this with their last game, Civilisation Revolution, which was their first venture in to the console and handheld market. The limitation of buttons and screen space forced them, for the first time, to really think about UI. On the PC they had been free to keep adding features and screens but never sat back to think of the bewildering jungle of stats and options that they were creating. They have very much taken the lessons of the console game to hart.

There are a few other changes that I wont get in to here. Suffice to say, its still civ, its still great, its still addictive and I still love it.

Just one more turn.