Civilization 5 Review
Today is a good day to conquer the world. At least that's what you should be thinking as the latest Sid Meier's Civilization lands in its fifth iteration.
Civ V offers both the hardcore and enthusiast something of varying layers of depth and complexity, with a focus on being a bit more streamlined than previous Civ outings, but with stronger results. There have also been some fundamental changes in the way the game is played from a combat and cultural level, which should even offer something utterly new and engaging for veterans of the series. This one is definitely worth your investment. Click here for our in-depth review. |
02:11pm 22/09/10 Permalink
cool i only just finished playing civ 4
Prettier graphics will be nice |
02:22pm 22/09/10 Permalink
to get the demo:
Start > Run > steam://install/65900 played a bit of the demo this morning and didn't like the interface, probably cause i have been playing Civ IV again recently and am just slow to adjust. |
02:57pm 22/09/10 Permalink
how bigs the demo it was pretty big like 3.5gig or something |
03:00pm 22/09/10 Permalink
gay, why doesnt optus offer free downloads on steam.. or on anything for that matter :@ 150gb a month runs out rather quickly |
03:02pm 22/09/10 Permalink
No where in this review did it mention that Australians are being charged nearly twice the price Americans are.
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03:12pm 22/09/10 Permalink
that should heavily impact on the score.
con Oz paying nearly 60% more and gettin raped again |
03:14pm 22/09/10 Permalink
No where in this review did it mention that Australians are being charged nearly twice the price Americans are.This is hardly a new phenomena. I agree that pricepoint is important, but I don't know that it's fair to Civ 5 and it's developers to take points off the game because of a local market distribution decision that basically every other publisher is equally guilty of and hasn't been a factor in any other review on this site. If international price disparity bothers you, import it, it's the same game and if enough people do it, maybe the publishers will actually take notice and fall in line. |
03:30pm 22/09/10 Permalink
im sure if the developers start kicking a s*** about people not buying their products because they are overpriced in certain parts things would change aswell.
Maybe some bad scores due to rediculous prices in Aus would gain the attention of the developers and make them do something. |
03:33pm 22/09/10 Permalink
yea not sure if ill bother with downloading the demo. I think ill be getting this game anyway, and i kinda dont wanna waste the downloads. telstra aint free on steam im guessing
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03:33pm 22/09/10 Permalink
This is hardly a new phenomena. I agree that pricepoint is important, but I don't know that it's fair to Civ 5 and it's developers to take points off the game because of a local market distribution decision that basically every other publisher is equally guilty of and hasn't been a factor in any other review on this site. This is an Australian gaming website and should be concerned with local issues, local flavour is why we read AusGamers! I don't know about taking points off, but the price disparity is an issue of concern to your readers. It at minimum warranted a paragraph and some useful import options / links. |
03:37pm 22/09/10 Permalink
Just buy from Direct2drive instead, they always seem to have to US prices available for Aussies.
http://www.direct2drive.com/9611/product/Buy-Sid-Meier%E2%80%99s-Civilization-V-Download |
03:37pm 22/09/10 Permalink
03:42pm 22/09/10 Permalink
What happened to the comment trog made in the old thread about Civ5's pricing? Something about "using this game as a point to highlight the regional price gouging" or similar?
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03:47pm 22/09/10 Permalink
Has anyone bought from
http://www.g2play.net/store/Sid-Meier-s-Civilization-V-Steam-Key-Pre-Order.html is it legit? does it work... as i still want it on my steam account with all my other games |
03:55pm 22/09/10 Permalink
I to am disappointed that Trogs comment from the previous thread didn't seem to impact this review at all.
Surely ausgamers is a big enough boy to start putting in harsh judgments that the community would like to see. |
09:48pm 22/09/10 Permalink
I think a 10% penalty for the dirty feeling in my stomach over the price, or for the added risk involved in having to buy on the grey market through places like g2play or using Valve gifting (Valve could easily, on a whim, say these alternative methods of purchasing like gifting don't apply) or where your 'friend' in the UK could easily just keep your money.
Even better would be reducing the review score by the % its over priced but that's pretty extreme. Something needs to be done and awarding it 92% and pretending everything is ok since you didn't buy your copy is not it. |
11:45pm 22/09/10 Permalink
direct2drive doesnt work for aussie IP's either, so still left with having to find a workaround
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07:19am 23/09/10 Permalink
I pre-ordered from MightyApe (www.mightyape.com.au) - they are a NZ company.
If you pre-order from them its $69.99 + $4.90 shipping. Prices are in $AUD. If you guys do buy from there, use this link below so I can get $10 referral credit XD http://www.mightyape.com.au?r=1702883 |
08:42am 23/09/10 Permalink
Perhaps Ausgamers/Mammoth have an expectation on them to only provide non-negative reviews ?
I find it bizarre that Dan tried to defend not talking about the price gouging ? It should be the complete opposite. It should have a dirty big red symbol on it highlighting that this product is trying to rip Australian gamers off. Until the local marketing executives understand that it is an issue, it won't get resolved. |
08:55am 23/09/10 Permalink
Something needs to be done and awarding it 92% and pretending everything is ok since you didn't buy your copy is not it.Everything is not ok and nobody is pretending it is. But this issue isn't just limited to this one game, it's nearly every damn piece of digital software and consumer electronics that are inflated in price to the Australian market. It's all just creators manufacturers pricing their products at a point that the market is willing to pay. If that seems too high to you, that's not the publisher's fault, it's the market's, it's supply and demand. IMO it's just plain not fair on the hard work of the developers to negatively affect the awarded rating of their work simply because Australians are willing to pay more for stuff. If you're really that worried about dealing with importing and other options (admit it, you're not) and it truly is overpriced for the Aussie market, then it would sell poorly and end up dropping in price as a result so you could just wait a few months and buy it when it hits the bargain table (or buy it second hand and stick it to the publisher). I don't like it either, but that's just how things are here and the only way we can change that is by refusing to pay that inflated price. |
09:01am 23/09/10 Permalink
I've been trying to get into the habit of paying for games, but they're making it really unappealing with this unique treatment bulls***.
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09:01am 23/09/10 Permalink
To clarify: don't get me wrong, price can be a factor in reviews and I have definitely mentioned it in some of my own in the past. The awesome value of Valve's Orange Box bundle, or the budget price of the terrific XBLA game Shadow Complex, but these were all relative to the pricing of other games in Australia. Civ 5 just isn't out of line with new release Australian games pricing.
I wholeheartedly agree that way too much s*** is overpriced in this country and as a result I've been buying more and more consumer goods from International merchants, most recently a new camera and a laptop (it's ridiculous that I can add $75 in shipping from a US online store and still be under the lowest price that JB hifi are willing to offer me). What I don't agree with is lynching any one specific product/publisher for having a higher price here than overseas. |
09:16am 23/09/10 Permalink
I don't think we are asking for one specific product/publisher to be lynched.
We are asking you as a reviewer of games for Australians to factor that into your review, FOR ALL products/publishers! |
09:43am 23/09/10 Permalink
I agree with Dan, just import and let the demand for games in Australia fall.
Then they (publishers/marketers) will see that theres something wrong with their pricing policy. Or we could just stage a nation-wide protest... |
09:58am 23/09/10 Permalink
When it comes to Steam and inflated Aussie price gouging isn't 2K Games the number one culprit in sticking it to us.
Boarderlands and all the DLC's Mafia 2 Bioshock 1 and 2 and all there DLC's Civilization V Why the hell would I digitally download a game at the same price I could buy the boxed game. The digital download should be cheaper and on a lot of games on Steam it is...Fallout New Vegas for example $89.99 in EB probaly around $79 in Game but I can buy it for $49.99US and that is how it should be. |
10:38am 23/09/10 Permalink
http://www.g2play.net/store/Sid-Meier-s-Civilization-V-Steam-Key-Pre-Order.html
Ahh this only works for Western European Countries... FAIL |
10:42am 23/09/10 Permalink
Its pretty easy to change your IP address to purchase the game with plenty of free IP proxy programs out there.
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12:07pm 23/09/10 Permalink
When it comes to Steam and inflated Aussie price gouging isn't 2K Games the number one culprit in sticking it to us. I dunno. At one point Civ4 and it's addons was $5 or maybe $9 for US folks. $54 or $64 here for just the original. Heck at one point, you could not even buy 2k Games from Steam in Australia at all! They wanted to force you to go to your local games store and get some landfill with your digital content. But regardless, I don't think any of us are saying only do it for this one game/publisher. I imagine most of us would prefer it if we all got charged a vaguely similar price. |
12:33pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Its pretty easy to change your IP address to purchase the game with plenty of free IP proxy programs out there. This does not work anymore |
12:38pm 23/09/10 Permalink
It's all just creators manufacturers pricing their products at a point that the market is willing to pay. If that seems too high to you, that's not the publisher's fault, it's the market's, it's supply and demand. IMO it's just plain not fair on the hard work of the developers to negatively affect the awarded rating of their work simply because Australians are willing to pay more for stuff. I'm cool with market forces and charging what you want for stuff - I'm in business after all. But publishers AND developers are definitely going to lengths to ensure that regionalisation locks Aussies into local pricing and closing down importing avenues as much as possible. That's damn close to market manipulation. Quite a few people got an epic shock when they imported StarCraft II for instance and couldn't play with their friends for eight weeks. How long is it before game DRM itself starts checking regionality, locking people into local pricing regimes? Will it be worthy of commenting about in reviews then? |
12:54pm 23/09/10 Permalink
How long is it before game DRM itself starts checking regionality, locking people into local pricing regimes? Will it be worthy of commenting about in reviews then?Absolutely. This is a different beast and something that I agree should be curb-stomped. It hasn't been so much of an issue in the history of console and PC gaming, because it's generally been completely trivial to circumvent. But the protections are becoming more and more sophisticated and with downloadable purchases and online verification rising in popularity the power is there for publishers to really start hard-lining that kind of thing. SC2 is definitely a prime example of that garbage gaining traction - it shouldn't matter where you buy a copy, you should be able to have the same experience as anyone else that bought a copy. But then you have consoles like the PS3 which doesn't have region coding for games at all (X360 does). |
02:03pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Perhaps Ausgamers/Mammoth have an expectation on them to only provide non-negative reviews ?don't be a moron. We've covered the price gouging, I think, more than any other company in Australia. We are one of the only companies that I know of that provides pricing comparisons on our game pages (though at the time of this writing, Civ5 isn't listed, something which I will correct right now). We talked about this a bit and decided that our responsibility is to review the games as critical pieces of whether they're good games, in the context of what they cost compared to other titles at the same 'level'. This is a AAA title and it costs what all AAA titles in Australia cost. What, out of interest, do you think we should do, practically, here? If it's just put a note in the review I'm happy to do that. But at the end of the day buying the game is like buying anything - you should research the best prices yourself and make sure you buy it for the best price - we shouldn't have to put "this game is awesome, but it sucks if you buy it from EB because it will cost you 20% more", for example. The rest of it is a DRM and regionalisation issue; again I feel AusGamers is at the forefront of these issues and bringing awareness to gamers about them. We're strong supporters of the EFA (I am a member and have donated personal money to it) and look forward to working with them on issues like this in the future. |
03:02pm 23/09/10 Permalink
this game is awesome, but it sucks if you buy it from EB because it will cost you 20% more but its not just eb if its every shop in australia. Maybe if you, and other review companys, start pointing out that we are getting rorted and score accordingly, then developers and producers will change there price scheme. Something has to be done other than, "whats us putting a little note at the end of our review going to do" Pricing effects the amount of people that buy the game, whether or not its an awesome game or not. if its an entire country thats overpriced not just one store. |
03:07pm 23/09/10 Permalink
What, out of interest, do you think we should do, practically, here? ... But at the end of the day buying the game is like buying anything - you should research the best prices yourself and make sure you buy it for the best price Help on identifying the disparity for online buys and help finding the best deal would be a good start! Reading the review is part of the research process, not something done separate from it. It would be helpful to know that the publisher is using Steam to rape the wallet and what the alternatives are... |
03:11pm 23/09/10 Permalink
What, out of interest, do you think we should do, practically, here? Buy me a copy of the game so that I don't have to languish under these outrageous pricing practices. Write it off as a competition or somesuch of course. :P |
03:18pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Pricing effects the amount of people that buy the game, whether or not its an awesome game or not. if its an entire country thats overpriced not just one store.But that's just it, in the opinion of publishers, the people in the business of making money from the games they are invested in, game RRP in Australia isn't overpriced. With the rising costs of game development and the massive marketing spends they make to get their games known, they actually think that the U.S. market is actually _under-priced_ for games RRP, but they don't dare budge there because of how massive and competitive it is over there and how important North American popularity is to the success of a game. How true that is, I can't really say - I'm certainly no economist. Just playing a little devil's advocate to illustrate that it's not just as simple as evil publishers raping our wallets. |
03:30pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Price gouging is a silly enough phenomenon as it is. I don't want to see it starting to affect review scores. Reviews should be purely based of the merits of the game, that is it.
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03:32pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Yeh I don't want the score affected, but some assistance in finding an appropriately-priced product would be great.
I don't mind local retailers setting whatever price they want for their imported boxes, but restricting trade with NA retailers and sources seems a bit contrary to the FTA? |
04:02pm 23/09/10 Permalink
I would like to see noobs helped out in buying games. Maybe a buying games from steam/OS guide and link to it on reviews? "before you buy make sure you check out our buying games guide to make sure you get the best price"
If enough noobs (the people that keep EB in business) start clueing onto OS purchases then maybe something will be done. Then again wtf do I care as long as I know to check out prices before I buy. |
04:30pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Then again wtf do I care as long as I know to check out prices before I buy Yeh but everything keeps changing because the c**** keep trying to close the import loopholes, and its getting tied up in DRM and regionalisation. See StarCraft II example >< I reckon that a summary of local pricing, import options and regional issues could surely be a worthy addition to AGN major reviews? For most games it could be a star "this title available on Steam for the same price as USA customers" or "Steam borked. Options include xxx"? |
04:52pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Dungeon Crawl in Melbourne have it for $68.50...
http://www.dungeoncrawl.com.au/p-2280-sid-meier-civilization-5-v-pc.aspx k |
10:11pm 23/09/10 Permalink
don't be a moron. F*** off trog. Dan is rabid defending not mentioning the price as part of a review. The rest of it is a DRM and regionalisation issue; again I feel AusGamers is at the forefront of these issues and bringing awareness to gamers about them. We're strong supporters of the EFA (I am a member and have donated personal money to it) and look forward to working with them on issues like this in the future. But it didn't rate a mention ? |
10:18pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Perhaps Ausgamers should do a strong article detailing the differences of price for Australians, with examples, however in the end will it even make a difference?
Does Ausgamers have enough of an audience to influence the market? Unless multiple media in the country get on the bandwagon nothing will change. ABC's Got Good for example should be covering it often. |
11:02pm 23/09/10 Permalink
Just a heads up - check out www.ozgameshop.com
They are in the UK and are offering Civ5 for $39. I've ordered my copy, hopefully it will arrive in a week or so. |
10:42am 24/09/10 Permalink
So.. it's after 10AM Sydney time which by my calculations means it's now live for non-yanks right? release date was Sep 23 5pm PST.
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11:00am 24/09/10 Permalink
i wish steam vpn while buying stil works :(
just gotta find a freind in the uk |
11:20am 24/09/10 Permalink
did it take long to get running ?
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11:41am 24/09/10 Permalink
Our 'buy' page now correctly lists Steam AU, US and EU pricings:
http://www.ausgamers.com/games/civilization-5/buy/ |
11:50am 24/09/10 Permalink
Our 'buy' page now correctly lists Steam AU, US and EU pricings: The third steam price should be AUD, right? If so you need to fix that page. |
12:22pm 24/09/10 Permalink
This was posted on the Whirlpool forums and am not sure if it is true but apparently this is from the G2PLAY site concerning the european version (UK) of Civ V...
REGION LOCK CONFIRMED! from G2PLAY IMPORTANT NOTICE – REGIONAL RESTRICTIONS APPLIED! This key can be activated ONLY in Western European countries including Austria, Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, UK. It cannot be activated in Australia, Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. We are currently working to ensure supplies for the excluded regions. Time to start the s*** storm at 2k GAMES. Regional pricing, Regional locking wtf is this bulls***. Since their key is European (same thing appilies to dvd uk,thehut, zavvi, ozgameshop). i bet you all the european shops that ship to AUS will complain to the suppliers now cause they lost customers... EDIT:Confirmed for UK,European keys NOT USA Keys ATM Might be wise to make sure it will work here in Australia before purchasing from the UK Steam Store. |
12:46pm 24/09/10 Permalink
The third steam price should be AUD, right? If so you need to fix that page.All Steam prices are delivered in USD, even when you're in Australia. So that ridiculous USD price for the third Steam thing is actually the Australian price, in USD. |
12:52pm 24/09/10 Permalink
what a load of horse s*** different f***** region keys. make 1 f***** game and put a chose country section in there, which automatically lets you play on those servers.
Problem fixed. F***** wankers trying to syphon more and more money out of us. F*** buying this game, they can shove it up their ass |
12:53pm 24/09/10 Permalink
All Steam prices are delivered in USD, even when you're in Australia. So that ridiculous USD price for the third Steam thing is actually the Australian price, in USD. Ohh, OK., that makes sense then |
12:57pm 24/09/10 Permalink
It seems like keys from the US will work as there is no warning on the US Steam page that the keys are region locked. But I guess "buyer beware" is apt as there is no such warning on the UK Steam page about those keys being region locked.
The warning that is on the G2Play site only appeared this morning, justifiably upsetting quite a few people in the Whirlpool forums who purchased it from the G2PLAY site in the previous few days. |
02:18pm 24/09/10 Permalink
reading OCAU, im gonna use a VPN and grab the USA version.
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02:48pm 24/09/10 Permalink
They have got rid of that so those sneaky australians trying to get it at a reasonable price cant.
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03:16pm 24/09/10 Permalink
it doesnt work... only way is gifting now... so maybe if you create a new account with vpn link then gift it acorss... but i think they check to see if its australian credit card... but not 100% sure
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04:31pm 24/09/10 Permalink
it doesnt work... only way is gifting now... so maybe if you create a new account with vpn link then gift it acorss... but i think they check to see if its australian credit card... but not 100% sureI wouldn't trust gifting either; there's nothing technically stopping them from disabling your account or ungifting it. |
04:38pm 24/09/10 Permalink
http://www.ozgameshop.com/pc-games/sid-meiers-civilization-v-5-game-pc
Sid Meiers Civilization V 5 Game PC $39.99 In stock Us version |
10:22pm 24/09/10 Permalink
F*** off trog.lol f*** you are retarded. First of all of course he is rabidly defending it because it is clearly the right way to go about things. Secondly the old 'hur hur hur I tink they might be getting paid for teh good reviews' is one of the most childish assertions you could possibly make about this particular situation. |
10:32pm 24/09/10 Permalink
I may have just spent near a hundred dollars on a computer game with the addition of really needing to focus on some contracting work for the next few days. willpower lawl.
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04:51pm 25/09/10 Permalink
This does not work anymoreRubbish. I bought LFD2 using a uk proxy the other day and it worked fine. |
08:48pm 26/09/10 Permalink
Heh I do not recommend attempting to play this with 2gb of ram.
(trying to load a game that's been going for a while with a current game running, it crashes after about 10 minutes of raping my virtual mem, have to exit and reenter. load times are a b****) |
08:09am 27/09/10 Permalink
Just picked this up at JB, anyways I can't even get the game to install what a f*****g POS. Whether I try to install it off the CD, or download the content it says "steam servers are to busy to handle your request" WTF? The steam help forums is s*** too, no help at all with this issue.
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02:20pm 27/09/10 Permalink
Might be very temporary, think I had that issue once on a release day or something and it got better soon after.
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02:35pm 27/09/10 Permalink
K, although it has been f***ed for 2hrs so far and whilst trying to fix this I reinstalled steam, had no idea it would delete all my games FFS!
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02:41pm 27/09/10 Permalink
Easy solve on price here - eBay - region free - $30
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12:49pm 29/09/10 Permalink
Easy solve on price here - eBay - region free - $30Sure... considering the hooplah over the regionalization already. I'm willing to throw away my money to some dodgy guy with only 1 post. |
01:19pm 29/09/10 Permalink
30 hours played now, thoughts are as follows:
The Good - Hex grids are awesome - Expandy borders are awesome and make for great looking territories - The reduction of city spamming through happiness is good, but maybe a little bit too harsh - New combat is great - The UI is very slick, minus a few overlay issues like going into a city while the quick build option is open - New road system makes for very pretty maps and interesting combat - Music is pretty good at forming a constant background theme The Bad - The music is way less epic than previously - Not enjoying the focus on leaders, characters are soulless, and can't evolve past inbuilt hatreds. - Addressing factions by leader name instead of civ makes it difficult to know what's going on. - I kind of preferred the civics in the last civ, but the new system is ok - City states are incredibly annoying and gimmicky after a while - Performance is *horrible* - a game without anything actually changing should not run this badly, load/save/turn times get exponentially slower and becomes unplayable in the renaissance. - The lack of religions and random events introduced in Civ IV's expansions, those little bits of narrative really makes half of the gameplay for me (I personally have been playing these since I was a kid because I like to build an empire, not play a balanced and sterile game) - Everything is being streamlined to the point where you shouldn't be building unless it's part of your winning strategy, as the upkeep will ruin you. I miss being a perfectionist and building cities with a measure of carefree construction, maybe it's because I upped the difficulty. The Downright Weird - Catherine of Russia is really attractive, I like the way she rustles.. Overall, good game, different enough to not be a cash in, a few steps forward and a few annoying steps backwards, but with performance as is it's too frustrating to play beyond the early ages. |
08:52pm 30/09/10 Permalink
Addressing factions by leader name instead of civ makes it difficult to know what's going on. tottally agree, this is pissing me off. the music is boring old lady music, i just listen to winamp. performance once u get up to industrial eats d***. turns take forever |
08:59pm 30/09/10 Permalink
Yeah I started again, turned most everything off and brought it down to about 6 civs, since I only really want to play a game of empires anyway. Need a big map though, can't stand when neighbours are cramping my perfectionist empire style.
Don't want random AI, just want AI that might be greatful if I save their ass instead of slowly creeping back into predefined hatred... Tbh I don't think they should be going with earth civilizations, it wasn't factored in as much in the earlier versions and by now I feel we should be inventing our own. |
09:09pm 30/09/10 Permalink
it's a great game, you really need a high end rig if you want to crank up the settings and play large maps with many civs on it. There are a couple of bugs at the moment plaguing the game (isnt that always the case) some problems with the opening video cut scene and the game loading at the same time. More seriously there is a runtime crash when loading saved games that are large (70+ cities) and the game crashes or freezes when you conquor 70+ cities on a huge map.
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10:15am 04/10/10 Permalink
instead of slowly creeping back into predefined hatred yer, none of the ai are pleasant. they all just want u to give them s*** and keep complaining when u expand or do anything. Good game otherwise, im loving germany & france at the moment =) +2 culture is awesome for france and so is the german taking %50 chance for barbarian to join |
12:00pm 04/10/10 Permalink
instead of complaining about DO SOMETHING. Aussies are the most pathetic bunch of whinging victims...
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12:59pm 04/10/10 Permalink
I just had a pretty hard game, though it's pretty easy to beat the ai when you figure it out.
A good navy is key on water maps, 3 or 4 naval ships can take almost anything out in one turn, and once they get range upgrades you can lay into cities with no fear of reprisals :) If you have an empire on your borders you want taken out, just line your units up 2 deep on the border and declare war. Then wait for the ai to throw everything they have at you, defeat that and they have practically nothing left :) |
01:01pm 04/10/10 Permalink
instead of complaining about DO SOMETHING. Aussies are the most pathetic bunch of whinging victims... Wtf are you talking about? If you mean make your own civ, well yes actually I have designed one in my head since starting civ 5, and at about 6 items down my todo list I might actually start. |
02:46pm 04/10/10 Permalink
haha yeah make your own game, awesome!
just buy the game overseas from somewhere cheaper instead of calling the wahmbulance about Steam. |
02:49pm 04/10/10 Permalink
Oh right, I thought you were talking about people whinging about cons in the game. :P
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04:49pm 04/10/10 Permalink
In regards to the pricing thing, from what I can see there is two seperate issues.
I usually don't have a huge problem with the inflated retail price in Australian stores, as there are additional costs involved, and there is a usually a decent amount of competition between retailers and mail order companies with most major title releases. There is NO justification however for the disgracefully inflated DD price that a few companies have started regularly using on the Australian market, while at the same time throttling competition. While I do not think it should directly lower the review score, in my opinion local reviewers would be doing both Australian gamers, and, in the long term, the industry a favour if the first paragraph in every 2K review was something like this. 'Note - 2K Games regularly uses predatory pricing practices on the digital download versions of games released to the Australian market, this title is one such game.' The same would apply to Bethesda by the way, and I know there is another distributor I can't think of right now that also does it. |
08:49pm 04/10/10 Permalink
I take back what I said about the music not being epic enough, the way the russian theme morphs so perfectly into battle music is awesome beyond words.
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12:01am 05/10/10 Permalink
I just got ass raped by siam, I'd just beaten montezuma, but i'd lost most of my army... straight away siam declares on me. I lost 6 cities before I managed to hold them back on my last 3. I only survived because a boat from napoleon on another continent came, and I managed to get them to declare war on siam.
I got one of my cities back, now we're at peace, but siam has like 25 cities :* |
12:08am 05/10/10 Permalink
He always seems like such a nice guy to me...
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12:12am 05/10/10 Permalink
That's something I'm really not liking, all the leaders seem identical. If your borders begin to touch, no matter how well you were getting on previously, they will go to war as soon as possible. So much for loyalty, and there's no alliances or the like. :(
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12:21am 05/10/10 Permalink
Awesome addition to the series, stuff the demo just go out and buy it. Combat is way more interesting, I had a great laugh when a rival Civ weakened a French city close to my borders and I sent a solitary unit in and ganked it (Napoleon had been snooty towards me for most of the game but was wise enough to not attack me!), then had the audacity to call me dishonourable!
I noticed the screenshots were the same ones used in PC Powerplay, never knew AG was associated with them. |
04:15pm 06/10/10 Permalink
Details on upcoming patch stuff:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94438 |
01:15am 19/10/10 Permalink
patch definitely looks like the winner, enough to take this to a polished game (price still sucks but hey), so lets hope all those fixes actually work
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08:11am 19/10/10 Permalink
They need to do a lot more then what they have with the Military AI. It is far too stupid to be even remotely challenging. I should not be able to defend an attack from an entire civilization with 3 units..
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12:12pm 19/10/10 Permalink
Addressing factions by leader name instead of civ makes it difficult to know what's going on. You just need to get used to the naming. The problem is you think in terms of "France, Germany, England" - really it's no different to another game (eg, Starcraft) where you come up against BlahBlah and Zorkmid - in this case Napoleon, Bismark and Elizabeth. So far I've only started/completed a single game, because they just take so damn long. The thing that bugs me is that cultural influence grows far less in V than in IV, so it's near impossible to assimilate a neighbour state by cultural influence as I used to do in IV - ie, just set up a town near them, and make the cultural radius absorb the neighbour state without ever having to declare war or do so militarily. I've so far been unable to achieve this in V even in cities of 35+ population. It also takes way too long to build some of the late-game units. Tanks and Mechanized Infantry can take as long as 80 turns to a new city, as does the factory or other similar that helps increase the work rate to build them quicker. Would have been nice for this to be fixed. |
08:51am 20/10/10 Permalink
The changes to the cultural system bothered me at first, but they make sense now. I played for a Utopia Project victory yesterday as France, never had more than one city the entire game, just slamming out wonders and social policies.
The shift from culture as a form of creep to a points system to buy buffs is actually really good. The negative effect of having large numbers of cities on social growth is also a good thing, since it forces you to play in a completely different way (if you are going for cultural dominance and not just steamrollering every other nation militarily). Did you try using a Great Artist's Culture Bomb on a neighbouring city? I was going to see if it forces a conversion, but spent him on a golden age instead. |
09:04am 20/10/10 Permalink
Its ridiculous that Steam actually show the Australian and US price in USD.
I dont understand the justification of having a game $30 USD more expensive when its just a digital download. Artificially inflating prices because "thats the going rate" is a cop out. They're just backing each other up - If you want the game you either have to get owned by EB/GAME/Whatever, or you get owned by Steam just as bad. ACCC should investigate this, its bulls***. |
09:56am 20/10/10 Permalink
cultural wins are so easy with france.
I made germany an ally early on and they pretty much went around destroying all the other civs while i cruised along and got heaps of culture =) |
09:20pm 20/10/10 Permalink
I noticed the screenshots were the same ones used in PC Powerplay, never knew AG was associated with them.We're not. Publishers release screenshots through press channels in the lead up to their game release and they usually offer a reasonably good representation of the game so it's far less time-consuming to use those rather than try and take our own during the process of the game. Particularly for console games which generally have no simple method of taking shots. |
10:00am 21/10/10 Permalink
ACCC should investigate this, its bulls***. They won't / can't. Because the companies doing it are not based in Australia, and despite the FTA with America that lets them make breaking copyright a terrorism offence, we can not prevent or circumvent regionalised pricing. |
10:25am 21/10/10 Permalink
Because the companies doing it are not based in Australia, and despite the FTA with America that lets them make breaking copyright a terrorism offence, we can not prevent or circumvent regionalised pricing. The ACCC investigate international claims. |
10:51am 21/10/10 Permalink
make breaking copyright a terrorism offence Big brother america has to watch out for the world dude. They are saving us from all those dirty terroist copyright infringers. thanks america ur the best |
11:16am 21/10/10 Permalink
I've been a fan of Civilization from its earliest incarnation - many, many hours of pleasure and challenge.
With Civilizaiton 5 however, I am very disappointed. Predatory pricing in Australia, yes - and quite unjustifiable in any terms. What does annoy me though is the unreasonable overhead imposed by Steam. I don't want Steam or the spurious products it keeps trying to shove down my neck everytime I want to play Civilization. If I want to play Civ while not connected to the web Steam seems to take that as a personal affront and tries to prevent me playing. I'm going back to Civilization 4, Beyond the Sword. They can stuff Steam. |
01:15pm 26/10/10 Permalink
You can play in offline mode, and considering other approaches, steam is actually quite nice for both parties.
That being said I do feel this Civ is well done but not that enjoyable. |
05:28pm 26/10/10 Permalink
A complete newbie question from someone buying this game for my partner's son and I'm not at all familiar with this game. He is about to go to the UK for 6 months for uni. If I buy this game here for him, will the DRM issue stop him from playing while over there, and converse question, if I give him the money to buy once he gets to the UK, will the game be unplayable when he returns to AUS in six months time ??
Thanks for any flame-less helpful responses !! |
05:13pm 09/12/10 Permalink
