As I’m sure you’re all probably aware, I play a lot of Civ IV. A lot of it. Steam tells me I’ve dumped 366 hours into it in the last six months alone, and I have no regrets about this fact.
Civ V is something I have played considerably less of. In fact, I’ve never actually finished a game. Either my (dated) computer decides that it doesn’t want to handle the game and it crashes, or something in the gameplay annoys me and I quit. So, while I’m technically able to tell people that I prefer IV over V, I feel a little bad anytime I do. Like I didn’t give V a fair shake. Like I have no right to really decide for myself which game is better because I haven’t tried it enough.
So leave it to Mister Adequate to issue me a challenge. Mister Adequate has played a lot more Civ V than I have. He has since decided that he likes IV better, but at least he is able to back this up with his own personal experiences. And, as he knows my desire to be able to come to a similar conclusion, he gave me a challenge, which is as follows:
Play three full games of Civ V from start to finish. Not quit if I run into a game mechanic that I don’t like. Keep trying if my computer starts acting up.
Three full games of Civilization V.
Now anyone who knows me knows me even moderately well knows that a.) I don’t back down from a challenge, and b.) If you say “I bet that you can’t [insert thing here], I will do everything in my power to prove you wrong. So obviously Mister Adequate said this knowing full well that I was going to have to take him up on this. And so, you had better believe that I am going to play three complete games of Civ V. I’m going to blog my experiences and conclusions as I go, as well. This may not all be in a timely fashion, since for those who aren’t aware, I’m actually going to be moving a solid six hundred miles east this weekend, so I’ll be busy doing that. But inbetween packing and sorting and being-busy-in-general, I hope to bring you all screenshots and impressions of The Civ Game I Never Gave a Fair Shake To.
Let’s do this.
Once you are done with testing vanilla Civ V, you may want to give a shake to Civ V nights, described here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/09/mods-and-ends-civilization-v-nights/
Good luck.
Hmm… interesting. Thanks for the heads’ up!
Just remember Pike, there are no more stacks of units. You move em all individually in Civ V.
Oh man, I’ve already run into that. “You mean… I… can’t have more than one unit defending my city…? *confused*”
What the problem with your computer? Wine issues? Graphics drivers acting up? Not enough RAM?
My computer is just old, in general. Anything graphics-intensive doesn’t play nicely with it.
Try capping the FPS, maybe? That’s how I’ve gotten some old clunkers to play WoW and LoL. I assume you’ve already got the graphics down to minimum and OpenGL as updated as its going to get. I find that 20 FPS is fine but if your computer can’t handle it then try capping at 15. It might have a lag spike or two but generally it will smooth things out.