Sid Meier's Civilization 5

[RCA]

http://kotaku.com/5565685/civilization- ... -pc-gamers


Looks pretty epic. Any NICOnauts play Civ?

[MinisterofDOOM]

Looking forward to it. I have Civ II and Civ 4. I'm glad to see Civ finally going to hex-based movement. Squares always seemed so awkward.

[Encryptshun]

Squares always seemed so awkward.

Unless you wanted to do something crazy, like, say, make a straight line.

Seriously, though, this will be awesome for troop movement and infrastructure, but borders will look weird unless topographical features are bound to the outside edge of each area.

[Maximus300Z]

Anyone pick this up yet? Haven't gotten around to it yet, looks like it should be pretty good.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Squares always seemed so awkward.

Unless you wanted to do something crazy, like, say, make a straight line.

Not sure what kind of drunken squares you've been looking at, but where I come from, squares are good for straight lines in 2 directions while hexes are good for straight lines in 3.

[Encryptshun]

Okay, smartass. Using the following, represent the border between North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Grid layout isn't about borders. The pieces could be shaped like Escher-esque duck tesselations for all borders matter. The border still ends up surrounding regions of control. The shape of the constituent pieces is unimportant.

The critical issue is that the grid dictates unit movement, which is clunky when working with squares. If you want to go "one square" northwest, you have to actually move one north and one west. With hexes, you just move one hex NW. Unit movement behavior. is more consistent and dependable that way.

Civ V draws its borders with some consideration for what you're getting at. They're not harshly hexagonal. More curved and smoothed.

And, anyway, the earth is a sphere. Round makes more sense. Sure, western US states might be square, but pull up a world map. Most borders are anything BUT square and pretty lacking in right angles.

Here's an example of how Civ V does borders:


On the subject of the game itself, I'm having a blast with it. The new features change the early game, and for the better. One of the best improvements is the ability for cities to defend enemies at their borders. Each turn, any city with enemies in range (a couple tiles) can launch a barrage. It makes barbarians and wandering armies much less of a coin-toss game-changer in the early hundred turns or so.
City states are also a neat addition, providing new income and unit generation possibilities. And it's pretty satisfying to come to the rescue of a little city-state who is under siege by barbarians.

[Encryptshun]

I'll be grabbing it off Steam tonight. FWIW, I totally agree that a hex-based system is better...I was just being cheeky about the squares allowing a straight line border. I love the fact that in the new engine your cities can expand across 3 areas, that there are non-expanding AI city-states, that cities can defend themselves, and that religion has been removed (just because it was really difficult in Civ IV to be successful through the middle part of the game if you had no state religion or weren't one of the first to found a religion). I'm not sure how I'm going to react to the new rules for combat, such as being unable to garrison more than one unit in a city to "heal" it or being unable to stack units on the same area. I'm also not sure about losing the ability to trade tech, as I always really liked the barter and tribute system in Civ IV.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm not sure how I'm going to react to the new rules for combat, such as being unable to garrison more than one unit in a city to "heal" it or being unable to stack units on the same area.

You can still stack units, but combat units specifically cannot stack. You can have a settler and a warrior on the same tile, though, for example. And you can still "fortify until healed." Only one unit per city for garrison definitely takes getting used to, but with Barrage available now, garrisoned troops shouldn't see quite as much action as before.

[Chaotic_Warlord]

The gf keeps asking when they will have a new Civilization game for the 360... I keep telling her probably never. She won't play anything except Civ Revolution, which I understand is basically Fisher Price: My First Civ game, but she likes it and winds up playing it for hours, which I'm not too thrilled about. Are there any other games for the 360 that are like Civ? I'd like to see her play something else for a change.

[Encryptshun]

Lawlz

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/10/1/