Customer Ratings & Reviews

Takes a long time to learn it all but well worth it.

Gameplay is easy enough, even for the beginner. All the expansion packs for civ 4 are so much better though...

One of my all time favorite strategy games. Attempted to purchase on Steam and everything fell apart. Found a better price on Best Buy and got a physical copy of the game!

I bought this as a gift for my brother who enjoyed it very much.

Although the game is great,, sometime after playing it a while,, it crashes. N2k has been trying to help with no success

I've been playing the Civ series since Civ 3 and I must say I feel a little mixed about this game, but for the most part this is a good one. Before I list the pros and cons i will say that: I have a windows XP duel core (4.6gz amd processor), 4gz ram, and a nvidia 240 grafics card. Pros: - Grafics are amazing. - The hexagon tiles look a lot better. - The military aspect has been revamped and a lot more fun than in previous games. - I was skeptical about the steam element, but after the initial "fear of the unknown" it isn't an issue with me. I kinda like the idea of being able to just download additional content from the site as buying and installing expansions manually is a pain. I read somewhere where a reviewer said that you can't install this game on multiple machines. This claim is bogus as i have the game on 2 comps already. - The learning curve isn't as steep as previous civ games were. This doesn't mean any of the good stuff in previous games was removed neccessarily, just that it all makes a lot more sense. Cons - One MAJOR issue I have is: On my xp machine, Civ 5 does slow down and crash frequently when you get around the midsection of the game. I literally save after every turn when i get to this point. This is aggravating because it takes @ least 4 minutes to load it back up again after this happens. Sometimes it will crash again after i load it up. My guess is the game file gets too big for my comp to handle. This is my only major concern, but again feel it has to do with the fact that my comp is over 3 years old and running off dated technology. On my gf''s windows 7 computer the game runs smoother and hasn't crashed yet. - To any of you who are familiar with Civ 4, they reused some of the quotes from Civ 4 when you discover a new technology. I don't like that. I would have preferred something original. Also, the other quotes aren't as good as the ones in Civ 4. The narrator is a good one, but a lot of times his voice gets drowned out by the background music, which is a bit of a letdown. - This is a minor personal issue --> they got rid of the cinematics when you build a world wonder like in civ 4. I loved those videos. In Civ 5 I feel they could have done a little more to emphasize their importance. Wonders genrally feel a little muted in my opinion. Other than that I feel this is a good game. The revamped interface and grafics are great!

I love the Civilization series. The gameplay is extremely addictive! You can seriously play this game for the next four years if you chose to. The levels are completely randomized so you'll never play on the same terrain/map unless you choose to play a custom scenario. The new social site lets you download custom maps made by other players which gives you even more maps to play. I love it. Like the other reviewers I had some hiccups when installing but never had it crash yet. I couldn't find an option to install without Steam which annoyed me but I guess they do this prevent piracy. So now we have to put up with annoying features/securities because some kids want to steal games. Grr. Other than that, I love it. Definitely worth checking out. If you're still on the fence about buying it you can find the Demo/Trial. Just visit the official site.

So my wife can't stop playing. Neither can the kids - including the 10 year old. It takes what was a great game previously and brings it up to date with great graphics, adaptability for varying levels and randomization or complete control. I love that my kids enjoy it and are learning at least something about history through this game. However, I am sad to see that the previous religion element to the game was taken out. How can this be "civilization" and not have religion as a major element of why and how civilizations have the technologies they have, the mistrust from one civilization to another inherent due to different religious ideologies, and simply what drives a civilization to do things differently than another. Great game, but wish that I had some more time so that I could play!

I've owned and played EVERY Civ game ever released, so you could say I'm something of a lifelong fan. When I saw the changes introduced in Civ 5, I have to say that I was hesitant to give it a try. But, in the end, curiosity won out. I tried to find things about it to dislike on principle. Afterall, if it isn't broken, don't fix it - and they messed with the game engine a LOT this time. Civ 5 is not quite as intuitive as all of the previous versions, but then... that ended up being part of the fun! It's NOT the same old game. I had to alter my strategy a bit and rethink senarios that were "old hat" in past games. I love the new combat method - honestly, I think combat is much easier to handle now and find myself playing aggressive roles with newfound gusto. New actions/roles for the "great people" also bring new life to the game. And, of course, the graphics are the best yet in the Civ line! Oh, and by the way - cities can FINALLY defend themselves! What I don't like about the game is the pace. It feels like it PLODS along more slowly than a snail! Perhaps I need to change the game speed setting, I don't know. So far, I've only placed on "Normal". But, that's really the worst thing I've found. Considering I set out to dislike this game, I think that says quite a lot about the quality.

i was psyched to get this game when it came out because i am a addicted to the civilization 4 series. this new one can be rated as a ok game at best. the graphics are amazing and the changes they made to the combate are great in my oppinion, but thats it.. theres no religion anymore or the ability to trade maps, and what happened to trading food with other countries?? theres also no wonders that give you any sort of real economic boost. its to expencive to build any sort of real road network and in late game economies are too weak to support anything. the final issue is multiplayer. THERES NO WAY TO SAVE!!! civ is know for being able to play a large multiplayer game over the course of weeks. now you are forced to do it in one sitting. this game is a huge let down.

Love the Civ Series, and 5 has a lot of great changes and features. The problem is it crashes when your save gane file is big, playing a big map or just has a Direct-X issue. Hopefully the next patch will fix the issues in playing. Game is great and I like all the changes, but if you are worried the next move the game is going to crash, then where is the fun. PS: I have new computer running Windows 7 and 6gb of ram, so not the system, its in the games video program.

For some reason I have so many problems with Steam. I hate that you have to install it in order to play the game. After paying $50 for a game, I want be able to play it right away and not deal with stupid stuff like connection issues. Half of the time Steam won't even connect to my network, which prevents me from playing. I just want to play the game, I couldn't care less about online multiplayer. When Steam does work, this game is a lot of fun.

Honestly, it does crash sometimes. I have and HP HDX laptop that i bought last year. It's runs a lot of games on high quality. I run this one on low so it doesn't crash as often. Running it on DirectX 9 helps too if you don't mind lower quality graphics. But yeah it does crash but I've learned to save often. If you like a challenge and like strategy games this game is fantastic. I've had since the day it came out so for about a month now I've been playing it. I'm only on king difficulty (5 out of 8 i think) and I'm new to the Civilization franchise outside of its console game Civ. Revolution. If you have a good computer and like strategy games I'd buy it. It rarely crashes for me unlike everyone else apparently. It runs your computer hot i found (much like most games) so put a fan next to your computer to keep it cool, that helped the game stay running and not crash as frequently.

I love this series. I have owned every version since it was launched and was very excited for the next "chapter" in the franchise. Civ V should be the case study for what NOT to do when you want to improve something as great as Civilization. I have gone back to Civ IV and hope and pray that they take thier heads out and go back to the drawing board. This version is a huge resource hog and even with a lot of memory and a good video card (even more than the recommended), my system has a difficult time with this game. I have yet to experience all of the features that were supposed to be improvements because of this. The implementation of Steam adds nothing to the game. It saves having to use a CD to play, but that is not enough to overcome all the negatives this version is frought with.

I must admit I've been addicted to the Civ games since the first Civ came out. I would lose sleep and time and I could not have cared less. I loved the complexity and detailed strategy in the game. The fact you could get lost in so many facets (religion, politics, science, military, economy, great wonders, etc) of the game and yet it would all come together if you played it well made it enticing and addicting. Hours would pass by and it felt like minutes. For all you Civ fanatics out there, I know you can relate. Civ V, however, is a great disappointment. What made the Civ franchise so great appears to be 'watered down' in this addition. Less complexity and less strategy. I feel like I'm playing a civ game designed for individuals who enjoy pure military games versus strategy games. I'm going back to Civ IV and hoping Civ VI will bring back the greatness of this franchise. Yes, I realize I will likely have to wait 5 years.

A lot of people have had trouble playing the game for some reason. I was in fear I would have the same problem but after installing and going to the internet to download DirectX without using the game to download it for me everything was fine. The game is great and my lag time between turns is quite bearable.

hour five and still playing. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to stop by 3:00 am. maybe!!! the game looks the best yet and will keep you up late in the morning, with just one more turn. You' ll never notice the new hex system, movement feels the same as always.

Sid Meier's Civilization series is wonderful and this edition provides more features and new civilizations to pay with or against.

I like the advisors and production/status screens from Civ IV better than version V.

Obviously you don't always expect the games to be better (different is okay) and comparing to the previous version can be problematic. However, I would expect that by this point in time, things like basic worker automation would carry over - but it took 2 months to patch that and other basic game functionality. Then there were still multiple bugs, exploits, glitches in the game. To me, it's felt like 2 months of beta testing I had to pay for. This can even be understandable from new companies coming out with new games needing the money to get going. But from established companies for the 5th game in series, this is completely UNACCEPTABLE!