I wrote this review a while ago. There's a big sale on, and it's finally time for me to update it.

At this point in time, I have not played Civ 5 in almost a year. I got bored, and that's it. Let's talk about why I got bored, shall we?

First off, the game is worthless without the expansions. Worthless, absolute waste of time and money, one of the worst strategy games out there. The DLCs which make it more playable are overpriced and should have been the base game. And then the DLCs have their own problems. Religion is a sideline to the other victory conditions, giving minor bonuses to all of them which you could probably do just as well without. In fact, religion ends up being an impediment to the Tourism victory (gets bonuses if you share religion with another empire), because it's easier to mass absorb other people's religions as you need them than to make your own and force it upon the opponents. And speaking of the tourism victory, it's basically a science victory that's much more difficult to stop by war.

Secondly, the game is boring. It's an awful lot of sitting around, micromanaging your cities, and playing toy soldier with the simplistic combat system. At the point in the game where decisions start to really matter, you're either steamrolling so much that you won't have to make mutually exclusive decisions, or you've already lost. The combat is awful. You right click on an enemy unit, and it takes damage, and there's never really more than 20 units on the field for a side at a given time. Air power is either overpowering, or useless, depending on whether or not your opponent has anti-aircraft guns.

And then you come to the ultimate endgame. Ready for this? It comes down, entirely, to Nukes and a unit they put in which is just shameless promotion for another game: The XCOM troopers. They're just beefed up paratroopers. And whoever got one specific wonder, earlier on, will now win the game. I've forgotten the name, but it doesn't matter. It gives one specific upgrade, which gives them just enough of a push that with starting XP bonuses from buildings you can give them the ability to attack after paratrooping. One player will get to do this, and that played has now won the game. They can nuke every other city into the ground, have paratroopers drop next to them, and take them in one turn. Any opposing units are now dead, the nukes killed them. The land itself is useless, yes, but that means the attacker still has the advantage, and can keep doing this until the game is over.

And, finally, the death knell: The AI is stupid. Downright, indisputably, stupid. It will make poor tactical choices, poor economic choices, poor policy choices, and poor alliance choices. It becomes extremely easy to bait its units out into the open, kill them, and then take the AI cities without opposition. The only reason higher level AI is remotely challenging is because it cheats to an insane degree, but that still isn't enough to overcome its sheer idiocy. The only valid opponents are other humans, and... well, see the above paragraph, because that always happens.

I can no longer recommend this game. I used to find it tolerable, I do not any longer. There are better strategy games out there to spend your money on, and many of them are on a perfectly good sale right now. I suggest you go buy those instead.

I wrote this review a while ago. There's a big sale on, and it's finally time for me to update it. At this point in time, I have not played Civ 5 in almost a year. I got bored, and that's it. Let's talk about why I got bored, shall we? First off, the game is worthless without the expansions. Worthless, absolute waste of time and money, one of the worst strategy games out there. The DLCs which make it more playable are overpriced and should have been the base game. And then the DLCs have their own problems. Religion is a sideline to the other victory conditions, giving minor bonuses to all of them which you could probably do just as well without. In fact, religion ends up being an impediment to the Tourism victory (gets bonuses if you share religion with another empire), because it's easier to mass absorb other people's religions as you need them than to make your own and force it upon the opponents. And speaking of the tourism victory, it's basically a science victory that's much more difficult to stop by war. Secondly, the game is boring. It's an awful lot of sitting around, micromanaging your cities, and playing toy soldier with the simplistic combat system. At the point in the game where decisions start to really matter, you're either steamrolling so much that you won't have to make mutually exclusive decisions, or you've already lost. The combat is awful. You right click on an enemy unit, and it takes damage, and there's never really more than 20 units on the field for a side at a given time. Air power is either overpowering, or useless, depending on whether or not your opponent has anti-aircraft guns. And then you come to the ultimate endgame. Ready for this? It comes down, entirely, to Nukes and a unit they put in which is just shameless promotion for another game: The XCOM troopers. They're just beefed up paratroopers. And whoever got one specific wonder, earlier on, will now win the game. I've forgotten the name, but it doesn't matter. It gives one specific upgrade, which gives them just enough of a push that with starting XP bonuses from buildings you can give them the ability to attack after paratrooping. One player will get to do this, and that played has now won the game. They can nuke every other city into the ground, have paratroopers drop next to them, and take them in one turn. Any opposing units are now dead, the nukes killed them. The land itself is useless, yes, but that means the attacker still has the advantage, and can keep doing this until the game is over. And, finally, the death knell: The AI is stupid. Downright, indisputably, stupid. It will make poor tactical choices, poor economic choices, poor policy choices, and poor alliance choices. It becomes extremely easy to bait its units out into the open, kill them, and then take the AI cities without opposition. The only reason higher level AI is remotely challenging is because it cheats to an insane degree, but that still isn't enough to overcome its sheer idiocy. The only valid opponents are other humans, and... well, see the above paragraph, because that always happens. I can no longer recommend this game. I used to find it tolerable, I do not any longer. There are better strategy games out there to spend your money on, and many of them are on a perfectly good sale right now. I suggest you go buy those instead.