It can't be easy for a long-running game series to stay fresh after 19 years and several iterations of one general idea, yet Civilization has managed remarkably well. Through its first four versions, the quintessential PC strategy game has evolved from a habit-forming time-waster into a colorful and involved fact of life so addicting, I'm astonished the FDA hasn't banned it yet. Although the newest chapter, Civilization V, remains the computer gaming equivalent of crack cocaine, it's ultimately more a reboot than a revelation. It's still a decent game, but most hardcore Civ vets will be disappointed at the extent to which the game has been simplified.

The basics remain intact. You begin in 4000 BC, planting roots that will hopefully form the foundation for a planet-spanning empire. Over the next 6,000 or so years, you establish cities, discover technologies, and beat into submission any competition that gets in your way. If you overwhelm all the other players, complete a spaceship bound for Alpha Centauri, or are elected head of the U.N., you win. If not, your legacy is consumed, Ozymandias-like, by the sands of time, with another game your only chance for redemption.

Civilized Improvements
Civilization V succeeds most when it develops these classic ideas in new ways. Chief among these is the introduction of City-States, one-city proto-civilizations with which your fortunes (and your competitors') will be intertwined. Forge good relationships with them and they'll provide you with valuable aid and resources; if you don't, or if your relations slip, those benefits will go to more accommodating leaders. This makes the City-States valuable ancillary weapons in the race to conquer the world.

Some other improvements seem so natural, we can't understand why it's taken nearly two decades for them to appear. Cities may now attack enemies within their radius of influence by lobbing boulders, firing arrows, or launching missiles at them, even if no military forces are garrisoned in the city; and ranged units in the field can attack their foes from several spaces away. If you encounter an unexpected enemy while exploring, move your mouse cursor over it and you'll see a rating of how likely it is you'll defeat it in battle. We also like how you can now expand your borders by purchasing tiles directly from the City Screen, without having to wait for them to come under your control. This is particularly useful if you need or want a particular land or sea resource that is just outside your grasp, and you don't mind spending a few dozen gold pieces to get it right away.

Barbaric Simplification
But overall, Civilization V does not improve upon the experience provided by its predecessors, particularly Civilization IV. Whereas that game represented the culmination of the series' concepts, striking a complex balance of resource management, anthropology, and gleeful bloodshed, the new one does little more than pay lip service to all but the last. This results in a game that's more straightforward, shallower, and in most ways less satisfying.

Religion and culture have been almost completely eradicated. Aside from a few buildings, the former has no presence at all. The latter's role has been diminished in terms of defining city borders and is now used primarily for acquiring Social Polices, more linear equivalents of Civics or government flavors from previous games. Similarly, corruption and pollution—vital elements for years—have in most cases been replaced with the general-purpose "Happiness." (This combination makes the abilities of World and National Wonders much less interesting.) The interplay of combinations of leader traits, which made choosing a character so crucial to victory in Civilization IV, has also been distilled into single, often unremarkable benefits.

Continuing Politics by Other Means
Combat mechanics have been revamped as well, and not always for the better. The switch to hexagonal tiles is more or less a wash (though they do allow for much more realistic-looking borders and rivers, as part of the game's greatly improved, DirectX 11–supporting graphics), but removing the ability to stack units and their capabilities is a radical change to a long-cherished Civilization tradition. You're now limited to one unit per tile, which makes many combats—and even merely organizing your forces—far messier and more cumbersome. We like that the specific terrain a unit occupies now plays a greater role in what it can or can't do on that tile, but giving up unit stacking for it hardly seems like a fair trade.

Barbarians, too, have been made into a much blander threat: They no longer build or capture cities, but instead are just generic forces for destruction—far less interesting, especially in games where you start with no nearby neighbors. Even given the addition of City-States, we miss the barbarians' role as the forces of chaos in an otherwise apparently ordered simulation.

Taken together, these changes feel like capitulations to the board game crowd, if not an outright acknowledgement that PC gamers are no longer interested in the multilayered intricacies on which the series has always prided itself, and instead just want quick hits of adrenaline. Well, Civilization V definitely provides them—whatever else may have happened, it's still Civilization, and the millennia-long struggle to assert your superiority by means technological, economic, and materialistic hasn't gotten old. And with a solid multiplayer mode and high levels of moddability (another Civilization trademark—just edit some XML files to remake the game in your own image), it won't any time soon. And the new requirement that you use Valve's Steam download and purchase service to run the game didn't bother us at all (though some people were complaining about it in advance of the game's release).

Should You Get Civilized?
Overall, however, I prefer the more vivid palette and highly detailed strokes of the earlier games, which went further to make sure you understood what makes the real world tick—and why it should never be taken for granted. If you'd prefer to leave those concerns on your digital doorstep, or you've never played the previous games that dig so much deeper, there's nothing wrong with Civilization V (except the havoc it has the potential to wreak on jobs and relationships). But we recommend keeping Civilization IV installed on your PC as well, for those times you want to be reminded how a PC strategy game can be both visceral and psychologically engrossing without sacrificing fun in the bargain.

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