Civilisation 5

The Civilisation series does of course have a long and distinctive history, like some aged and hallowed relic handed down through the generations and talked about in hushed tones. Civ is indeed a grand old gentleman, with a twirly grey moustache and a gleam in his eye. He has seen countless pretenders come and go, but still sits there, confident in his pedigree.

Honeycombed beauty - although the hexes are optional

I cut my teeth on Civ as a teenager, and spent many, many hours secretly preparing swarms of tanks to surround enemy cities before sneak-attacking an entire country into rubble. In another society, perhaps spending countless evenings plotting the downfall of empires and culling inumerable civilians with nuclear aggression would be a hallmark of concern, but happily my parents failed to ever check up on my megalomaniacal leanings.

Since then, I have dabbled with Civ 4 for a while, but haven't properly played one of the Civ progeny until Civ 5 was birthed unto the world. It's the usual score – you lead a civilisation from prehistoric times until the future age with a variety of ways to win. The traditional “crush all beneath your jackboot” style world domination, the spaceship launching science victory, the rather boring method of just scoring the most points by the end of the game, or the equally dull diplomatic victory, which essentially just consists of bribing vast numbers of city-states to vote you in as a World President-For-Life.

'No, of course I'm not going to attack you." Lying through your teeth to the A.I. remains a Civ staple

The most interesting is the cultural victory, where your civilisation's arts and culture become so ubiquitous to the people of earth that they cannot imagine life without them – interesting because cultural advances become increasingly difficult and expensive to acquire the larger the empire you own, promoting the use of a small, tightly organised Civ instead, and denying you the use of the typical Civ mega-army to crush all. However, you may very well try and win peacefully, but of course we all know that what you really want to do is grind that smug A.I.'s face into the ashes of his capital city until he chokes - so war is often waged for fun as much as it is for strategic or political reasons.

A mention has to be made of the new hex-based movement and the fact units cannot stack – which makes combat a little more tactical than it used to be. Units are now more expensive and can level up, rewarding you for holding on to them and using them carefully, and bringing your trusted spear-men all the way through to the modern era as mechanized infantry is possible with careful management.

The introduction of strategic resources such as oil, iron and uranium is a very nice touch, especially as they are not revealed on the map until you discover the relevant technology. This brings the intriguing possibility of a previously weak civilsation becoming a major player upon discovery of a vast horde of oil within his borders, or a sudden power-grab by yourself in order to secure some precious uranium to construct your nuclear, ahem, 'deterrent.'

Work faster you fools! I said gold, I wanted gold! The city management screen is where you tweak your solvenly citizens into perfection

The A.I. as usual has some gaping flaws – its use of its navies is laughably poor, and its ground forces will often put themselves in hopeless positions from which you can pick them off, but it is not overly terrible – its higher grand strategy often proves threatening, even though it has still not learnt how to successfully manage empires across more than one continent or island.

The political machinations are equally one-dimensional, and are limited mostly to trading resources and the constant requests for open borders that the A.I. seems obsessed with.

It is a good game – very addictive, in the same way popcorn, or indeed, crack cocaine is quite more-ish. Just one more, you say to yourself. Just one more turn. I'll just capture this city. I'll just defeat this opponent. I'll just wake up next morning with a throbbing head from a 4am bedtime and get fired from my job for turning up late again. The risks are high with this game.

Population and city management is key as ever. Rushing to expand too fast will result in a vast amount of unhappiness, potentially crippling your growing Civ and making you easy pickings for hostile A.I. All things in moderation, slow and deliberate expansion is the key. The cultural “talent trees” are a nice touch, allowing you to modify your Civ's internal characteristics as you gain more and more culture – another benefit that the smaller, more focused Civ can acquire faster than the its ugly, larger cousin.

Gandhi once again tries to crush the world

The map screen is beautiful and smooth – trees rustle, cows moo, units shuffle around – it gives a real sense of being alive, and the landscape changes over the millennia as you modify it.

Like any Hollywood vixen however, when viewed in the cold light of day with no make-up, there are plenty of flaws to pick up on. There is a vast and terrible slowdown in graphics loading as the map opens up and becomes larger, which is utterly baffling considering how uncomplicated the graphics really are. The loading times for saved games are truly criminal for the 21^st century and remind me of my Commodore 64 days.

There also comes a point in the game where you find yourself doing very little except clicking on the 'next turn' button, and the lack of tangible reward from the game when you finally win victory is rather galling. In Civ 2, for example, when you launched your colony spaceship, you were treated to a rather epic video and thumping classical soundtrack (which can be seen here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y47nxo_uvA), in Civ 5 however you are “rewarded” with a single still screenshot and a scoreboard. I know it is more about the journey than the destination with a Civ game, but still, throw us a frickin' bone here.

So in the end, a very good, achingly additive game which will suck time away from your life – but after all that, rather empty in a hollow, soulless way, and actually a lot more simplistic and lacking depth than a simulation of the world's civilisations should be – in many ways, it feels like a step back from earlier games.

Lovable, fun, but slightly simple at the core, Civ 5 scores -Sleepy Pug