[IceFire]

Played Civ2 & 4 recently and I think that 4 is far more userfriendly. Really looked forward to the fifth part. But I'll wait until they release a Complete-Package with all Add-Ons for Civ5 until I buy it

Ahh good idea

[Dark RevenantX]

Of course, the disadvantage is that you have to wait for all of those add-ons to be released.  Unless you pirate them as you go along and then buy the final set, that is...

[NGTM-1R]

It's a pick-up-and-play but in a lot of ways it's not as simple as 2 was, mainly because you're never going to build everything in V. That's a bit of a first for the series.

There are additions and changes but they're relatively simple from IV. I think I personally preferred IV for feel, but V's still fun and it's not as twitchy as IV was.

[Turambar]

It's a pick-up-and-play but in a lot of ways it's not as simple as 2 was, mainly because you're never going to build everything in V. That's a bit of a first for the series.

There are additions and changes but they're relatively simple from IV. I think I personally preferred IV for feel, but V's still fun and it's not as twitchy as IV was.

I imagine there will be mods available eventually to address any lack of depth

[NGTM-1R]

I imagine there will be mods available eventually to address any lack of depth

Oh, it's not a lack. It's deeper than IV. I'm just not sure I want it deeper.

[mxlm]

The game also does a poor job of explaining its systems to the player. How does unit upkeep work? We don't know. The civilopedia is the worst in series, as it doesn't give you actual important information. I learned that railroads give a production bonus from the goddamn tooltips, as all the info in the pedia was a historical summary.

[Titan]

I loved the civilopedia. I could've skipped grade and middle school history from what I learned from these games. 

[IceFire]

I loved the civilopedia. I could've skipped grade and middle school history from what I learned from these games. 

Agreed!  I learned a lot about the world from Civ and Civ II back in the day.

[Iss Mneur]

So how is Civ V working out for people? I don't have a budget for it right now but all this talk about Civilization made me want to try and install Civ II. It doesn't work on 64bit OS'es without an extreme amount of trickery. I tried the demo of Civ IV whenever that came out and I didn't like that at all... it was too divergent from the more simple setup for Civ II. I hear Civ V might fit the bill as they simplified a lot of things in a smart way.

The demo of Civ V is on Steam.  The demo lets you run 100 turns of the game.

I have 64-bit 7 and the demo (at least) seems to work just fine (truthfully it seems to handle better than Civ IV did).  I have to agree with the uselessness of the civilopedia, though, you learn about the actual number effects of buildings and improvements from hovering over the icon (which I have to say, isn't so bad as having to read the civilopedia just to know that, for example the Pyramids add +2 Food for all cities is annoying, rather than just hovering over the Pyramids icon in the build menu).

[mxlm]

Which is fine for the buildings, but again: how does upkeep work?

[NGTM-1R]

Which is fine for the buildings, but again: how does upkeep work?

City number + population number = total upkeep available. It's in your military overview if you care to look.

Or you could RTFM. That's usually a good idea.

[mxlm]

Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.

So, do tell, which page in the manual am I supposed to be reading?

[NGTM-1R]

Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.

So basically you think it's not 1 each.

...like it always has been.

And still is as far as I can tell. Unless they're garrisoned.

[mxlm]

So basically you think it's not 1 each.

Given weird behavior I've seen reported by various people on a couple boards, including civ fanatics, yes. I mean, it's possible it's just bugged, but when you have a worker, and you delete it and your gold goes from -3 to +5 and then you delete another worker and your income doesn't change, there's something at work that isn't immediately apparent.

For damned sure in my own experience it hasn't been 1 unit = 1 gold cost.

ETA: things that weren't in the manual, but that you should know

# To show the movement range of a selected unit and the path it would take when ordered to move, hold down the right mouse button while moving the mouse cursor over the map.
1 Marble speeds production of all wonders by 25% in the city that works the quarry.
2 Greece has the special ability that moving units through the territory of city states never degrades influence with them.
3 Railroads not only give the usual gold & movement bonuses for roads, but also +50% production for cities connected to the capital. Harbors act as railroad connections as soon as the technology is available. The exact movement bonuses for roads & railroads are unknown.
4 Units count towards a supply limit defined by your cities and population, shown on the military overview. The exact effect of reaching that limit is unknown.
5 Units have a maintenance cost (aka upkeep) in gold which depends on your total number of units, and is summarized in the economic overview. The actual formula for unit maintenance is as yet unknown, and may or may not be related to the unit supply limit.
6 If you have no gold left and are running a deficit in excess of 5 GP per turn, units will begin to be forcibly disbanded to save on maintenance costs.
7 Razing a city takes one turn per population point, and begins only after you end your turn. So if you choose to raze a conquered city, you can still enter the city screen and cancel the razing. The city will then be annexed -- you cannot turn it into a puppet state anymore.
8 Pacts of Cooperation make the AI friendlier and more receptive to other deals. Pacts of Secrecy against another player do the same but with the added condition that neither player must cooperate with the target player.

As well, it is believed--though I think not confirmed--that the AI, which in prior games always knew your exact strength, now only knows about the units it can see. There is, furthermore, no friendship boost from open borders. Which means that if you think the AI is stronger than you, you really don't want to give it access to your territory.

[QuantumDelta]

Only 33 hours so far...
Loving it.

[Bob-san]

Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.

So basically you think it's not 1 each.

...like it always has been.

And still is as far as I can tell. Unless they're garrisoned.

If it's anything like Civ4, then city upkeep includes a minute amount of building upkeep as well. It's basically number of cities and distance from a capital city. In IV, you were able to build your Palace, Versailles (a World Wonder), and a Secret Palace (a National Wonder). Optimally, you'd place Versailles in the middle of your civilization and your Palace and Secret Palace on opposite ends (since those can be rebuilt if the city is lost).

[mxlm]

There's no distance penalty AFAIK, which is why going to embarkation and then spreading settlers across the seas is a viable strategy.

[Black Wolf]

only played one run through so far (Greek, military victory on easy). There're good and bad points. I like the hex grids, and got used to the no stacking rules pretty quickly. Combat is... Ok. The new predictor could do with being a bit less accurate - takes a bit of the excitement out of fighting. I also love the fact that i can build a giant death robot.

Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.

[General Battuta]

only played one run through so far (Greek, military victory on easy). There're good and bad points. I like the hex grids, and got used to the no stacking rules pretty quickly. Combat is... Ok. The new predictor could do with being a bit less accurate - takes a bit of the excitement out of fighting. I also love the fact that i can build a giant death robot.

Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.

Do you think I should buy Civ 4 now that it's cheap? I've played the Civ V demo and didn't get addicted until about Turn 70, which felt late.

[newman]

Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.

I have to agree with these points. Performance isn't as great as it should be on my i7 with 12 gigs of RAM. Granted the nivida 9800 gt inside it isn't exactly top of the line these days, but I play games that look a lot more impressive than Civ 5 and get great performance out of it. Thing is, the game feels terribly unoptimized. I like some new game concepts but the thing is lagging all the time and I get long loading times where I shouldn't. I also don't like the fact that you no longer need sea transport units to move your troops to different continents / islands. The unit turning into a "boat" automatically when it moves on the sea seems a bit too convenient to me. Overall, I liked the "vibe" you mentioned a lot better in civs 3 and 4.