Post by Steve Farrelly @ 02:11pm 22/09/10 | 126 Comments
Civ V offers both the hardcore and enthusiast something of varying layers of depth and complexity, with a focus on being a bit more streamlined than previous Civ outings, but with stronger results.
There have also been some fundamental changes in the way the game is played from a combat and cultural level, which should even offer something utterly new and engaging for veterans of the series. This one is definitely worth your investment.
Click here for our in-depth review.
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Posted 02:22pm 22/9/10
Prettier graphics will be nice
Posted 02:57pm 22/9/10
Start > Run > steam://install/65900
played a bit of the demo this morning and didn't like the interface, probably cause i have been playing Civ IV again recently and am just slow to adjust.
Posted 02:59pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:00pm 22/9/10
it was pretty big like 3.5gig or something
Posted 03:03pm 22/9/10
150gb a month runs out rather quickly
Posted 03:12pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:14pm 22/9/10
con
Oz paying nearly 60% more and gettin raped again
Posted 03:20pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:30pm 22/9/10
If international price disparity bothers you, import it, it's the same game and if enough people do it, maybe the publishers will actually take notice and fall in line.
Posted 03:33pm 22/9/10
Maybe some bad scores due to rediculous prices in Aus would gain the attention of the developers and make them do something.
Posted 03:33pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:38pm 22/9/10
This is an Australian gaming website and should be concerned with local issues, local flavour is why we read AusGamers!
I don't know about taking points off, but the price disparity is an issue of concern to your readers. It at minimum warranted a paragraph and some useful import options / links.
Posted 03:37pm 22/9/10
http://www.direct2drive.com/9611/product/Buy-Sid-Meier%E2%80%99s-Civilization-V-Download
Posted 03:39pm 22/9/10
Like that, for example.
Posted 03:42pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:47pm 22/9/10
Posted 03:55pm 22/9/10
http://www.g2play.net/store/Sid-Meier-s-Civilization-V-Steam-Key-Pre-Order.html
is it legit? does it work... as i still want it on my steam account with all my other games
Posted 09:48pm 22/9/10
Surely ausgamers is a big enough boy to start putting in harsh judgments that the community would like to see.
Posted 09:50pm 22/9/10
Posted 11:46pm 22/9/10
Even better would be reducing the review score by the % its over priced but that's pretty extreme.
Something needs to be done and awarding it 92% and pretending everything is ok since you didn't buy your copy is not it.
Posted 07:19am 23/9/10
Posted 08:42am 23/9/10
If you pre-order from them its $69.99 + $4.90 shipping. Prices are in $AUD.
If you guys do buy from there, use this link below so I can get $10 referral credit XD
http://www.mightyape.com.au?r=1702883
Posted 08:55am 23/9/10
I find it bizarre that Dan tried to defend not talking about the price gouging ?
It should be the complete opposite. It should have a dirty big red symbol on it highlighting that this product is trying to rip Australian gamers off.
Until the local marketing executives understand that it is an issue, it won't get resolved.
Posted 09:02am 23/9/10
It's all just creators manufacturers pricing their products at a point that the market is willing to pay. If that seems too high to you, that's not the publisher's fault, it's the market's, it's supply and demand. IMO it's just plain not fair on the hard work of the developers to negatively affect the awarded rating of their work simply because Australians are willing to pay more for stuff.
If you're really that worried about dealing with importing and other options (admit it, you're not) and it truly is overpriced for the Aussie market, then it would sell poorly and end up dropping in price as a result so you could just wait a few months and buy it when it hits the bargain table (or buy it second hand and stick it to the publisher).
I don't like it either, but that's just how things are here and the only way we can change that is by refusing to pay that inflated price.
Posted 09:02am 23/9/10
Posted 09:17am 23/9/10
I wholeheartedly agree that way too much s*** is overpriced in this country and as a result I've been buying more and more consumer goods from International merchants, most recently a new camera and a laptop (it's ridiculous that I can add $75 in shipping from a US online store and still be under the lowest price that JB hifi are willing to offer me). What I don't agree with is lynching any one specific product/publisher for having a higher price here than overseas.
Posted 09:43am 23/9/10
We are asking you as a reviewer of games for Australians to factor that into your review, FOR ALL products/publishers!
Posted 09:46am 23/9/10
So (50 / 89) * 9 = 5.
Win!
Posted 09:58am 23/9/10
Then they (publishers/marketers) will see that theres something wrong with their pricing policy.
Or we could just stage a nation-wide protest...
Posted 10:38am 23/9/10
Boarderlands and all the DLC's
Mafia 2
Bioshock 1 and 2 and all there DLC's
Civilization V
Why the hell would I digitally download a game at the same price I could buy the boxed game. The digital download should be cheaper and on a lot of games on Steam it is...Fallout New Vegas for example $89.99 in EB probaly around $79 in Game but I can buy it for $49.99US and that is how it should be.
Posted 10:43am 23/9/10
Ahh this only works for Western European Countries... FAIL
Posted 12:07pm 23/9/10
Posted 12:33pm 23/9/10
I dunno.
At one point Civ4 and it's addons was $5 or maybe $9 for US folks.
$54 or $64 here for just the original. Heck at one point, you could not even buy 2k Games from Steam in Australia at all! They wanted to force you to go to your local games store and get some landfill with your digital content.
But regardless, I don't think any of us are saying only do it for this one game/publisher. I imagine most of us would prefer it if we all got charged a vaguely similar price.
Posted 12:38pm 23/9/10
This does not work anymore
Posted 12:56pm 23/9/10
I'm cool with market forces and charging what you want for stuff - I'm in business after all. But publishers AND developers are definitely going to lengths to ensure that regionalisation locks Aussies into local pricing and closing down importing avenues as much as possible. That's damn close to market manipulation.
Quite a few people got an epic shock when they imported StarCraft II for instance and couldn't play with their friends for eight weeks.
How long is it before game DRM itself starts checking regionality, locking people into local pricing regimes? Will it be worthy of commenting about in reviews then?
Posted 01:36pm 23/9/10
Posted 02:03pm 23/9/10
It hasn't been so much of an issue in the history of console and PC gaming, because it's generally been completely trivial to circumvent. But the protections are becoming more and more sophisticated and with downloadable purchases and online verification rising in popularity the power is there for publishers to really start hard-lining that kind of thing.
SC2 is definitely a prime example of that garbage gaining traction - it shouldn't matter where you buy a copy, you should be able to have the same experience as anyone else that bought a copy. But then you have consoles like the PS3 which doesn't have region coding for games at all (X360 does).
Posted 03:02pm 23/9/10
We've covered the price gouging, I think, more than any other company in Australia. We are one of the only companies that I know of that provides pricing comparisons on our game pages (though at the time of this writing, Civ5 isn't listed, something which I will correct right now).
We talked about this a bit and decided that our responsibility is to review the games as critical pieces of whether they're good games, in the context of what they cost compared to other titles at the same 'level'. This is a AAA title and it costs what all AAA titles in Australia cost.
What, out of interest, do you think we should do, practically, here? If it's just put a note in the review I'm happy to do that. But at the end of the day buying the game is like buying anything - you should research the best prices yourself and make sure you buy it for the best price - we shouldn't have to put "this game is awesome, but it sucks if you buy it from EB because it will cost you 20% more", for example.
The rest of it is a DRM and regionalisation issue; again I feel AusGamers is at the forefront of these issues and bringing awareness to gamers about them. We're strong supporters of the EFA (I am a member and have donated personal money to it) and look forward to working with them on issues like this in the future.
Posted 03:07pm 23/9/10
but its not just eb if its every shop in australia.
Maybe if you, and other review companys, start pointing out that we are getting rorted and score accordingly, then developers and producers will change there price scheme.
Something has to be done other than, "whats us putting a little note at the end of our review going to do"
Pricing effects the amount of people that buy the game, whether or not its an awesome game or not. if its an entire country thats overpriced not just one store.
Posted 03:11pm 23/9/10
Help on identifying the disparity for online buys and help finding the best deal would be a good start!
Reading the review is part of the research process, not something done separate from it. It would be helpful to know that the publisher is using Steam to rape the wallet and what the alternatives are...
Posted 03:18pm 23/9/10
Buy me a copy of the game so that I don't have to languish under these outrageous pricing practices. Write it off as a competition or somesuch of course. :P
Posted 03:31pm 23/9/10
With the rising costs of game development and the massive marketing spends they make to get their games known, they actually think that the U.S. market is actually _under-priced_ for games RRP, but they don't dare budge there because of how massive and competitive it is over there and how important North American popularity is to the success of a game.
How true that is, I can't really say - I'm certainly no economist. Just playing a little devil's advocate to illustrate that it's not just as simple as evil publishers raping our wallets.
Posted 03:33pm 23/9/10
Posted 04:03pm 23/9/10
I don't mind local retailers setting whatever price they want for their imported boxes, but restricting trade with NA retailers and sources seems a bit contrary to the FTA?
Posted 04:30pm 23/9/10
If enough noobs (the people that keep EB in business) start clueing onto OS purchases then maybe something will be done.
Then again wtf do I care as long as I know to check out prices before I buy.
Posted 04:52pm 23/9/10
Yeh but everything keeps changing because the c**** keep trying to close the import loopholes, and its getting tied up in DRM and regionalisation. See StarCraft II example ><
I reckon that a summary of local pricing, import options and regional issues could surely be a worthy addition to AGN major reviews? For most games it could be a star "this title available on Steam for the same price as USA customers" or "Steam borked. Options include xxx"?
Posted 07:14pm 23/9/10
Then you'll all realise you're really playing Civony 5
Posted 10:11pm 23/9/10
http://www.dungeoncrawl.com.au/p-2280-sid-meier-civilization-5-v-pc.aspx
k
Posted 10:18pm 23/9/10
F*** off trog.
Dan is rabid defending not mentioning the price as part of a review.
But it didn't rate a mention ?
Posted 11:02pm 23/9/10
Does Ausgamers have enough of an audience to influence the market?
Unless multiple media in the country get on the bandwagon nothing will change. ABC's Got Good for example should be covering it often.
Posted 10:42am 24/9/10
They are in the UK and are offering Civ5 for $39. I've ordered my copy, hopefully it will arrive in a week or so.
Posted 11:00am 24/9/10
Posted 11:06am 24/9/10
Posted 11:17am 24/9/10
Posted 11:20am 24/9/10
just gotta find a freind in the uk
Posted 11:41am 24/9/10
Posted 11:50am 24/9/10
http://www.ausgamers.com/games/civilization-5/buy/
Posted 12:01pm 24/9/10
power to the people!!!!
Posted 12:22pm 24/9/10
The third steam price should be AUD, right? If so you need to fix that page.
Posted 12:46pm 24/9/10
REGION LOCK CONFIRMED! from G2PLAY
IMPORTANT NOTICE – REGIONAL RESTRICTIONS APPLIED! This key can be activated ONLY in Western European countries including Austria, Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, UK. It cannot be activated in Australia, Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. We are currently working to ensure supplies for the excluded regions.
Time to start the s*** storm at 2k GAMES. Regional pricing, Regional locking wtf is this bulls***.
Since their key is European (same thing appilies to dvd uk,thehut, zavvi, ozgameshop). i bet you all the european shops that ship to AUS will complain to the suppliers now cause they lost customers...
EDIT:Confirmed for UK,European keys NOT USA Keys ATM
Might be wise to make sure it will work here in Australia before purchasing from the UK Steam Store.
Posted 12:52pm 24/9/10
Posted 12:53pm 24/9/10
Problem fixed.
F***** wankers trying to syphon more and more money out of us. F*** buying this game, they can shove it up their ass
Posted 12:57pm 24/9/10
Ohh, OK., that makes sense then
Posted 01:52pm 24/9/10
Posted 02:18pm 24/9/10
The warning that is on the G2Play site only appeared this morning, justifiably upsetting quite a few people in the Whirlpool forums who purchased it from the G2PLAY site in the previous few days.
Posted 02:39pm 24/9/10
So Dan, I guess we should get the DRM region locking bulls*** included in the review?! :P
Posted 02:48pm 24/9/10
Posted 03:01pm 24/9/10
Posted 03:16pm 24/9/10
Posted 03:17pm 24/9/10
Posted 04:31pm 24/9/10
Posted 04:38pm 24/9/10
Posted 10:22pm 24/9/10
Sid Meiers Civilization V 5 Game PC
$39.99 In stock
Us version
Posted 10:32pm 24/9/10
Posted 04:51pm 25/9/10
Posted 05:24pm 25/9/10
Posted 08:41pm 26/9/10
vpn does work for credit cards, not paypal.
Posted 08:48pm 26/9/10
Posted 08:09am 27/9/10
(trying to load a game that's been going for a while with a current game running, it crashes after about 10 minutes of raping my virtual mem, have to exit and reenter. load times are a b****)
Posted 02:20pm 27/9/10
Posted 02:35pm 27/9/10
Posted 02:41pm 27/9/10
Posted 02:45pm 27/9/10
Posted 02:46pm 27/9/10
Posted 11:54am 29/9/10
Posted 11:55am 29/9/10
Posted 12:49pm 29/9/10
Posted 01:19pm 29/9/10
Posted 02:29pm 29/9/10
Posted 02:29pm 29/9/10
Posted 08:57pm 30/9/10
The Good
- Hex grids are awesome
- Expandy borders are awesome and make for great looking territories
- The reduction of city spamming through happiness is good, but maybe a little bit too harsh
- New combat is great
- The UI is very slick, minus a few overlay issues like going into a city while the quick build option is open
- New road system makes for very pretty maps and interesting combat
- Music is pretty good at forming a constant background theme
The Bad
- The music is way less epic than previously
- Not enjoying the focus on leaders, characters are soulless, and can't evolve past inbuilt hatreds.
- Addressing factions by leader name instead of civ makes it difficult to know what's going on.
- I kind of preferred the civics in the last civ, but the new system is ok
- City states are incredibly annoying and gimmicky after a while
- Performance is *horrible* - a game without anything actually changing should not run this badly, load/save/turn times get exponentially slower and becomes unplayable in the renaissance.
- The lack of religions and random events introduced in Civ IV's expansions, those little bits of narrative really makes half of the gameplay for me (I personally have been playing these since I was a kid because I like to build an empire, not play a balanced and sterile game)
- Everything is being streamlined to the point where you shouldn't be building unless it's part of your winning strategy, as the upkeep will ruin you. I miss being a perfectionist and building cities with a measure of carefree construction, maybe it's because I upped the difficulty.
The Downright Weird
- Catherine of Russia is really attractive, I like the way she rustles..
Overall, good game, different enough to not be a cash in, a few steps forward and a few annoying steps backwards, but with performance as is it's too frustrating to play beyond the early ages.
Posted 08:59pm 30/9/10
tottally agree, this is pissing me off.
the music is boring old lady music, i just listen to winamp.
performance once u get up to industrial eats d***. turns take forever
Posted 09:02pm 30/9/10
Posted 09:10pm 30/9/10
Don't want random AI, just want AI that might be greatful if I save their ass instead of slowly creeping back into predefined hatred... Tbh I don't think they should be going with earth civilizations, it wasn't factored in as much in the earlier versions and by now I feel we should be inventing our own.
Posted 10:15am 04/10/10
Posted 12:00pm 04/10/10
yer, none of the ai are pleasant. they all just want u to give them s*** and keep complaining when u expand or do anything.
Good game otherwise, im loving germany & france at the moment =)
+2 culture is awesome for france and so is the german taking %50 chance for barbarian to join
Posted 12:59pm 04/10/10
Posted 01:01pm 04/10/10
A good navy is key on water maps, 3 or 4 naval ships can take almost anything out in one turn, and once they get range upgrades you can lay into cities with no fear of reprisals :)
If you have an empire on your borders you want taken out, just line your units up 2 deep on the border and declare war. Then wait for the ai to throw everything they have at you, defeat that and they have practically nothing left :)
Posted 02:46pm 04/10/10
Wtf are you talking about? If you mean make your own civ, well yes actually I have designed one in my head since starting civ 5, and at about 6 items down my todo list I might actually start.
Posted 02:49pm 04/10/10
just buy the game overseas from somewhere cheaper instead of calling the wahmbulance about Steam.
Posted 04:49pm 04/10/10
Posted 08:49pm 04/10/10
I usually don't have a huge problem with the inflated retail price in Australian stores, as there are additional costs involved, and there is a usually a decent amount of competition between retailers and mail order companies with most major title releases.
There is NO justification however for the disgracefully inflated DD price that a few companies have started regularly using on the Australian market, while at the same time throttling competition.
While I do not think it should directly lower the review score, in my opinion local reviewers would be doing both Australian gamers, and, in the long term, the industry a favour if the first paragraph in every 2K review was something like this.
'Note - 2K Games regularly uses predatory pricing practices on the digital download versions of games released to the Australian market, this title is one such game.'
The same would apply to Bethesda by the way, and I know there is another distributor I can't think of right now that also does it.
Posted 12:01am 05/10/10
Posted 12:08am 05/10/10
I got one of my cities back, now we're at peace, but siam has like 25 cities :*
Posted 12:12am 05/10/10
Posted 12:17am 05/10/10
Posted 12:21am 05/10/10
Posted 04:15pm 06/10/10
I noticed the screenshots were the same ones used in PC Powerplay, never knew AG was associated with them.
Posted 01:15am 19/10/10
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94438
Posted 08:11am 19/10/10
Posted 12:12pm 19/10/10
Posted 08:51am 20/10/10
You just need to get used to the naming. The problem is you think in terms of "France, Germany, England" - really it's no different to another game (eg, Starcraft) where you come up against BlahBlah and Zorkmid - in this case Napoleon, Bismark and Elizabeth.
So far I've only started/completed a single game, because they just take so damn long.
The thing that bugs me is that cultural influence grows far less in V than in IV, so it's near impossible to assimilate a neighbour state by cultural influence as I used to do in IV - ie, just set up a town near them, and make the cultural radius absorb the neighbour state without ever having to declare war or do so militarily.
I've so far been unable to achieve this in V even in cities of 35+ population.
It also takes way too long to build some of the late-game units. Tanks and Mechanized Infantry can take as long as 80 turns to a new city, as does the factory or other similar that helps increase the work rate to build them quicker. Would have been nice for this to be fixed.
Posted 09:04am 20/10/10
The shift from culture as a form of creep to a points system to buy buffs is actually really good. The negative effect of having large numbers of cities on social growth is also a good thing, since it forces you to play in a completely different way (if you are going for cultural dominance and not just steamrollering every other nation militarily).
Did you try using a Great Artist's Culture Bomb on a neighbouring city? I was going to see if it forces a conversion, but spent him on a golden age instead.
Posted 09:56am 20/10/10
I dont understand the justification of having a game $30 USD more expensive when its just a digital download.
Artificially inflating prices because "thats the going rate" is a cop out.
They're just backing each other up - If you want the game you either have to get owned by EB/GAME/Whatever, or you get owned by Steam just as bad.
ACCC should investigate this, its bulls***.
Posted 09:20pm 20/10/10
I made germany an ally early on and they pretty much went around destroying all the other civs while i cruised along and got heaps of culture =)
Posted 10:00am 21/10/10
Posted 10:25am 21/10/10
They won't / can't.
Because the companies doing it are not based in Australia, and despite the FTA with America that lets them make breaking copyright a terrorism offence, we can not prevent or circumvent regionalised pricing.
Posted 10:51am 21/10/10
The ACCC investigate international claims.
Posted 11:16am 21/10/10
Big brother america has to watch out for the world dude. They are saving us from all those dirty terroist copyright infringers.
thanks america ur the best
Posted 11:21am 21/10/10
Really? Do you have an example?
I'd be astonished if they had any authority given that the transaction is taking place in the USA, in USD?
Posted 01:15pm 26/10/10
With Civilizaiton 5 however, I am very disappointed. Predatory pricing in Australia, yes - and quite unjustifiable in any terms.
What does annoy me though is the unreasonable overhead imposed by Steam. I don't want Steam or the spurious products it keeps trying to shove down my neck everytime I want to play Civilization. If I want to play Civ while not connected to the web Steam seems to take that as a personal affront and tries to prevent me playing.
I'm going back to Civilization 4, Beyond the Sword. They can stuff Steam.
Posted 05:28pm 26/10/10
That being said I do feel this Civ is well done but not that enjoyable.
Posted 05:13pm 09/12/10
Thanks for any flame-less helpful responses !!
Posted 06:21pm 09/12/10
Posted 09:47pm 09/12/10
Posted 10:15am 10/12/10