Civilization V is a
turn-based strategy game, where each player represents the leader of a certain nation or ethnic group ("civilization") and must guide its growth over the course of thousands of years. The game starts with the foundation of a small settlement and ends after achieving one of the victory conditions—or surviving until the number of game turns end, at which point the highest-scoring civilization, based on several factors, such as population, land, technological advancement, and cultural development, is declared the winner. During their turn, the player must manage units representing civilian and military forces. Civilian units can be directed to found new cities, improve land, and spread religion while military units can go into battle to take over other civilizations. The player controls production in their cities to produce new units and buildings, handles diplomacy with other civilizations in the game, and directs the civilization's growth in technology, culture, food supply, and economics. The player ends the game when a victory condition is met. Victory conditions include taking over the entire world by force, convincing the other civilizations to acknowledge the player as a leader through diplomacy, becoming influential with all civilizations through tourism, winning the
space race to build a colony spaceship to reach a nearby planet, or being the most powerful civilization on the globe after a set number of turns. The
artificial intelligence (AI) in
Civilization V is designed to operate a civilization on four levels: the tactical AI controls individual units; the operational AI oversees the entire war front; the strategic AI manages the entire empire; and the grand strategic AI sets long-term goals and determines how to win the game. The four levels of AI complement each other to allow for complex and fluid AI behaviors, which will differ from game to game. As in previous versions, cities remain the central pillar of
Civilization gameplay. A city can be founded on a desired location by a settler unit, produced in the same way as military units. The city will then grow in population; produce units and buildings; and generate research, wealth and culture. The city will also expand its borders one or more tiles at a time, which is critical in claiming territory and resources. The expansion process is automated and directed towards the city's needs, but tiles can be bought with gold. Siege warfare has been restructured from previous
Civ games. Previous cities games relied entirely on garrisoned units for defense, whereas cities in
Civ V now defend themselves and can attack invading units with a ranged attack expanding two tiles outward. Cities have hit points that, if taken down to zero, will signal the city's defeat to invading forces. Surviving an attack allows a city to recover a fraction (approximately 15%) of its hit points automatically each turn. In addition, any melee unit loses hit points upon attacking a city, dependent upon the unit and strength of the city which can be increased by garrisoning a unit or building defensive structures (e.g. walls). In addition, each hexagonal tile can accommodate only one military unit and one civilian unit or great person at a time. This accommodation forces armies to spread out over large areas rather than being stacked onto a single tile and moves most large battles outside of the cities, forcing increased realism in sieges. City attacks are now most effective when surrounding the city tiles because of bonuses from flanking. Ranged and melee units are now more balanced. Ranged units can attack melee units without retribution, but melee units will normally destroy ranged units. In an effort to make individual units more valuable to the player (compared to previous games in the series), they take longer to produce and gain experience from defeating enemy units. At set levels this experience can be redeemed for promotions, which provide various bonuses for increasing their effectiveness, or to substantially heal themselves. In a further departure from previous games, units are no longer always destroyed if defeated in combat. Instead, units can take partial damage, which can be healed at various rates depending on their type, location, and promotions earned. However, healthy units can still be completely destroyed in a single engagement if the opposing unit is much stronger. Special "Great Person" units are still present in the game, providing special bonuses to the civilization that births them, with each Great Person named after a historic figure such as
Albert Einstein or
Leonardo da Vinci. Great people come in several varieties, and those available in the base game can be consumed to produce one of three effects: start a
golden age, build a unique terrain improvement, or perform a unique special ability. For example, a Great General can create a 'Citadel' (a strong fort with the ability to inflict damage on nearby enemy units) or passively increase the combat strength of nearby friendly units. Capturing a Great Person destroys them, except for Great Prophets in the expansion sets. Many Great People are given bonuses linked to the special ability of the Civilization. For example, one of Mongolia's special abilities is to increase the movement rate of great generals from 2 to 5 and rename them into "Khans". Civilizations can no longer trade technologies like in previous versions of the game, instead civilizations can perform joint technological ventures. Two civilizations at peace can form a research agreement, which requires an initial investment of gold and provides both civilizations a certain amount of science so long as they remain at peace. Prior to the 1.0.1.332 PC version of the game, civilizations were provided with an unknown technology after a set number of turns of uninterrupted peaceful relations. It is possible for a civilization to sign a research agreement for the sole purpose of getting an enemy to spend money which could be used for other purposes; AI civilizations are programmed to sometimes use this tactic before declaring war. British actor
W. Morgan Sheppard provides the narration for the opening cinematics to the original game and its expansion packs, the quotations at the discovery of new technologies and the building of landmarks, and the introduction of the player's chosen civilization at the start of each new game.
City-states City-states, a feature new to the series, are minor civilizations that can be interacted with, but are incapable of achieving victory. Unlike major powers, city-states may expand in territory but they never establish new cities (they can conquer other cities with their military units). In addition to outright conquest, major civilizations have the option to befriend city-states, via bribery or services. City-states provide the player with bonuses such as resources and units, which increase as players advance to new eras. In the
Brave New World expansion pack, city-states grant allied players additional delegates in the World Congress starting in the Industrial Era. There are three types of city-state in the base game, each with different personalities and bonuses: maritime, cultured, and militaristic. Two additional city-state types (mercantile and religious) were added in the Gods & Kings expansion pack to complement new gameplay mechanics. City-states play a prominent role in diplomacy among larger civilizations, as well as make specific requests and grant rewards.
Culture system In a change to the culture system,
Civilization V players have the ability to purchase social policies with earned culture. These social policies are organized into ten separate
trees each containing five separate policies. Prior to the
Brave New World expansion pack, the player was required to fill out five of the ten trees to win a cultural victory. Social policies replace the "Civics" government system of
Civilization IV (where players had to switch out of old civics to adopt a new one) while social policies in
Civilization V are cumulative bonuses. According to Jon Shafer, "With the policies system, we wanted to keep the feel of mixing and matching to construct one's government that was part of
Civ IV, but we also wanted to instill a sense of forward momentum. Rather than having to switch out of one policy to adopt another, the player builds upon the policies already unlocked. The thought process we want to promote is 'What cool new effect do I want?' rather than the feeling of needing to perform detailed analysis to determine if switching is a good idea." World domination is an option, but the victory condition has been simplified compared to previous games in the series. Rather than completely destroying the other civilizations, the last player who controls their original capital wins by conquest. Since the
Brave New World expansion pack, the player must control all original capitals (including their own) to win by Domination. The player can also win by having the highest score at the year 2050 AD, or all victory conditions can be disabled. This and other settings, for example turning off city razing, can be modified in the "advanced setup" screen while setting up a game.
Civilizations There are 18 playable civilizations available in the standard retail version of
Civilization V. 7
DLC civilizations and a further 18 were added by the two expansions, leading to a total of 43 civilizations. The player chooses a civilization and assumes the role of its leader, based on prominent historical figures such as
Napoleon Bonaparte. Each leader of a civilization has a combination of two unique units, improvements, or buildings. For example, Arabia has the
camel archer which replaces the standard
knight unit, and the
bazaar which replaces the
market. In addition to the two unique units, improvements, or buildings, there is a unique ability for each civilization. For example, Japan has
Bushido, which causes their units to do maximum damage even when damaged themselves, and gives 1 culture from each Fishing Boat and 2 culture from each
Atoll. The player is able to interact with the leaders of other civilizations via the diplomacy screen, accessed through clicking on a city of that civilization, or through the diplomacy button at the top of the screen. For the first time in the series, fully animated leaders are featured, who speak their native languages. The 18 base game civilizations were:
America (led by
George Washington), the
Aztecs (led by
Montezuma I),
Egypt (led by
Ramesses II),
England (led by
Elizabeth),
Germany (led by
Bismarck),
Greece (led by
Alexander),
Songhai (led by
Askia), the
Iroquois (led by
Hiawatha), the
Ottomans (led by
Suleiman),
Rome (led by
Augustus),
France (led by
Napoleon),
China (led by
Wu Zetian),
Japan (led by
Oda Nobunaga),
Russia (led by
Catherine),
India (led by
Gandhi),
Persia (by
Darius),
Arabia (led by
Harun al-Rashid), and
Siam (led by
Ramkhamhaeng).
Genghis Khan of
Mongolia was added as a preorder DLC, until October 25, 2010, when it was made free. Six other DLCs were added:
Nebuchadnezzar II of
Babylon,
Isabella of
Spain,
Pachacuti of the
Incas,
Kamehameha I of
Polynesia,
Harald Bluetooth of
Denmark, and
Sejong of
Korea. ==Development==