Preview by: Troy Goodfellow

I'm one of those guys desperate for Firaxis to break out and do something that is not a Civ game. I'm also one of those guys desperate for any news about any new Civ game, since I've played them all for more hours than is probably healthy. 2005's Civilization IV had the advantage of being built from the ground up as a new game on top of the tried and true formula. Civilization V seems to be taking that same route, keeping the Wheel to Rocket timeline and tile map focus, but dramatically changing mechanics we've all become used to.

The PAX East presentation was a quick rundown of some of the major changes. Nations only get a single leader this time, but the leaders get more distinct personalities and goals instead of simply a combination of traits. George Washington, Oda Nobunaga, Augustus Caesar (not Julius as has been widely reported), Elizabeth I, Otto von Bismarck…each will have a preferred strategy that makes playing against them a different experience than not playing against them. Firaxis promises that the AI will be able to cope with alternative strategies when the leaders' preferred paths are blocked. Unique units will also be more distinct from each other, with different powers and abilities instead of simply slightly stronger or cheaper generic units.

Civilization V looks great, or at least the European tile set they showed does. With deep colors reminiscent of the Blue Marble mod for Civ IV, the screen explodes with greens, whites and yellows. Other tile sets are planned for African, Asian and America geography. Civilization IV looked good, but not this good, and the glories of the graphics quickly vanished under the mass of roads and railroads that destroyed the natural wonders of your kingdom. We saw no roads or ships or workers. The interface is very streamlined with obvious reminders telling you the things you need to get around to without interfering with your field of vision.

City boundaries will expand across the map in a more natural way. Natural cultural expansion will grab your town only one more tile past its original radius, and this expansion will tend to be in the direction of nearby resources. If you are in a hurry, you can buy more tiles instead of waiting for your city to grow, making land rush strategies an aggressive but expensive option – plop a settler near gold or horses or whatever and then buy your way to viability.