Sid Meier's Civilization® V is a great turn-based strategy game produced by the same developers of XCOM. Their improvement from the fourth installement both graphics and gaming wise is fantastically good. It also gives players an oppurtunity to play on a lower version of DirectX if needed so due to the power of the player's PC.

Pros: - Multiplayer: Not only is the single-player mode great to play, this game also provides the option to play amongst your friends with mods. No matter how ridiculous or serious the mods come, it doesn't remove access to team on one player and make him rage quit (Make sure it isn't the host :) ).

- Freedom: This game provides freedom to however you desire your state to be, whether it is full on military to take over the world, or maybe to win peacefully and win culturally. It also provides freedom to how you want your country to be run with ideologies and policies to some extent. Depending on how you run your state can depend on the access to policies and ideologies

- Experience: For someone who had never played a turn-based strategy game in my life, I was glad to see a range of difficulties to learn the game. For those who have played other Civilization games or any other turn-based strategy games, more difficult levels can be applied to make it more enjoyable and challenging.

Cons: - Barbarians: Not only do these guys ruin your day it ruins the game (especially on harder difficulties...). In my first single-player game I started the game on a lower difficulty so I didn't encounter them as much, however once I bumped up the difficulty, I was surrounded by them constantly, to the fact that if you don't deal with them earlier, it stabs you in the back later. This is seriously problematic if you re trying to win culturally, since your military needs aren't efficient enough to deal with them easily.

- Not easy to learn: This game is fun, don't get me wrong; but it wasn't easy to lean either. For example, on my first run it never showed that the city had to be captured by a melee unit, not a ranged. I sat there over 15 turn trying to capture it with no progress. Even then it told me to be careful when attacking with melee units when the city had no health left at all! I ended up looking up the answer, in which I am strongly against.


Overall this game was a definite thumbs up to the creators and the mod creators of this game, and I am very excited to play Sid Meier's Civilization® IV whenever I get the chance to buy it! Peace :)