The hard decision for me was to decide whether I pre-order the boxed special edition (with artbook, CDs, DVD, figurines) or the online deluxe version (with Babylon). I bank on the fact that Babylon will be offered as DLC later. Can't buy two copies of the game.

Here is a 13 min video with a little bit of everything in it.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationv/video/6275453/sid-meiers-civilization-v--video-walk-through?&tag=stitialclk%3Bgamespace#toggle_video

Well I think that the one unit per tile combat system is going to have the biggest impact on gameplay by far. I'm not sure that anything else is all that dramatic, although there are a lot of little changes I approve of.

Fair enough, that's my favorite part of the game too. But maybe with the combat redone you will like that part of the game more. I think many of us would agree that Civ had great city building and discovery and all that, so that was the part least in the need of an overhaul. Meanwhile your always going to have to engage in combat, and the fact that it was your (and my) least favorite part of the game suggests it needed to be the main focus for improvement. Plus in some ways the fact that there is less emphasis on pumping out giant stacks of units if you want to have a chance of fending off an invasion may let you focus more on the economic part.

The civics system seems to have been greatly expanded and based on your culture. This seems to be a good development.

The old 'tech trading' system seems to have been negated as well, which is good, I think. But what I have not seen at all is any hint of how the actual research works? Is it much like it used to be or are they doing something weird there? That's kind of key to me, that it's not been 'streamlined' into obscurity.

The rest seems to be mostly slicker interface, terrain matters more (you could allways go around terrain with a stck of doom (TM) but now terrain seems to be more possible to use in defence and offence.)... also, cities can defend themselves, that's good, I think. Realistic, at least. I am probably getting Civ V. (One of the guys i play with ONLY plays Civ IV currently, he won't even try anything else.).

To me accessible means there is not much of a learning curve which means there isn't much depth to the game. I don't care if I have to spend years learning the intricacies of the game, just for Sid's sake don't make it shallow! I DO NOT WANT a Civ that any casual gamer can "pick up and play" and win. I lost I don't know how many games of Civ 4 before I won one, and my ratio of wins to losses is low to this day.

I also own Civ Rev for my PS3, being a series fanatic and all. I can't lose that game, it's so easy. I play on the hardest difficulty and the same strategy works all the time, because every AI no matter what nation always does the same thing (that being, continually demand money or technology to not declare war on your for the next N turns). Yes even Gandhi comes after you. How to win every game? Refuse every demand and close every diplomacy window that appears. The AI actually needs your help to be any threat, so just starve them. Although it's fine to drain their gold by selling them ancient techs that can't threaten you (they always buy a tech they don't have, regardless of the cost or the situation). Oh, and sail your first ocean-worthy ship around to find Atlantis for the always game-winning (as in game-breaking) burst of free technologies. Yeah, once I was done getting the bust of every leader into my Hall of Wonders I never picked it up again.

So please we want a game with the depth and inaccessibility of Civ 4, and bring back the throne room mkay

From the video, I see a couple neat things in Civ V.    Looks like you can spend culture to buy traits for your civilization, and I think that's pretty cool.  That's like one of those "Why didn't I think of that before?" moments.   Also, from one comment the narrator made, I think you might get a cultural bonus for being the first to sail a ship around the world.   And if that's the case, that's...like...awesome.

I played Civ IV once, and no more.   There went $49.99.   Civ III I played a lot, but the problem with these civ games is that it simply takes TOO LONG to play.   Some of us have simply too many real-life responsibilities for these length games.  Games are supposed to relieve us of the stress of our everyday lives, but Civ expects to BE our everyday lives.

You guys do know that you can set Civ4 to play at different speeds right?  Want a game that finishes in a couple hours?  Play Quick, or even with advanced start.

Want a game that slows down growth and techs and everything?  Play Marathon!  (Or Epic is my sweet spot).

Want a game that speeds production of units but keeps buildings and techs slow?  Make a simple mod yourself.

Want a fantasy setting?  Play FFH2, or the Warhammer mod, or the Fire and Ice mod, or...

that's the cool thing about civ4 today, all the well developed and supported mods, so that even if you get bored of the base game you can try something completely different, yet still the same.

Then again if you just don't like the Civ series then you just don't like it, though why you bother to post in a thread about civ5 would be a good question.

Next Tuesday.

There were some really neat things in there. I particularly liked how the fog of war adapts based on the terrain. He could see a hill that was outside his normal view, because they're easier to see (same with the volcano natural wonder).

There's an interesting new podcast that talks about the AI and describes some of the unique civilzation bonuses, the transcript and video for it can be found at http://www.civilization5.com/#/community/podcast_transcript_8

The civilization bonuses seem pretty interesting and more relevent, with things like the Aztecs getting bonus culture everytime they defeat a unit and germans being able to recruit barbarians to join their armies.

The AI talk is interesting too, and sounds cool, but you always have to take AI talk from the developers with a certain grain of salt. Even Elemental was touted as having great AI before it was released.

What I saw in the game is that my machine won't be able to run it if I expect anything at all to look good.  THey either need to find a way to optomize the graphics and reduce polygon counts, or we with slower machines have to turn everything down and the game loses almost all of it's shine. Which is why I am passing on this game for now.

The demo comes out on the 21st. Give that a try and see how it runs.