Sid Meier's Civilization V

The latest Civilization game takes those basics and layers onto them new features that make moment-to-moment gameplay feel more dynamic than in the past. Most noticeably, the square grids of previous Civilization games have been jettisoned in favor of hexagons that nicely accommodate the other most consequential transformations: Military units can no longer be stacked, and ranged units can fire from multiple tiles away.

Most noticeably, the square grids of previous Civilization games have been jettisoned in favor of hexagons that nicely accommodate the other most consequential transformations: Military units can no longer be stacked, and ranged units can fire from multiple tiles away. Civilization V, like previous games in the series, is about leading a nation through the eras of history, starting with a single city and expanding across the map. There are four main ways to win a typically lengthy game of Civilization V. You could dominate through military means and defeat every civilization's capital city. If a unit is waiting for orders, the button says so, and clicking it takes you to the unit in question. If it's time to research a new technology, you click the button and it opens the research menu. Switching between a city's production menu and the production queue is needlessly clunky, and the diplomatic overview doesn't label the tiny icons indicating what luxury resources other civilizations are producing. The culture you gain is spent on social policies, which have replaced the governments of Civilization IV. The move to hexagons sets the stage for Civilization V's tactical combat. As a result, you must be extremely conscious of each unit's weaknesses and strengths; a unit's position in regards to both its enemies and other friendly units; and whether or not any terrain bonuses apply. There is a rock-paper-scissors relationship among units that further deepens as units level up and you progress through the eras. It also encourages you to keep your veteran units alive. Minor civilizations called city-states are one of Civilization V's newer additions. While you need an open-border agreement to pass freely through the territories of other civilizations, you may pass through a neutral city-state's borders without such a treaty, though city-states that aren't friendly to you will take offense at trespassing. A toggle to allow or disallow exploring units to pass through city-state borders would have been a helpful addition.