Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gold Edition

Firaxis are breaking every rule in the trailer-making guidebook with this Policies & Ideologies featurette for Civilization 5's Brave New World expansion. For starter's it's called Policies & Ideologies. That's not what you call a trailer. You call a trailer "HYPER-BALLS ACTION SHINDIG," or something equally preposterous. At the very least, you add in a bombastic dubstep drop over blood-spattered bold text.

Confession time: I prefer this. Ideological choices that have an effect on diplomacy and abilities? Expanded and revised social policies? Oh, talk politics to me, Mr. Civ 5 Narrator.

Brave New World is due out July 9th in the US, and July 12th "internationally". For more on the expansion, see our hands-on preview here, or read Advisor T.J's guide to the new units and leaders.

I've never played a game of Civilization V from the Ancient Era to the Modern Era. I start out intending to, but then there are no fish or whales off the coast of my starting territory, and Gandhi builds the Great Wall before I can, and Dido founds a city near the inlet where I was planning to put a city, and it's the worst thing that has ever happened to me so I start over.

Here's another confession: after 40 hours of Skyrim, I haven't completed more than a few main storyline quests. Instead, I've created character after character, because I’m indecisive and terrified of commitment.

If you're a serial restarter too, let's work on it together with some help from one of the internet's most plentiful resources: banal relationship advice. By slightly reworking advice for the romantically cold-footed, I've developed a plan to help us stop starting over.

Get over the honeymoon phase

I love the initial exploration and discovery in Civ V, and designing RPG characters is my favorite part of playing RPGs, because I become obsessed with the idea of what’s ahead of me; all the potential scenarios I can imagine.

And then it starts getting serious. Oh no. I'm doing more work but I'm getting fewer rewards, and shockingly, the game hasn't molded itself to my imagination’s grand specifications. My glorious naval empire turns out to be a few coastal cities and some boats. My cunning thief is a mute skeleton murderer. My space pirate is mining space rocks. And none of those things ever want to cuddle anymore.

...Except my EVE Online character, maybe.

My fantasies gives way to actual game mechanics. It becomes a Serious Relationship, and it's harder, but ultimately more rewarding. That initial passion is nice, but it doesn't compare to the stories I get from a long-term relationship, when I actually start to care about a character's progression.

So don't be afraid to care. It leaves you open to be hurt—like, say, when an unmet civilization builds the Great Lighthouse first or when an actual pirate suicide ganks you—but that's OK. You can raze their cities and starbases later.

Stop dating playing as the same character
 
This may be my biggest problem: I almost always choose rogue, thief, or some analogue in RPGs, and I’ve built this concept map in my head of all the things they should be. No one game can deliver all those things, and my disappointment leads to futile re-rolling. As long as I don't get too far, I can't be disappointed, right?

There's an easy solution: don’t keep playing the same character hoping they’ll be a more perfect version of the last. When I try a warrior or mage class, I’m more willing to let the game inform what I can and can’t do, because I haven’t built such a rigid ideal. In Civilization, where I love seafaring nations, my longest and most interesting game was played as landlocked Germans.

Let your characters be imperfect. Let them be who they are, because they will never be exactly who you want them to be.

I've had more fun as Mr. Purrface than with any of my "serious" character builds.

Don't use rough patches as an excuse to flee

When I contracted vampirism in Skyrim, I almost rowed against the current back to a previous save, but I'm so glad I went down that river instead (if not very far). Building a narrative as I go is always more rewarding than trying to overlay my ideal story, and that's especially the case when things don't go according to plan. Tragic stories are inherently interesting, and failure isn't something to undo. Remind yourself of that.

Note: In actual human relationships, contracting diseases should be avoided. Other than that, this analogy is perfect.

See a therapist—you have unresolved issues from your childhood

OK, this analogy isn't perfect. I may have coasted through my psychology elective, if you must know.

The point is: serial restarters are missing out. The goal of these games is to start down a path and react to its twists—to let it challenge us—but instead we're caught in a loop, trying to find a perfect path where there is none. If you identify with this problem, pit the brunt of your willpower against it by vowing to keep playing regardless of the outcome, or use in-game mechanics—XCOM's Ironman mode, for instance—to force your own hand.

From now on, I'm going to be a one-character man. Well, probably not, but I'm going to try.

While the Brave New World expansion's new, more active cultural victory path is sure to be a great addition over a long Civilization V campaign, it's not the most exciting subject for a one and a half minute trailer. Still, Firaxis do an admirable job in dramatising it - equating the system to the game's more visually immediate battles, by comparing culture to defence and tourism to offence. Anyone who's seen a group of Brits abroad could argue that they've got a point.

In addition to the archaeology, great works, museums and tourism detailed in the trailer, Brave New World will also bring trade routes, and an expanded Diplomacy path through the World Congress. You can read about how these new systems will change the game in our announcement interview here, then check out how the expansion bolsters your campaign's late-game in our hands-on.

Brave New World is due for release July 12th.

Civilization V's second and final major expansion, Brave New World, is promising to bring more depth and diversity to the endgame on July 9. Lead Designer Ed Beach recently spoke with Revision 3, going into detail on some of the systems we've seen glimpses of in the past. We grabbed some of the more interesting new details, and set our worker units to build a Handy List improvement in the space below.

Portugal

Portugal, one of the new civs being introduced, is master of exploration and trade. Their unique unit, the Nao, has a one-time trade ability that allows them to sell luxury goods in foreign territory for a gold payout. The amount of gold is based on the trade location's distance from your own borders.
The Portuguese unique improvement is the Feitoria. It can be built in the territory of any city-state (even a hostile one, if you have the forces to protect your workers while they build it). Once constructed, it will give you access to a copy of every luxury resource that city-state controls.

Trade

The new Cargo Ship units are used to establish trade routes between coastal cities. Creating domestic trade routes will produce production or food. International trade routes with other civs will produce gold, as well as science for whichever trading partner is less advanced. Religious pressure also spreads along trade routes.
The amount of gold generated from an international trade route is based on the difference in luxury resources at both ends. Two cities that both have gold and spice would not create a lot of profit, trade-wise. But a city with gold and spice trading with a city that has silk and pearls would be very lucrative.
Domestic trade routes will be a good way of getting food or production to distant colonies that can't produce a lot on their own, initially.

Archaeology

The archaeology sites we've heard about previously can be turned into a permanent landmark with an ongoing benefit, or broken down for a one-time boost.
Archaeology digs can be constructed anywhere your units have access to, but dig sites in foreign territory will upset the civ that owns the land.
A new policy tree, Exploration, can unlock a secondary set of hidden archaeological sites for the first civ to reach the end.

World Congress

The first civ to meet every other civ on the map will found and host the World Congress.
Your number of delegates at the World Congress will change as the eras progress. The host civ always gets a bonus to the base number, but eventually, every City-State you have as an ally will give you additional delegates.
The purpose of the World Congress is to change the rules of the game. Only two civs will be able to propose resolutions for everyone to vote on: the host civ, and one other determined by criteria that was not revealed.
Some example resolutions include trade embargoes, banning specific luxury goods (such as whales), imposing a tax on all standing armies, and a shared World's Fair. The World's Fair is a shared wonder that all civs can contribute production to. Once completed, rewards will be granted based on each civ's level of contribution.
Any civ that can propose a resolution can also motion to repeal a previous one.
There is a special sub-set of resolutions that cannot be proposed by any civ. Rather, they will automatically be put up for a vote when certain technological milestones are reached. These include changing the host of the World Congress (regularly recurring), building an International Space Station shared wonder, and enacting bans on nuclear proliferation.
One such resolution is naming a World Leader, which is the trigger for Diplomatic Victory. This vote comes up at the World Congress on regular intervals once someone constructs the United Nations (at which point the World Congress is renamed as the UN).

Other

The Freedom, Autocracy, and Order ideologies (formerly just represented by Policy trees) are now mandatory. Once you research Industrialization, you will be forced to pick one of the three. Each one lends itself to three of the four victory conditions (military, diplomatic, cultural, and science) and locks you out of the fourth. It also has a stronger effect on who your friends and rivals will be from the Industrial Era forward.

Be sure to check out our hands-on preview for more on Brave New World, as well as our interview from the announcement.

Earlier this week I spoke to Ed Beach, Lead Designer on the Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion, as well as the upcoming Brave New World expansion. I asked Beach for his thoughts on Civ V designer Jon Shafer's recent self-criticisms regarding Civilization V's one unit per tile system and leader AI quirks. "He was a little harsh on it," said Beach. "And I won't try to guess as to exactly what his frame of mind was, where he's coming from."

"Unit stacking can be a problem in Civ V, and I definitely think we've been acknowledging that for a while," continued Beach. "In Gods & Kings we made a change so that embarked land units could stack with naval units, because there was a lot of congestion out in the seas. So, there were definitely issues, but I'm still a big fan of one unit per tile. I think it improves the combat in so many ways, there's so much more tactical maneuvering and positioning."

Though he didn't address Civ V's notoriously fickle AI leaders, Beach went on to explain how the one unit per tile system has been improved over time.

"I think you just have to make sure, when you're designing a game like this with a one unit per tile system, that you're setting out for one unit per tile where it's helpful for you, like in spreading out the combat units and adding that tactical positioning play to the military side of it, and you're not enforcing one unit per tile rules in places where it's just getting in the player's way.

"So, I'm a big fan of one unit per tile, but I think we didn't quite hit it right with the initial release, in terms of where it was important to enforce it, and where we could just relax the rules a little bit. As long as we keep that in the forefront of our thinking, we'll be fine."



I also pointed out that Civilization is a series which is known to improve over time with expansions, but wondered what informs the decision to tear it all down and start over with a new numbered game.

"You want to set things up where you have a great foundation to build upon, and when you've invested in building that initial framework, you want to leverage that and get as many cool systems in to play off of that base as possible," said Beach.

"There is a point in time where, as you put each of those systems in, you learn a lot about the base game...and you see where things are working, and where things are still holding you back a little bit. You start to get to the point where, those things you can't change about the base game, because they're so fundamental to this particular iteration, are holding you back from what you want to try, then it's time to start looking at a new foundation."

I acknowledged that Beach obviously couldn't hint at plans for Civilization VI, to which he responded, "It is true that there are now 43 civs in the game, and the most any Civ has had up until now was 34. We actually hit 34 with Gods & Kings, and now we're going to be nine beyond it. So, that particular number is getting way up there."