In case you missed it, my Civ 5 review is now up at Gameshark.

Some very intelligent readers and friends are taking the “not an A” score as an indictment of the game. Considering that all of the early reviews were total and complete raves (early rave reviews for a major franchise! shocking!), this is understandable. Readers and colleagues I trust really, really love Civilization 5.

And you know what? So do I. I really love the design. I really love the look. I really, really, really, really love the UI. But none of these can overcome the fact that the AI cannot be courted as an ally, and that’s a step back to Civ 1 idiocy I can’t handle. Or that the AI cannot manage a budget. Or build an army worth a damn. Or use the game’s clever naval adjustment to be a threat. (Remember when Mansa Musa would cross the ocean with galleons of rifles and cannons and force you to build a navy? Unnecessary here. Sweep the seas of invaders with a single frigate.)

But Civilization 5 is a triumph in some very important ways. First, the things I did not expect to like all that much prove to be genius. Science and gold are not entirely decoupled – if you run a deficit, your research will eventually suffer – but buildings have specific purposes. I did not mention in the review that some buildings can only exist in certain locations. Monasteries need incense or wine in the area. Observatories need mountains. Mints need precious metals. These not only lead to city specialization, they make it easy to integrate terrain and geography into your city planning more than just looking for a hilltop. Libraries don’t give culture, just science, so you can’t use them to push your borders out quickly. That’s what temples are for, and they don’t add happiness.

And, surprisingly, I do not miss religion. I thought I would. And the new social policy system is growing on me. The question of when to open another tree instead of taking another immediately available perk is a big one in every game. I think that if you want a culture victory, you need to decide on that very early. There are fewer super culture buildings like in Civ 4 (no cathedrals or Rock/Broadway/Hollywood wonders) so you need to farm the culture city states to make it work. I am always just a few policies short of a Utopia Project win when the clock runs out.

The military system works really well. An early mod removes the single unit per hex limit, which strikes me as madness since you can’t build huge armies anyway without going broke. You might as well cut maintenance costs or reduce their hammer cost. I can see Civ as a wargame; as a diplomatic game it fails utterly but as a world conquest game it is excellent so long as you know that victory is probably inevitable – and some people like that.

I say many of these things in my review and I end on a very positive note. But because the expectations for Civ are always sky high, anything less than an editor’s choice seems like an insult when it is not meant as such. Now, if this was back at Crispy Gamer, Civ would get a Buy It from me. This is a game you need to own; I think Civilization 4 was more complete on release but I am not going back.

Next week’s podcast will be entirely about Civilization. My colleagues have had very stark and strong reactions to many of the systems in the game. We could have done it this week, but our special guest is just getting to it now and I want his opinions there.