Civilization is coming back, so if some of your acquaintances suddenly disappear Sept. 21st or so then you will know what they are up to.  The big changes are of course the lack of a world overview and the move to a hex based system, known to all who have been following the development of Sid’s new game, but ExtremeTech has wrinkled out a few new details.  The most unexpected is probably the system requirements; they used a Core i7-975, 6GB of DDR3 and an ATI Radeon HD 5870 at 1,920 by 1,200 with all settings at maximum and saw stuttering later in the game.  They cover a lot more of the changes in the article which is a must read for fans of the series.
“Believe it or not, it’s been almost 20 years since Sid Meier foisted upon the unsuspecting PC gaming world the turn -based strategy equivalent of nicotine. Upon its release in 1991, Meier’s Civilization set the bar stratospherically high not just for strategy games but any game that wanted to brand itself as addictive. And as both full-scale revisions (in 1996, 2001, and 2005) and eight or so spin-offs and expansions came along in the years after, it became increasingly clear that Civilization was the chief source among PC gamers for lost hours of sleep, lost hours at work, and lost significant others. This could prove to be a problem all over again when 2K Games releases Civilization V later this fall.”

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