By Quintin Smith on February 28th, 2011 at 3:15 pm.
VG24/7 has word that a Polynesia Pack will be available for purchase for Civ V this Thursday, adding a new Civilization and a new scenario for the tidy sum of £2.99. Firaxis are releasing a free map pack on the same day, too. You’ll find all your precious details and some ukulele music after the jump.
So, the pack first introduces the civilization of Polynesia, ruled by the great Kamehameha, the 18th century unifier of Hawaii who supposedly looked less like the above picture and more like this. Then there’s the new Paradise Found scenario, where you play as “one of the four great Polynesian kingdoms” (man, there’s a lot of greatness in this pack, isn’t there?) as they “strive to become the dominant culture in Polynesia”.
The pack will also introduce new technology and the “Ceremony”, “The Arts” and “Honour” social policy trees. Good stuff. I always thought Civ V could do with a few more social policies. What was there felt a little thin. Oh, and there are also Maori Warrior units.
The new maps in the free map pack are called Skirmish, Ring and Ancient Lake.
NOW. Do you guys know about the Tanguy Ukulele Orchestra? I think it’s just one guy, but he’s pretty good. In honour of Kieron, here‘s him covering First of the Gang to Die by Morrissey, and the video that follows is him covering the Cave Story music. Enjoy!
28/02/2011 at 15:24 CMaster says:
Free map pack.
Does anyone ever play Civ on premade maps anyway? Seems it rather undermines the exploration part of the game.
28/02/2011 at 17:30 jonfitt says:
Ever since Civ2 I have never got on board with any of the pre-made scenarios. I always play a few turns and think, no, no, no, this is not my civilisation.
I don’t mind the mods which let you play from prehistory with new rules, but even those are somewhat unappealing.
I much prefer expansions which add to the main grand campaign.
28/02/2011 at 18:31 Zenicetus says:
I never play the premade maps. The major appeal of a game like Civ for me, is the randomized map generator so every game is different. There aren’t many games that do this well. GalCiv2 was the last one I played with that feature.
28/02/2011 at 18:44 Carra says:
Playing on a Europe map is quite some fun :)
28/02/2011 at 20:06 sebmojo says:
Do the Maori Kairakau get a Forsaken-style Cannibalism power-up?
28/02/2011 at 15:25 Novotny says:
Any word on the patch? I’d expect it perhaps Wed now, but am dearly looking forward to it so I can give V another go.
01/03/2011 at 00:44 Lord Byte says:
Only if they’ve finally fixed the major town bug, where it will starve your city if you go for production or gold focus even though you could increase the focus without starving the city by doing it manually… Only then…
28/02/2011 at 15:27 wootles says:
They fooled me once into buying their stupid game, but they will not fool my twice into buying anything else for it. The game was such a lackluster experience after Civ 4. I still feel like a fool for buying this over-rated game.
28/02/2011 at 15:31 balooba says:
hang on. new social policies? are these just in a scenario or are these added to the main game?
seems a bit unbalanced to add new social policies to core game only for DLC purchasers (and what does this mean for MP??).
On the other hand if the social policies are only scenario based (as I suspect), its hardly as exciting as Quinns implies. And frankly boring.
Get on with a proper expansion guys, like Warlords or Beyond the Sword!
28/02/2011 at 15:38 Commisar says:
yeah, I regret getting the Civ 4 complete pack off steam for $7 this weekend
28/02/2011 at 15:33 sinelnic says:
Kamehameha? Is this a joke? Pay some respect to Dragonball please?
28/02/2011 at 15:37 Shark says:
I didn’t know Dragonball already existed before the 18th century…
28/02/2011 at 16:31 omgitsgene says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I
Books. Read them.
28/02/2011 at 16:59 Nick says:
oh dear.
28/02/2011 at 17:08 DJ Phantoon says:
Time travellers are assholes.
28/02/2011 at 19:41 Oak says:
I’m here to pay my respects to Dragonball.
01/03/2011 at 09:59 Nick says:
I’m more annoyed that they didn’t pay any respects to Napolean Dynamite.
28/02/2011 at 15:36 stahlwerk says:
Small heads up regarding your custom “Read the rest of this entry »” links: if you use the HTML-entity for »,
»instead of >> it would help keep the site appearance a bit more consistent, since that’s what the default links use.However, you may freely ignore this nitpicky information as you see fit.
28/02/2011 at 15:52 NikRichards says:
I was disapointed with CIV5, it lacked the addictiveness of the previous titles, a functional diplomacy system, and most importantly the hotseat mode that allowed me to get my girlfriend hooked.
Without any of these… It might as well be farmville through the ages.
28/02/2011 at 16:53 Xercies says:
They seemed to have white washed an ancient leader…
28/02/2011 at 17:25 AS says:
Unfortunately, ancient Polynesians had no concept of metalworking or metal to work, unlike that spear. You’ll have to make do with warriors the whole game.
01/03/2011 at 01:54 omicron1 says:
Unlike the Romans, whose Giant Death Robots turned back Hannibal’s Carthaginian Artillery in 202 BC.
28/02/2011 at 17:39 nuh uh no way says:
Yeah, hey, no. PATCHES FIRST, please.
I STILL cannot play a LAN game (and I’m assuming Internet) with my girlfriend because of this stupid gamebreaking bug where the fog of war does not disappear as you reveal it, causing you to actually LOSE your units. The entire multiplayer experience is so fucked up it makes my head spin. I have zero, ZERO issues with single player!
01/03/2011 at 14:50 Bfox says:
No kidding, does selling a harbour still crash LAN games?
I can’t remember seeing that one on the fix list…
28/02/2011 at 18:00 Alaric says:
It always bugged me about the Civilization series how they’d pick some random tribe, that never actually built a civilization of their own, and include it on par with real civilizations. I guess I’m being culturally insensitive.
28/02/2011 at 18:16 CMaster says:
Example? Because I’m not really seeing one, other than maybe the Sioux.
28/02/2011 at 18:46 Zenicetus says:
I think they’re forced into some of these civ choices just so the Earth-type map can be covered more evenly. It doesn’t pay to consider much of the Civ series realistic anyway, given the historical mismatch of leaders, and the way everyone gets the same technology progression (although it looks like they might be taking a first step towards individualized tech trees for the Polynesians?).
28/02/2011 at 19:29 Wilson says:
@Alaric – No, you’re just looking for a kind of realism that (as far as I know) the Civ games have never offered. If it really bugs you I expect you can mod them out/set up a game without them. Maybe they just wanted to mix up the game a bit by picking some unusual civ choices that people might find interesting without worrying about making sure they were on a par with the other civs in the game.
28/02/2011 at 23:08 FunkyBadger3 says:
The Celts are a pretty egregious example.
Not as bad as the French, mind.
01/03/2011 at 00:57 Oak says:
As misguised (and downright bizarre) as some of their choices have been, I do like that they continue to pepper the games with little-knowns and also-rans. Particularly in Civ 5, where civ “personalities” are more apparent.
01/03/2011 at 01:05 gritz says:
What?
Celtic civilization spanned the entire western half of the european peninsula and the British Isles and was one of the biggest existential threats to early Roman civilization. Without the celts, there would be no Julius Caesar!
And French civilization may be even more important. They were one of the most dominant powers of the Christian world for over 1000 years, including a span in the 19th century when they conquered almost all of continental Europe! They had a colonial empire that rivaled the British and Spanish! Their contributions to the worlds of art, philosophy, and science are indelible.
Leaving the French out of any game calling itself “Civilization” would be a disgrace.
01/03/2011 at 04:57 Alaric says:
I think there is some confusion between “civilization” and “culture” happening here. The French, the British, the Germans, the Americans, the Romans and the Greeks are all one civilization – Western. They are certainly very distinct in many aspects, but there is no such thing as a British or an American civilization in and of itself.
This article does a great job outlining (and grouping) most civilizations. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Civilization#Some_civilizations_in_human_history
01/03/2011 at 10:34 FunkyBadger3 says:
Celts weren’t a civilisation in any recognisable sense, beyond the borders of rome there were various tribes but they were only “celtic” in the nominal sense, no common link or confederacy between the picts in Scotchland and the Vandals in Europe for example. This civilisation contriubted nothing, and left nothing.
And the French… do I really have to explain this one… ;-)
28/02/2011 at 18:19 BobsLawnService says:
I’m also getting a bit tired of Firaxis spamming us with civilization packs and I eagrely await the first real expansion pack that fleshes out the game a bit more. I like the way they went back to their Civ 1 roots and built a new game on that but it’s time to expand the game a bit.
28/02/2011 at 19:13 Mark says:
Did anyone else just hum the Hawaii Five-O theme in their head immediately after seeing that headline?
28/02/2011 at 22:01 BubbaNZ says:
Yes!
http://www.bigbob.com/five-o/files/h5ostart.mid
28/02/2011 at 19:28 kwyjibo says:
Wow, because everyone was clamouring out for Polynesia. Drinking and fucking on worthless desert islands is what Civilization is about. The pinnacle of their technological progression is the cargo cult.
28/02/2011 at 23:10 FunkyBadger3 says:
Finest sailors since the vikings. I’d like to see you canoe across the pacific with nothing but a piece of knotted string to help you.
01/03/2011 at 01:34 Thants says:
Huh, I never considered that people would be racist against the Polynesians but I guess you learn something new everyday.
01/03/2011 at 07:04 Zenicetus says:
Yeah, for a very long period of time, the Polynesians were the world’s best blue-water sailors and navigators. This was during a period when European and Asian sailors were nervous about getting out of sight of land. Not a bad basis for a Civ,… although you’d have to assume they would conquer outside the home islands to form the basis for an industrial civilization later in the game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation
01/03/2011 at 10:35 FunkyBadger3 says:
Thants: ever been to New Zealand?
28/02/2011 at 19:31 Xiyng says:
Good, good. Now just make a big huge bundle with all the DLC, stick it with the main game and call it Civ V Complete. Then I’m more likely to buy it. Oh, and fix whatever remains to be fixed.
01/03/2011 at 14:59 Nick says:
tbh I still wouldn’t bother.
28/02/2011 at 22:42 rocketman71 says:
Wake me up when all the big bugs that somehow passed through QA are squashed, and Civ V is on a Steam Sale with all the stupid DLC in a neat package.
I have a lot of Civ IV to play in the meantime.
01/03/2011 at 00:47 malkav11 says:
All of the Civ DLC so far seems wildly overpriced. Even though Civilization choice makes a bigger impact on the game than historically has been true of the series, it’s still a long way from something like Alpha Centauri on that front. But really, even if each individual Civ were a significant gameplay variation on that level or more so, I’d still likely balk at shelling out $5 per. I mean, jeez.
01/03/2011 at 03:58 pipman3000 says:
ewww gross, the guys on civfanatics who always complain when firaxis adds a civilization that isn’t white have found their way here.
i might get this because that screen shot has moai heads in it and i’m really shallow.
01/03/2011 at 10:30 formivore says:
Almost as bad as the people who complain when firaxis adds a civ that isn’t Korea.
01/03/2011 at 10:25 The Sombrero Kid says:
When are they going to fix the AI?
Ohh and the crash bugs on Huge maps with the graphics settings turned up?