IGN have published a full preview of Civilization V highlighting many previously unknown information about the game. The full article can be found here, or read below for a summary of the details.





Overview / Interface:
- "fears that Civilization Revolution on the console has dumbed down the gameplay of the PC sequel are unfounded."
- "accessibility just means the developers want to make it easier to understand and manipulate the complexity within the game."
- Interface influenced by CivRev is terms of convenience (not reduction). eg: Common actions on left of screen, can be expanded to show all actions.
- "Small icons will pop up each turn to notify players of new events that might require attention and clicking on those icons will take players to the location in question."
- "Advisors are also making a return to counsel new players on particular aspects of the game but their overall tone will be much more serious than in previous versions of Civ."
- "Even with the streamlined interface, veteran players will still be comforted to see that the top line of the screen reveals the presence of the hardcore elements, tracking things like science and gold production, happiness, culture, resources, and even the time remaining on any Golden Ages."


Combat:
- "Cities will automatically defend themselves now, and can benefit from increased defense based on certain structures or technologies, so you don't necessarily need to garrison a unit for defense but you can if you want to."
- "Because you're limited to just one unit per hex, battles have the potential to be much more tactical, both with regard to the placement of your units and geographical obstacles. We saw a few battles that highlighted the significance of the new system. In one, two groups of units were facing off against each other around a one-hex lake. An archer unit was able to fire at enemy units on the far side of the lake and stay protected from melee attack by two allied units on either side. In another battle, a small group of powerful units were able to hold off a much larger attacking army in a narrow mountain pass. Because the attacker could only bring one unit into the fight at a time, the defender was able to eliminate the numerical disadvantage."
- "Fortunately, the game will allow adjacent allied units to swap positions, so you can keep fresh troops engaged with the enemy and rescue your ranged units from contact with melee fighters."





AI:
- "A lot of effort is being made to ensure that the AI in Civilization V behaves in a way that makes sense."
- "At the top of the ladder is the grand strategic AI, which decides how to win the game. If the grand strategic AI decides to go for a conquest victory, the strategic AI will build the infrastructure needed to wage war and the operational and tactical AIs will choose and fight the battles. That way the tactical AI won't be fighting battles merely for the sake of fighting battles, but because those battles are relevant in the grand strategic AI's big picture. In the case of the conquest victory, the AI will be aiming to capture the other civ's capitals, which is all that's needed for a military victory this time."
- "an AI that keeps the detailed decisions in line with the overall objective -- winning the game."


Civs / Leaders:
- Askia: Songhai
- Katherine: Russia
- Gandhi: India
- Elizabeth: England
- Montezuma: Aztec
- Napoleon: France
- Bismark: Germany
- Suleiman: Ottoman
- Washington: America
- Caesar: Rome
- Rameses: Egypt
- "Flavors define a leader's preference for certain types of gameplay and, to a large extent, you'll be able to guess which way a particular leader will lean."
- "Katherine has a high expansion flavor, so the Russian empire will have lots of cities."
- "Elizabeth has a very high naval warfare flavor, so her English empire will strive for control of the seas."
- "If England starts in the middle of a large continent but near horses, Elizabeth will suspend her focus on fleets and instead put more emphasis on horse warfare."
- "The grab bag of leader traits from the previous Civilization games is gone now in favor of traits that are entirely unique to each leader."


Diplomacy:
- "The diplomacy screen is now a full 3D environment complete with animated leaders speaking in their own language."
- On background: "so you'll meet Gandhi by the river, Napoleon on the battlefield and Bismarck in his office. The backgrounds are animated, and in some cases even interactive, so you'll see Askia standing in front of a burning town he's just conquered, or watch as Washington casually spins a globe."
- "Suleiman look a bit like a Turkish Santa Claus."
- "If you defeat Askia, he is belligerent and promises vengeance. Washington on the other hand, seems depressed by defeat, almost as if he's thinking about the people he's let down. Oda, on the other hand, is actually a little more gracious towards the player in defeat, suggesting that you've finally won his respect. One of the best displays of personality is Caesar's declaration of war. He announces he's going to crush your civilization almost like it's a waste of his time."
- "In addition to the regular offerings, civs that have discovered writing can also form research pacts with each other. For a little bit of cash up front, each civ gets a 15% boost to research for 20 turns."





Resources:
- "One hex of a given luxury resource is now good enough to improve happiness across your entire civ now as well, which should also encourage more trading among civilizations. If you've got two marble and two dye, there's no reason to avoid trading one of each away if you can get access to ivory or spice."
- "Strategic resources are handled differently. There the quantity is very important. One iron deposit, for instance, will only grant you the right to build and maintain, say, five iron-based units."


City-states:
- Florence confirmed
- "they're like NPCs that can help grease the wheels of diplomacy by offering bonuses to the civs that they like best."
- "If you give them gifts of gold or units, they'll start to like you. If you fulfill their requests, like saving them from a barbarian attack or capturing one of their city-state rivals, they'll like you even more. If you liberate them from a foreign conqueror, you've probably made a friend for life."
- "It's interesting because even between two civs that have no other reason to hate each other, the presence of a small third party can make diplomacy so much more complicated. Imagine that the tiny city of Florence is right between Hamburg and New York. The Germans and Americans might not have any reason to go to war with each other except for the swaying sympathies of this one tiny city and the bonuses that it confers. History's full of large wars that were launched over small cities, so it's great to see the chance for that to play out in Civ V."





Borders:
- "Borders are also handled a bit differently. Instead of just dropping a big culture bomb at certain thresholds, a city's territory will keep better pace with population and grow one tile at a time."
- "It's still based on culture, and you can drop some cash to speed things up, but culture growth will be more relevant over the long term in Civ V."
- "the game will weight growth towards "good" tiles like grassland or wheat and away from "bad" tiles like forests and mountains."
- "If you found a city right on the edge of Rameses' borders and suddenly start rapidly taking over all the land that produces the most food, you're likely provoking him to start a fight."


Visuals / Sound:
- "the whole game makes use of distinct geographic flavors, so you'll be able to tell whether a forest is meant to represent Europe, Africa, Asia or the Americas. The entire game has a much more painterly look, as well, which makes it seem more natural overall."
- "you'll be able to hear the tiles you're focused on but also the sounds of the desert or water off in the distance."
- "if you've got a surround setup, you'll hear them happening relative to where they are on the screen."
- "Each civ has lists of licensed music from its own culture (Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and America), and you'll hear either the war playlist or the peace playlist depending on how you're behaving."


Final Word:
- "While the community is likely hungry for even the minutest details (yes, you need to research the calendar to access cotton; yes, you can build Shakespeare's Amphitheater; yes, Montezuma is in the game) we're more curious about the bigger picture."
- "we'll have to be patient until we get more information."