As some of you might already know, Firaxis Games has decided to switch from its classic square tile to a hexagonal tile system for Civilization V. The game also doesn't allow players to group all of their units on one of the titles. Instead you are limited to just one unit per hex which makes gameplay, ironically, more strategic than previous games in the series where you could just put down a massive force on one tile. It will also affect movement in the actual game. Units can only move from sides with no corner movement allowed this time.

Another new feature is one that first showed up in Civilization III but was bypassed for the fourth game in the series. That's the advisers feature where folks will come up and give you some help from time to time. It should help new players get into the game more quickly while at the same time giving experienced players a helping hand without it being too annoying.

Units in the game are still turn-based but Firaxis Games is giving Civilization V some RTS elements. One of them is the ability for ranged units to actually attack tiles that can be several titles away on a map. Yet another new element that seems to come from RTS game is the idea of city-states. These are places on the map that players can either conquer through military means or establish more friendly relationships with (but really, where's the fun in that?). Having city-states under your control offers the player special bonuses and will even join you when you come into combat with a military faction.
Visually, Civilization V is already the best looking game in the series yet by far, even with a few months to go before it comes out. While the previous titles in the franchise were not ugly by any means, this new title certainly ups the ante in terms of its graphics with some great looking animation for units, character models and special effects. At one point we got to see a nuclear missile take out a city tile and the mushroom cloud animation was very pretty while at the same time devastating.

The game's user interface has been streamlined somewhat but we wouldn't say its been "dumbed down" in any way. It's been designed to only show what might be relevant to the player at any one time. We expect the game will also have mod tools released for it although there was nothing mentioned about mod support in our E3 demo.

Quite frankly we were a bit afraid about the prospects for Civilization V before we saw the E3 2010 demo. The title was just announced and is due out in September and on the surface that strongly suggests that 2K Games and its Take Two Interactive parent want to get this game done quickly and have it on sale to boost up the publisher's revenue.

Thankfully the demonstration of the game live and in action during E3 2010 have quelled our fears somewhat. Civilization V is looking like it will please fans of the original while at the same time attracting new fans to a series that has something of a reputation of having a bit of a learning curve. You can bet we want to actually get our hands on with a build of the game before its scheduled September 21 release.