Sid Meier's Civilization V (PC) (2010)

My civilization.

20150606:
Skimming the chronology of 4X games on Wikipedia.org, it would seem I haven't played any.

While it was four hours before I started feeling a little comfortable with the game, it was also starting to become quite fun - in part because it started feeling a little bit like The Sims.

Expanding my domain.

It was, however, just the tutorial and I couldn't imagine how aggressive the real game would be. Actually, on a related note, I started to wonder whether I was playing just a tutorial or a real game with tutorial-like tips.

However, after eight hours of playing the tutorial - because it was addicting - I found you out that I was in fact playing the tutorial, and that the game doesn't allow the tutorial to be saved. D'oh!

A hexagonal view of the map

With that being said, I didn't stop playing until the eleventh hour. Oh my goodness, I was so tired, but also so addicted... to the tutorial.

Setup:
The game was automatically launched as Sid Meier's Civilation V: Brave New World - although I'm not sure how that affects the tutorial.

Tutorial - Learn as you Play! (no saving)

Steam Game Time: 10.3 hours

[20151107 Edit]

Thoughts:
Pros:
+ With enough effort, the game becomes fun.
+ Excellent graphics
+ Rich story and gameplay options (e.g., tech tree)
+ Hundreds (even thousands) of hours can be spent playing Civ V

Neutral:
~ My graphic options were set too high and caused the game to lag.

The Tech Tree is rich and gives the player many options.

Cons:
- Huge, steep learning curve. The learning curve is so massive, it's almost overwhelming.
- The controls are sometimes weird and the movement/combat doesn't always behave the way I expect them to.
- No undo button. This would be fine if the units moved where I told them to, but they don't. I wish there were at least a confirm button.

The Roman Empire (purple) blocks my way.

- On a related note to the above, movement and attack (or lack of) was confusing. I had a lot of trouble identify when I could move and also do an action.

Summary:
After this initial eleven-hour experience with the tutorial, I would definitely play this game again, but would remember to change a bunch of the game options to make the turns go by quicker.

After I build up an army around Cumae, Caesar calls me out.

While I have only experienced the tutorial, I would easily recommend this game to anybody seeking a rich 4x (Wikipedia.org) gameplay experience.

But you don't have to take my word for it. One "negative" review on Steam humorously says, "Stop trying to find negative reviews for this game JUST GET IT ALREADY!!!!!" (Only 3% of reviews on Steam are negative, and a good number of them are quite positive.)

Don't worry Caesar, I'm gonna do more than just destroy Cumae.

Sid Meier's Civilization V (PC) (2010)
Expansion packs: Gods and Kings (2012), Brave New World (Jul 2013)
DLC: Scrambled Continents Map Pack (Oct 2013), Scrambled Nations Map Pack (Nov (2013).