14 DAY TRIAL // Firaxis, the developer of the upcoming Civilization V, has announced that it plans to put together a demo for the game that is set to be launched before the official street game of the turn based strategy. The team has not said when the demo would be released, but it will be before the September 21 when the game will hit stores in North America. It's also not clear what the demo version will contain but it will probably limited through turn number.
Civilization V is coming exclusively on the PC and offering a demo is important because of the changes that Firaxis is set to make in the new installment of the turn based strategy game. Squares are gone, replaced by hexes, meaning that any place can be attacked from six different directions, possibly making the game more tactical. The team has also eliminated the stacking element for military units, meaning that players will need to pay more attention to how they prepare military strikes and eliminating the dreaded stack of doom from Civilization IV. Long term fans of the franchise will probably pick up the demo to see how the changes work out before they pay for the full game while newcomers will use it to see whether the new Civilization is more dynamic.
Firaxis has also announced that Morgan Sheppard, a voice actor that has lot of experience working in video games and science fiction based television shows and movies, will be lending his voice to the narrations that accompany the discovery of new technologies in the game.
Civilization V appears to be a significant step away from the well known mechanics of the series, a necessary answer given the popularity of the previous installment, and it will be interesting to see how the turn based gaming community responds to them. Firaxis has also promised to offer more community tools for the game and enhance mod support.