Civilization V Mac-bound this holiday

Mac owners who looked on with envy as their PC brethren played Sid Meier's Civilization V this summer will no longer have to consider Boot Camp-ing their computers to play. Today, Aspyr Media announced that it is porting the strategy game to Mac systems this holiday season, under a deal with the game's original publisher, 2K Games.

Civilization V was released on PCs on September 21 to rave reviews, including a 9.0/10 score from GameSpot. As in past Civ games, it casts players in the role of a deity-like national leader who must guide one of 18 civilizations from the Stone Age to the modern era.

Along the way, players must build armies and infrastructure while conducting research and trade to achieve one of four roads to victory: military, technological, cultural, or diplomatic. That last option will have players interacting with other national leaders who speak their actual language for the first time in Civ V.

Besides improved graphics and animations, the game features a number of improvements, including hexagonal tiles versus older Civ V's grid layout. This allows for ranged fire from behind the front lines by artillery, a move that is counterbalanced by the fact military units can no longer be stacked. The game also sports a new streamlined interface, which saves time via prompts and more direct links.

For more on Civilization V, check out GameSpot's in-depth primer on the game.

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