Civilization V- Might actually be good now. Stay tuned.

[Lantyssa]

Who are you and what have you done with the real Sky?!

Drug testing.

[Murgos]

GameTrailers gave Civ V a 94.  Not sure if it's the highest score they've ever given but it's up there.

[Malakili]

I've seen nothing but excellent reviews so far (for whatever they are worth).  Looking forward to playing some tomorrow night, though to be honest, I am going to have a lot of work to do... going to try to squeeze in a couple hours.

[Stormwaltz]

Did they ditch espionage and corporations?

Those are two systems that flatly ruined Civ4 for me, and - apparently - they were both the precious, precious children of Civ5's lead designer.

[Big Gulp]

Did they ditch espionage and corporations?

Those are two systems that flatly ruined Civ4 for me, and - apparently - they were both the precious, precious children of Civ5's lead designer.

Read one review that said they're both gone.

[WayAbvPar]

As is religion.

I broke down and bought it from Steam over the weekend. And couldn't control myself, so I ended up with the deluxe edition. In my defense, I was under the impression it was $69.99 instead of $59.99, so I figured the 10 bux was doable.

A little less than 18 hours to go. Woooooooohoooooo.

[Soulflame]

Not liking espionage I can understand.  Having spies whack parts of my infrastructure, when I simply couldn't figure out a defense, was really irritating.

I'm not sure I get disliking corporations though.

I don't mind both being gone from Civ V, for sure.

[Paelos]

I think streamlining the game in those regards was a good idea since the single unit thing really brings the strategy back into this TBS game. A lot of the features were really just pointless bloat they added to the game when everything devolved into stack on stack wankery.

[bhodi]

You can save $15 if you buy it through D2D before 10am tomorrow, if you want the first DLC (scenario maps and extra civ) and don't care about the music CD & making of video, using the D2D and the PAX promo code "PAX".

Get what amounts to the steam deluxe edition gameplay for $44.95.

Note that this is exactly like buying through steam, since civ5 is a steamworks game; they literally email you a cd-key and you add it to your account & preload through steam. Just like a steam game, except that you save $15.

Small note: This MIGHT not be 100% true, it includes "Double Civilization 1st DLC" instead of "Babylon" which some people think may be different. This is why I hate fucking DLC.

[Tannhauser]

I'm going to miss religion in Civ V.  I wish they had made it less powerful.  I like to try to convert every religion to mine, haven't done it yet, was close with Buddhism but those damn Hindu kept at it.  Sent them all to meet their pagan gods!

BUDDHA OR A BEATIN', YOUR CHOICE.

[Rasix]

The reviews are making this hard to resist.  But I must.. tomorrow is also DeathSpank and next week is Dead Rising 2.   I MUST BE STRONG.

[naum]

http://fidgit.com/archives/2010/09/10_cool_things_in_civilization.php

OTOH, don't like reading the reports that the game has been dumbed down.

That and dumping religion.

[Musashi]

snip

You just saved me 15$.  Thanks, bro.

[Merusk]

Not liking espionage I can understand.  Having spies whack parts of my infrastructure, when I simply couldn't figure out a defense, was really irritating.

I'm not sure I get disliking corporations though.

I don't mind both being gone from Civ V, for sure.

I think a lot of people disliked corps because they ate resources and you couldn't block people from sending them at you without nuking open border agreements, which was worse than the resource nuking.

Religions, on the other hand, were fun but couldn't be implemented correctly in their attempt to keep them PC.  I'll miss them but we're better off without them as they were implemented.

Until I play, I keep filing people who complain it was "Dumbed Down" into the "They used all the stacking exploits they could" file.

Ed: From reading the list naum linked, the complaints about 'dumbing down' also seem to be aimed at quality of life fixes.  No micromanaging planes and transports?  About fucking time.  The only thing I'm iffy about is the insta-build with gold.. but hey, if a turn is a decade why not.  Also, #5 on that list? Definitely not 'dumbing down.'  I like it.

[fuser]

Small note: This MIGHT not be 100% true, it includes "Double Civilization 1st DLC" instead of "Babylon" which some people think may be different. This is why I hate fucking DLC.

Thanks man at worst you saved me $5 

Preloading now on steam.

[Segoris]

You can save $15 if you buy it through D2D before 10am tomorrow, if you want the first DLC (scenario maps and extra civ) and don't care about the music CD & making of video, using the D2D and the PAX promo code "PAX".

Get what amounts to the steam deluxe edition gameplay for $44.95.

Note that this is exactly like buying through steam, since civ5 is a steamworks game; they literally email you a cd-key and you add it to your account & preload through steam. Just like a steam game, except that you save $15.

Small note: This MIGHT not be 100% true, it includes "Double Civilization 1st DLC" instead of "Babylon" which some people think may be different. This is why I hate fucking DLC.

Either it is only $5 off or the deal changed (I put the text on the checkout below in the spoiler). The Pax promo code is only for $5 off, not $15. The link you provided only leads to the regular version ($49.95 -$5 = $44.95) and only has the scenario pack DLC for pre-ordering, while the deluxe version includes the scenario pack and Babylon but will cost $54.95 after the promo code is added.

Here's the differences of the deluxe versions (not counting soundtrack and behind the scenes because those don't matter anyways  ):
D2D is the first double civilization DLC scenario pack (for pre-ordering) and Babylon civ (for the deluxe version)
Steam is the Cradle of Civilizations map pack (for pre-ordering) and Babylon civ (for the deluxe version)

Supposedly, both the double civ and cradle of civ will be available for purchasable DLC at a later, unannounced, date.


All that said, thanks for the code and saving a few people $5. Hopefully people are clear as to which version does what.

Edit: Obviously, buying the regular version you lose out on the Babylon civ and leader, but then it really is $44.95
Edit 2: due to taxes, $5 off saves just over $1 compared to Steam (US-IL resident fwiw)

[Ingmar]

I don't suppose the Steam version will be active at midnight tonight... right?

[Segoris]

I believe 10am pst tomorrow as that is when Steam starts their Tuesday. Could be wrong but I'm fairly sure that is accurate.

[Sky]

Drug testing.

Conservative board of directors. Not worth losing my career because my name shows up in the paper for a violation. Sucks, but I like my house.

I keep filing people who complain it was "Dumbed Down" into the "They used all the stacking exploits they could" file.

Civ IV was a dumbed-down version of FFH2. Civ is dumbed down to bland vanilla mediocrity.

[Numtini]

I believe 10am pst tomorrow as that is when Steam starts their Tuesday. Could be wrong but I'm fairly sure that is accurate.

It would appear from when it says it will unlock that it's 10am eastern.

I had no clue, I had expected to get in a half hour of playing before work :(

[Lantyssa]

I did, too.  Have a bit of extra time because of a dentist appointment.  Now I'm reading about Civ V instead of playing it. 

[Xuri]

You can save $15 if you buy it through D2D before 10am tomorrow, if you want the first DLC (scenario maps and extra civ) and don't care about the music CD & making of video, using the D2D and the PAX promo code "PAX".

Thanks a lot! Steam and PayPal have up until this point refused to allow me to use my Norwegian VISA-card to shop steam-games from Canada, and I do not yet have a Canadian credit-card, so was kinda stumped on how to actually pre-order this :P Direct2Drive accepted my order though. Installing the game in Steam right now xD

[Tebonas]

Is it time to impotently rage against regionalized Internet again? My Steam tells me that Civilization 5 will be available at the 24th of September.

If boxed copy distributors are to blame I hope they go bankrupt and die a slow agonizing starvation death.

[Paelos]

Is it time to impotently rage against regionalized Internet again? My Steam tells me that Civilization 5 will be available at the 24th of September.

If boxed copy distributors are to blame I hope they go bankrupt and die a slow agonizing starvation death.

Have no fear. We'll post updates! 


Sorry man, that sucks.

[WayAbvPar]

Trying to get it running, but shockingly the Steam servers seem to be getting hammered. Who'd have thought that would happen?

Edit- and suddenly it jumped from 0% updated to 81 then 82%. Squeee!

[Trippy]

Unlock faster dangit!

[Soulflame]

27%.  Sigh.  I guess I can eat breakfast.  Possibly lunch and dinner too.   

[WayAbvPar]

Updated thread title to reflect launchedness.

Decrypting 25% 

[K9]

There is an ingame unit called the Giant Death Robot
 

[JWIV]

Because I had to have the stupid mini's, I don't get the game until tomorrow.     

[bhodikhan]

Not a good sign. NVidia 465 GTX (ver 258.96 stock). Launch a game with default video settings. Flickering crap all over. I can't see a map at all. I've tried various resolutions and video settings. Nothing. I also was surprised that DirectX10 and DirectX11 aren't supported on my system (tons of RAM, Quad-core, etc). Also the Anti-Alias settings are greyed out.  Very strange.

Waiting for a patch on launch day. Figures.

Note: After it's de-crypted make sure to check file integrity. It seems a lot of people are getting partial downloads that are reported as complete. This will download the remaining files needed. I still cannot play full-screen but at least it's running in a window now.

Well telling Steam I'm NOT running Vista fixed everything. Just played a complete game fullscreen.

Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam, right click on steam.exe, go to properties, got compatability, click on change settings for all users. Unselect "run this program in compatability mode"

[Stormwaltz]

Mine's in the mail.

I hope.

GoGamer doesn't seem to offer tracking on order paid through PayPal.

[Comstar]

I have to wait another 2 days. I am not happy with Steam.

[fuser]

Performance is terrible, quad core, 4GB ram, windows 7, 8800gt and its dog slow. Also steam warned me the files were heavily fragmented right after decrypting (some achievements so far).

[ffc]

I managed to resist buying it until trying the demo, which is now available if anyone is interested.

Also, I just noticed being able to grab AMD Catalyst video card updates through Steam.  Pretty nice.  Info.  More info.