Civ 5 Manual

[htuna]

OK..thought today was release date.. how come I can't play!!!.. wanted to fire it up before work, to check it out! [:@]

Edit: oops.. on the main product page, I see it will unlock in 3 hours, nm..

[Lützow]

On a side note: according to official FAQ the manual is solely available as .pdf, not even boxed versions will get a paper book.

[hewwo]

I honestly don't understand what people have against steam. It works wonderful, especially with multiplayer. And the whole part where you can chat/talk with friends while playing different games, or join each others servers directly is downright awesome.

And not to forget the fact that great support for mac, and the downright incredible sales. (although I preordered civ 5 from a webshop, costs 35 euro as opposed to 50 on steam)

Actually, I wish matrix would give up their own archaic system and use something like steam or impulse.

[ckammp]

ORIGINAL: hewwo

I honestly don't understand what people have against steam. It works wonderful, especially with multiplayer. And the whole part where you can chat/talk with friends while playing different games, or join each others servers directly is downright awesome.

And not to forget the fact that great support for mac, and the downright incredible sales. (although I preordered civ 5 from a webshop, costs 35 euro as opposed to 50 on steam)

Actually, I wish matrix would give up their own archaic system and use something like steam or impulse.

While I don't like Steam, in this case my problem is lack of options. If I want to get Civ5 (and I do!) I have to use Steam. No other options=no buy.

And Matrix has the best system for purchasing games I have ever experienced; Matrix is far, far, superior to Steam.

[NefariousKoel]

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

probably not even going to bother buying civ 5......looks like its definately using steam and I heard "extra" civs are going to be DLC....meh

Yep. Requires Steam.

I've duly boycotted this BS practice as have a few others. Most people just bend over when they're forced to do something in order to get to the cheese. [8|]

[Obsolete]

GoG is a good example of what can happen with these direct download sites. Just flip a switch and lights out on all your games you bought from them if you didn't have the setup.exe backed up or you did have it backed up and you lost that piece of media or hardware.

Hopefully some hacker groups can step in and get a few cracks out to fix that mess.  Don't know what else to say there...

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: hewwo

I honestly don't understand what people have against steam. It works wonderful, especially with multiplayer. And the whole part where you can chat/talk with friends while playing different games, or join each others servers directly is downright awesome.

And not to forget the fact that great support for mac, and the downright incredible sales. (although I preordered civ 5 from a webshop, costs 35 euro as opposed to 50 on steam)

Actually, I wish matrix would give up their own archaic system and use something like steam or impulse.

I pretty much have to agree with this.

[hadberz]

They got one hellva big 0 day patch. 995 MB. Sucks that I gotta go back to work. [:)]

[Lützow]

Has nothing to do with the platform itself. I'm going to install Steam in order to get the demo and will deinstall both afterwards.

Steam is a tool to enforce a copyright policy I don't agree with. It dictates which version of a title I'm allowed to download (and that matters for countries, where video games usually get censored), supervises me while gaming and denies my right to resell something I lawful acquired. Not that I actually sold any game during the past 5 years, but has it has to be in my sole discretion if I want to.

I'm usually picking about 5 Matrix titles per year, but if they would switch to Steam as exclusive platform, I wouldn't purchase a single game here anymore.

[Obsolete]

I'm already 40 minutes behind on downloading the demo due to this silly steam thing.  Dumb me thought a demo would be released as a demo like any other demo.  Couldn't figure out why it wasn't available on any standard source, like the Firaxis websites or anywhere else.  Then I finally find out despite it's restricted to single player, and a few options, with only 120 turns or so, you STILL must install steam for the damn demo.

Grrrrr.  I think that is really bad marketing right there since I was going to give up for the day.  But oh well, download is still in progress.  Seems there is a world-wide spurge right now for the download, and many servers are overloaded at the moment.

[Tecnócrata]

Actually, I wish matrix would give up their own archaic system and use something like steam or impulse.

Hope not. Any steam game cannot be applied the patch you want (installs latest automatically). This is more of a problem when there are beta patches, which you cannot install properly. Even worse, steam always releases patches much later.

Not breathing steam here. Not willing to have an active internet connection to install or play, too. I wasn't interested in Civ5 really, but after this no way I'm buying.

So they can screw their wonderful download system where the day never dawns.

[diablo1]

Same here, I wouldn't buy any Matrixgames if they were to goto Steamlike releases. I don't mind the activation key but when I'm paying $30 to $80 for a game I sure as hell want to "own" it afterwards. I dont' want to have to goto any online site 20 years from now should I decide to remove it and want to play it again then. So, that's the problem with Steam, you have to depend on it being around 20 years from now. You have to depend on it being around for your lifetime in fact if you want to play all the games you bought in your lifetime. I don't believe in this "play and throwaway bs" that I see some refer to. I have games from the 60's I still play even though Avalon Hill is gone. Even though Milton Bradley doesn't produce the old Heritage games I still have them and can play them also. Like Battlecry, Broadsides and Dogfight. So, I demand to be able to play everything I bought and paid for I don't care if it was 40-50 years ago.

[Lützow]

Talking gameplay, I didn't make up my mind yet. I like the new graphics and unobstrusive music more than the cartoonish style and tribal sounds from Civ 4, but after 40 turns so far it has not sucked me in. Feels rather a bit lame.

That is no final conclusion of course.

[wodin]

I play and throw away cos 99.9999999999999999999999% of games have NO lasting appeal.....I certainly wont be playing any games on my hard drive in 20 years anyway...granted there are time si wiosh I could play a game I have ditched BUT I'm sure if I installed it again it wouldn't stay on my hard drive there was a reason it left in the first place...

[Lützow]

My second impression:

They added some new stuff (social policies, city states, hexes, combat revamp) but in return removed some advanced features which were available in Civ 4 (religion, culture influence, etc.). Also the information windows (i.e. diplomacy) are a step backward. Altogether it feels sorta lacking, more like Civ Revolution than Civilization. That is still no final conclusion for sure, but I can already say that I liked Civ 4 more from the get-go, despite it's childish visuals.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: Tecnócrata
...Any steam game cannot be applied the patch you want (installs latest automatically)....

I don't mind people having views about Steam - it's your perogative - but get it right - otherwise your spreading your misinformation. That statement above is bollox. You can set each game to keep up to date automatically or not - your choice (of course if you don't, and fail to install any required patches, you'll have problems with online games and mismatched versions - but that isn't exclusive to Steam) - but your statement above is 100% incorrect.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: wodin

I play and throw away cos 99.9999999999999999999999% of games have NO lasting appeal.....I certainly wont be playing any games on my hard drive in 20 years anyway...granted there are time si wiosh I could play a game I have ditched BUT I'm sure if I installed it again it wouldn't stay on my hard drive there was a reason it left in the first place...

Totally agree with this. Very few games will stay on my hard drive - they're just not worthy sometimes. Not necessarily ad games, just not what I was looking for/hoped for.

My one gripe with Steam, in fact, is that it shows your entire library, regardless of whether you've got the game installed or not (the ones not installed are greyed out)...but it just annoys me they're there, because I won't be reinstalling them

There may well be a setting to hide them, but I've yet to find it and never really looked that deep for the answer...clearly doesn't bother me that much - but it's the only realy gripe I have with Steam.

[Lützow]

Another thing which upsets me about some digital download providers is the rip-off of European customers, since they charge a similiar amount in € and USD.

That said, being European, one can get simply outwit the shop system by pretending to come from the states. Doesn't work neccessarily with Steam (at least I didn't try) but for GamersGate in example. The trick is, to go through a proxy or virtual private network (vpn) which routes you over a US located ip. Problem with these services is, that they usually don't provide a sufficient bandwith for large downloads and some are not going go through secure protocols (https), needed for payment.

Anyway, if one doesn't want to deal with proxy settings and alike, here is a simple procedure to make it work with GamersGate. First, install a free software (i.e. HotSpot Shield), afterwards access GG shop and every price will be shown in USD. Now follow the usual steps and add the game to your account. After that close your web browser and log back on your normal (non proxy) connection, in order to download the client with full speed.

[Arctic Blast]

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

GoG is a good example of what can happen with these direct download sites. Just flip a switch and lights out on all your games you bought from them if you didn't have the setup.exe backed up or you did have it backed up and you lost that piece of media or hardware.

Hopefully some hacker groups can step in and get a few cracks out to fix that mess.  Don't know what else to say there...

GOG didn't use any DRM on their games, so I don't see why a crack would be necessary. [&:]

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

My second impression:

They added some new stuff (social policies, city states, hexes, combat revamp) but in return removed some advanced features which were available in Civ 4 (religion, culture influence, etc.). Also the information windows (i.e. diplomacy) are a step backward. Altogether it feels sorta lacking, more like Civ Revolution than Civilization. That is still no final conclusion for sure, but I can already say that I liked Civ 4 more from the get-go, despite it's childish visuals.

The first review of CiV that says it probably how it is....all other impressions seem to be clouded by new shiney game syndrome....