1601

No, it’s in stores too. My local Gamestop told me they had them in stock and offered to hold one for me. I’ll pick it up tomorrow at lunch…

1602

Thats like saying X movie isn’t huge because it isn’t Avatar.

Taking the biggest example of something as the standard doesn’t really work.

1603

Valve’s “earlier releases” were like 6 years ago, Steam is quite solid these days, and extremely convenient, in my experience.

1604

Anyone think there is a good chance that the fancy pdf manual will be released into the wild before Tuesday?

It’d be nice to read up on the game in more detail, before diving in…

1605

It sounds like it’s very unlikely, which is too bad.

1606

OMG, is Civ 5 out on Tuesday!? I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers (e.g. details) that I completely neglected to check up on the release date.

1607

I’m just curious why we still don’t know anything about Babylon beyond the leader’s name.

1608

An NDA enforced by GDR’s, perhaps? ;)

1609

Shacknews has a review of the game up, and while its pretty positive, one comment about the multiplayer has created a bit of a stir:

Multiplayer is currently limited to simultaneous turns and progress cannot be saved, but hopefully more modes are on the way in post-launch patches.

This lead to a response on the official boards by a 2K rep:

The game creates auto-saves, even in multiplayer, which you can use to continue a multiplayer game in progress

So far he hasn’t said anything else. It looks like the multiplayer relies on autosaves rather then on specific manual saves. Which makes sense in some ways, I guess.

Multiplayer isn’t one of my primary interests, but others may find this info interesting.

1610

A fun 5 star review from the Escapist,

Least people accuse me of being a shill for Firaxis, in the proud tradition of Fair and Balanced reporting…

Why Civ 5 will be theMoo3 of civilization. :)

1611

I got this Steam update just now:

- Added support for Civilization V charity promotion (not visible until Civ5’s launch)

1612

Does anyone have any more info on the multiplayer? Like, how does combat work if everyone is doing simultaneous turns? Is it a simply a clicking race to see if I can tell my artillery to shoot his cavalry before they can move into range?

1613

The PC Gamer review made the multiplayer combat sound very much like that. Sounds messy to me, but I’m not sure there is another way to do it without making the whole experience use independent turns.

1614

Although the OP was pretty stupid, the rabid posts defending Civ5 before it’s been released were equally ridiculous.

Ah, Internet. Don’t ever change.

1615

Some sort of initiative mechanism would do it.

1616

Pretty much, at least that’s how it works in Civ IV. So, whoever ended their turn last would have an advantage over those who’d already ended their turns. One mechanic I’ve thought of that might improve simultaneous turns is to provide an incentive for those who end their turns earlier than others. For example, the first player to end his turn would receive a 5 second head start over everyone else, the second player to end his turn would receive a 5 second head start over the remaining players, and so on. Just a thought.

1617

Joystiq did a review of there copy… 5/5 stars. but one part was not very surprising to me (not indicative of the release though!)

“The review copy of Civ 5 I played crashed (very inconveniently) from time to time on each of the three different computers I used. Don’t panic, I’m sure this will get resolved. However, first thing to do once you get the game – who are we kidding here, you know you vets are buying it! – is switch the auto-save function from every 10 turns to every three (or less). Trust. Housekeeping issue #2: Take those “recommended” PC specs seriously.”

1618

I will never understand what Firaxis is thinking.

I’ve got several friends who have commented on how they’d love to get Civ5…but won’t, because it won’t run on their PCs. I can’t think of any other gaming franchise that has such appeal outside the traditional gaming audience, and yet Firaxis seems to have no interest whatsoever in selling to these people.

1619

For example, the optics tech will allow all units to move over shore tiles with “embark.” Later on, astronomy allows all units to move over ocean tiles. You’ll need to protect these defenseless units with naval vessels or face the consequences, but creating cargo ships and all that boring stuff is gone.

Thank Christ.

1620

The graphical upgrade has to cost something. And I’m not sure what about the requirements is all that major. Steam’s data shows that single core processors are down to less then 20% of the market, so even the “I only play TF online” crowd has moved onto dual cores or better.

I get that the bigger potential audience the better, but you can only scale a game so much.

I’m surprised to see the reviews hitting already. I guess Firaxis is confident enough in their press build that they didn’t feel the need to force everyone to wait until the day of release, which is a nice change from the usual. But now I’m waiting to see what certain trusted reviewers say and wondering why they haven’t chimed in.