1941

Demo downloading and will be finished in 21 minutes according to Steam. It is currently 11:10pm local time.

This does not bode well for my level of efficiency at work tomorrow…

1942

You have to be friends with a city state before you can pledge to protect them.

-Scott-

1943

I am playing Civ V, woot. It is awesome better than sex :)

1944

Wolff,

I was able to select this option, but remember that it will only work if you are running Vista/7 and have a video card that supports DirectX 10/11.

1945

‘Steam servers are too busy to let you play the game you already preloaded. This makes plenty of sense.’

Why doesn’t it automatically attempt to validate on its own like it does with the updates?

What gargantuan file validation should require such network stability? Because I can access Store pages no problem …

1946

I am running Windows 7 (64) and have a Dx 10/11 card, and I had the same problem. Apparently the solution (suggested in Steam forums) is to quit out, verify the game files (right-click on Civ V in your Steam library, select “properties”, and go to the “Local Files” tab), and then restart. I just tried that and sure enough, 1 game file (probably something Dx-related) failed to validate and is being reacquired.

1947

How does one download the demo? I am in the part of the world that doesn’t get the full version today, but every time I click on the link for the demo in Steam Store, it takes me to the release version, which I preordered, and cannot access.

1948

Right hand side of the page for the demo dl link.

1949

Whoops. There it is.

1950

Quick thoughts.

  1. Easily the most radical Civ design yet. Takes a bit to get used to, but I really like the ebb-and-flow of the turns.

  2. The pacing is all different, and the scale of your empire is smaller. Back in Civ 4 you could spam out 4-5 cities like nothing real fast. Here, I’m in 500 AD and have only 4 cities.

  3. Combat is great. The stacks of doom were really getting tedious, especially if you played CivRev which was nothing more than sending huge Army Stacks against one another every other turn. Now it’s more about maneuver, and support, and bonuses (one of the bonuses on the Honor tree is 15-percent if your units are adjacent to one another, nice.)

1951
  1. The City States are awesome wild cards that really help disrupt the status quot of building up your borders and then just sitting still. I had Dublin and Tyre next door, and they were right next to each other. I became friends with Dublin, but then those irrational fucks in Tyre declared war on them and Dublin came screaming for help. I was running a budget problem, so I gifted Dublin a couple of units, but that didn’t help, so I gathered up a small army and invaded Tyre, but that just PISSED OFF England, which was Tyre’s friend. Worse, when I actually got to Tyre they proved to be a much tougher nut to crack than expected (they’re churning out swordsmen while I still have warriors). Argh.
1952

that sounds absolutely awesome, WH :) Longest. Day. EVER.

1953

The weird, unskippable 15 seconds of the opening cutscene HAVE GOT TO GO.

Also, Shafer, where is the run in the window option? I’m rocking two 24-inch Dells Ultrasharps. I need to be able to multitask while I’m playing.
[Actually, I take this back. Wow, I’m running full screen on one LCD, but I can go to my browser on my other screen and the game doesn’t minimize, and the audio is still going, even though it doesn’t have focus. That’s insane, I’ve never seen a game do this before. What kind of voodoo is this?]

Otherwise, love the game. Seriously.

Oh, yeah, the music is spectacular, and abundant, and varied.

1954

I’m loving playing as Nebuchadnezzar for the Babylon empire so far. I’m really happy with the Deluxe edition for that reason. Right as you start, you can research Archery, which gives you your special unit, the Bowman (instead of the Archer), and you can also research Masonry pretty quickly, which gives you Babylonian Walls, which help you be more offensive in city defense. So the advantages are right up front at the start of the game, and I can be more aggressive with city-states that I don’t get along with.

The advantage Babylon gets is that they get a free Great person when they discover Writing, and the frequency of Great People goes up by 50%.

One question: Where do I access the other things that went along with the Deluxe edition? I think there is supposed to be a making of video and a soundtrack or something like that?

1955

Stuck in Starbucks for the past 2 hours downloading a patch that I should have been able to pre-load last night.

Me=cranky.

1956

The pics in the released manual (in the Civ V folder) no longer auto magnify. In fact, they aren’t even clickable. Bummer. Pics are now worthless.

1957

Morgan Sheppard (that’s who it is, yes? going purely by the voice here) is an outstanding choice for the narrator voice guy.

1958

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised when he turned out to be as awesome as Nimoy in his own way. I particularly love the civ intros he reads as the world loads. I listen to the whole thing every time, even when I’m on my fifth game in a row as France (seriously, they’re so good).

Also: Siam is wtfawesome.

Also also: sell the luxuries you don’t need to the AI. Money is power, much moreso than an extra 5 points/turn into the golden age bank. I find myself prioritizing exploration and naval techs because I need more trading partners. Which is so awesome, for the record, that I can play Civ this way now.

1959

Sounds like a pretty decent Steam launch. One big patch and some slow verification is nothing compared to the usual problems. Good to see they are getting better, or maybe it just wasn’t a very big launch.

1960

This game doesn’t really feel like Civilization… it’s quite the departure. CivLite, at best.