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**Number45** · 24-09-2010, 15:54

I'm seriously thinking about picking this up. It's £30 on Steam but I can get it for less at retail - don't suppose you know if it's possible to play sans DVD once installed if I go that route?

**FreelancePolice** · 24-09-2010, 16:19

You have to add it to Steam anyway so yes, it's possible to play without the disc once installed (you might not even need to put the disc in the drive - think steam will accept the serial number inside).

Wiped out Ghandi in my game. Think I've got a warmongering reputation now but it was worth it for that achievement

**Number45** · 24-09-2010, 19:09

Awesome, thanks.

**Jebus** · 24-09-2010, 20:01

Just like StarCraft II, this game scares the life out of me.

Trying to put my fingers in my ears and pretend it doesn't exist...

**Number45** · 24-09-2010, 20:34

This appeals to me much more than StarCraft, primarily because I like games I can take my time with. Civ seems to be right up my alley.

**Concrete donkey** · 24-09-2010, 23:20

I played the demo plenty of times between the demo being released on Steam and when the game arrived this morning and am now 200 hundred turns into my first game. I would be further into it but my brother's playing it as well so we take it in turns in playing. That's the only reason I'm not playing right now.

I'm surprised the game is running so well on my PC as it falls just a little short of the minimum specs and running everything on high. That said I suspect I might feel the pinch later on in the game or on larger map sizes. The biggest issue we've had so far is the slow and stuttering opening video in the demo. Hopefully though I won't have to upgrade until Deus Ex comes out.

As Freelance has said, this is defiantly Civ. It has that magic touch to it you can't quite place. In my first proper game I just watched the Whales (a resource) swim near to where I was going to place my capital.

It's different from Civ IV and it needed to be because no game could touch that going head on. To me it seems like a good mix between it's predecessor and Civ Rev on consoles. The scrapping of the stack of doom is a great improvement to the game and the fact that units aren't destroyed in evenly matched fights is simply brilliant.

I'm playing on easy right now to familiarize myself with the game so I haven't had that many conflicts so far but there is definite tension between me and my nearest neighbour and protecting my boarder from possible attack provokes a lot more thought on unit placement than in previous games. It's also good that you can aid those at war without being overtly involved yourself and if you are asked to go to war one of the options is asking for prep time instead of jumping straight into a conflict.

The city states are a nice addition to the game. Civilized cities not part of a bigger empire or competing to win the game. They ally themselves with empires depending on how helpful they are or you could simply invade them. It makes the early stage of the game far less empty. I don't know how much of a role these cities will have nearer the endgame but I'm sure I'll find out.

Anyway, I better get back to waiting for my turn to play again now.

**Orgun** · 25-09-2010, 07:12

The biggest issue we've had so far is the slow and stuttering opening video in the demo. Hopefully though I won't have to upgrade until Deus Ex comes out

You can turn the intro videos off by going to your "My Documents" folder

My Games > Sid Meiers Civ 5 > UserSettings.ini

Change "AutoWorkersDontReplace" and "SkipIntroVideo" to 1

The AutoWorkersDontReplace means that workers won't replace improvements you've placed down manually.

**FreelancePolice** · 25-09-2010, 10:29

I've begun the space race in mine. My military won't compete with japan who have all but conquered the other continent. They've not paid much attention to me but they now keep asking for open Borders. I've built one part of the ship but they take about 22 turns each. I've had to stop all other production to get them done.

I can see quite a few Japanese ships on the horizon which doesn't bode well!

**FreelancePolice** · 26-09-2010, 18:53

Well, I won my first game with the space race victory. Was constructing a nuke just incase but it was never needed. The AI was a bit quiet even after I started the Apollo program when I expected it to have a bit of bite but it never came.

Will definitely up the difficulty for my next game. I did find that my gold was crippled unless I hit a golden age which I think came from having too many military units and unneeded buildings (a habit carried over from Civ 4 which meant building every building when it became available).

**25.05.2005** · 27-09-2010, 12:14

Originally posted by FreelancePolice

Firstly it's clearly Civ.

When I read that I felt I had to comment, this is the furthest thing from classic CIV anyone could imagine. It is like another developer came along and decided to mimic CIV but did so badly...

Biggest fan in the World of Civ 4 Beyond the Sword (Thomas' Mod being my favourite mod).

Have been looking forward to Civ 5 for years though.

It seemed to get good reviews too.

However, now having played it, all I can say is.....it's an absolute disaster.

This is more like the heavily dumbed down Civ Revolution on the Xbox. They were so determined to make it 'accessible' to new players, they forgot about the loyal fans that have been played Civ for decades.

They have changed way to much and taken too much out from Civ 4 - something Sid said he would never do.

Another thing, games are now so short you lose all sense of epicness. It is really badly optimised too, it wreaks of an unfinished product in many areas.

But hey, it has pretty graphics and a curvy interface! If you have never played Civ before I think this would still be a great game. However, for fans of Civ 4, I reckon you will hate this - there's just too much missing got simplicitys sake. No religion for example, no culture city flipping etc etc, it just goes on....

I'm sure it will get better over the years, as Civ 4 did, that didn't have a great start either to be honest. But for now, Civ 4 Beyond the Sword with its thousands if mods is still the far superior game.

My advice for anyone wanting to play CIV is to get the Complete CIV 4 pack, it is available brand new for around ?5-6. Patch it up, get a few mods on and have epic fun. WAIT...to get CIV 5, it is poor at the moment, it is not worth your money, it might be in the future, and it will be cheaper then too. However, of course, this is all my opinion based on preference, CIV 5 is sure to be a winner amongst new players who don't know what they are missing out on in CIV 4.

**FreelancePolice** · 27-09-2010, 15:23