Try disabling/unplugging your network card. It will probably be fine with letting you play offline if you have no network connection at all, I imagine.

That's really odd, KSyrup. I installed it on a laptop and was able to play just fine on an airplane without any available internet connection.

Turn on Steam and use the Go Offline function.

IIRC, Steam should still be active, just in Offline Mode.

I can't get on Steam to change it to offline mode.

If you don't have an internet connection, running Steam should trigger the "Go Offline" option.

What happens when you try running Steam?

It gives me an error about not being able to connect.

I have an internet connection, so I don't know what the problem is.

Maybe try turning off your internet connection?

Must be the firewall wherever you are connected.

You need to be disconnected from the internet in order to trigger the Go Offline option when starting Steam.

Try disabling your Network Card Connection via Networking in your Control Panel.

Then try Steam again.

Now all of this has got me mildly curious. Did I just get lucky to be able to play on the plane with no issues? I mean, I didn't toggle modes or do any other fancy-dancy stuff. I just hit the little Civ5 icon on my desktop, and the game loaded up.

You were auto-hooked up to the plane's pay-per-hour WiFi. Expect a large bill any day now.

It's odd. Last night I ran into the same problem Ksyrup is having with Steam. For the first time, I was unable to start Steam in an off-line mode. I was connected to the internet at my house and every time I tried to launch Steam, it would try to connect and then give me an error message saying it couldn't connect and to check my internet connection or go to the Steamworks page.

I re-booted, same thing. No option at all to work in the off-line mode.

I managed to fix this by going to www.steampowered.com and logging into the webiste with my user name and password. As soon as I logged in, my Steam fired right up and I was connected and had full access to all of my stuff.

I have no idea why this happened, but it worked.

In the past, I have always been given an option to start in "off-line mode" if Steam couldn't connect to the internet. Not sure why I didn't have that option this time around.

Unlike most of my Steam games, I don't have a desktop Icon for Civ V. I was never given the option the make one during the installation process or I would have. I think the reason is because I pre-loaded the game and then installed it, as opposed to just installing without a pre-load. I had issues with "Left 4 Dead 2" when I pre-loaded it. I am done doing that.

Any idea how to make a Desktop icon now?

Oh wait. Now that I think about it, the DVD was/is still in there. That may have made a difference.

Go to your Steam games library, right click on the game, select create desktop shortcut. Is that what you were asking?

Yes. Thanks!

I was able to play on my laptop while on a plane last Tuesday afternoon. I haven't tried since, but I didn't have any issues last week.

Sigh, I had predicted stuff like this. I hope you guys get the Steam problems resolved. It is inconceivable to me that a third-party product could prevent you from playing a single-player game.

Hope you guys work out your steam issues. I'm not a fan of steam myself, but luckily haven't had any further problems with steam since the whole issue I had at the civ V launch when I needed to change the steam server I connected to.


As far as the game goes, I just realized how easy it is to "steal" a diplomatic victory in the right condition. On my recent game, playing on King level, I took over my continent that contained 4 civs as the Americans. The other continent was completely dominated by the Persians with only 3 civs on it. I don't know how the Persians did it, but they hit future era in the 1800s (right when i got to modern era). They had 12,000 gold and gaining 550 gold per turn. I had a pretty solid setup, but nothing to compare to that.

I had more people, production and land then them but they were so far ahead in technology and finances that I ruled out the ability to beat them in a space victory or even domination victory. (I probably could do domination victory if I focused on military techs and a pinpoint strike on their capital but am actually tired of domination victories). I was too large to get a culture victory. Even though I was about 100 points behind them, I didn't think I would be able to catch up to their score for a time victory, even if I held out that long from all other victory conditions, which was unlikely.

So that left diplomatic victory as my best option. This was one of the first times they didn't kill off all of the city states. In fact, 15 city states were around (perhaps that is the full number we started with even). I had 6 in my control, he had 5 in his. 9 were needed for diplomatic victory plus the United nations. I bee-lined for Globalization, but just as I teched it, Persia actually finished building the United Nations. Since he had over 10,000 gold, I was pretty scared of what would happen next. 9 turns passed though, and I concentrated on saving up my money. I had about 3800 gold saved, and 1 turn before the first UN election, I poached 3 of Persia's city states to get my total of 9 and then hit next turn.

That led to the Diplomatic victory for me by the skin of my teeth.

The question I have to ask is , with that much money why didn't Persia bury the city states in money so I couldn't poach them. I guess a limitation of the AI. That is three straight wins at King level though. I'm debating moving up another level or not. I actually started looking at the achievements, and am finding those kind of neat. I am 38/120 right now, and might try to see how many of them I can knock out while on King level :)

AlanT, that was an amazing win, congrats. I would be shatting bricks during those 9 turns (as the AI can bribe CS but not too wisely, apparently).


You too, huh?

In my game, I got a clear shot at China's capital via embarking (imagine me in Tallahassee and the cap is Tampa). But I want to try out something and will send most of my forces overland.

Yep. The primary reason I still haven't bought the game.

I know for me, I don't believe I'll be in situations where I need to play the game without having an internet connection. So, I don't have this to worry about too much.

Even if I did, I don't think I would let this sort of thing prevent me from buying it. I'll still get to enjoy the game, just not as much as I want if you run into this situation often.

For me, I guess it doesn't really matter. I play a few text sims, and the latest version of Civ. That's it. The DVD is in my drive right now, and there's a fair chance it stays there until the first expansion pack comes out. ;)

Even though it doesn't have to be in the drive? ;)

Well, just speculating about whether that's why I was able to play on the plane without jumping through any hoops.

Plus, why would I take it out?

Shrug.

No reason to if you're not using the drive for something else, I guess.

Just saying I don't think the game actually uses the disc for anything once Steam has downloaded the game.

That is interesting. I recall that the DVD had no game executable files, except to install and to start Steam. I also wonder if you were in off-line mode prior to your trip? This is my first experience with this since all I play are Civ, FBCB and OOTP. Come to think of it, I like the idea of eLicense more than I do Steam.

No idea on that one. Seems odd that I would be, given that all I did was install it on the laptop while I was packing, made sure it would open, then shut it down, finished packing, walked out the door, and opened it again on the plane and played.

Came back to it a little while ago, fired up the computer, and it now works. I didn't do anything differently. However, a bit of lurking on a Steam support forum suggests that people were getting the same error yesterday and linked it to the release of the Left 4 Dead 2 demo on Steam. If true - an unrelated demo offered through Steam prevented me from playing a single player CivV game - then Steam can suck my left nut. That is fucking ridiculous.

I just had a similar vicotry. It was a prince continents game with 8 civs (4 on each one). Washington dominated the other island wiping out everyone except for about 3 Japan cities including the city-states.

One my island, I basically wiped out India, leaving them with 1 city. Siam wiped out Germany, but the city-states were left along except for one. i ended up as an ally with all city-states. There was one that I hadn't met yet. I won a diplomatic victory after Washington entered the Future Era when I was still in Moden.

Ok, I'll admit that I am wrong about militaristic city-states.

In a game yesterday, I was Greece, so I decided to play up the city-state aspect and make use of that special ability. It so happened the two city-states that I started out next to were both Militaristic. So I decided what the heck, why not and allied them early on. I built alot of my strategy (including choosing the entire policy tree to benefit city-states relationships) in fostering my city state relations with them and any other city-state I encountered.

The game ended up being my best game yet. Even though I was on King level, I ended with a score of somewhere around 4500. (most of my wins have been between 2800-3500 for the most part). I built my first two warriors earlier on, but then don't think I built another unit the entire time. I just upgraded the units I got as I went and used that cash instead.

I still got a bunch of useless spearmen/scouts/etc that I just disbanded, but it was a bigger boost then I had assumed it would be.

Now perhaps a big part of this was being Greek plus the policy traits I chose significantly reduced the amount of money I had to put in to keep the city states as allies, which made it worth it.. but I just figured that I would post here about the game.

Don't disband them, gift them to another city-state. They don't have to move to be gifted.

Well, I was disbanding them for the 30 gold or so they gave in my territory.

That makes sense, tended not focus on gold since I get so much of it through various means.

Ok, this is neat :)


Here is a conversion of my last Greece game to html format for a html replay :)

http://www.fool-x.net/civ/greece.html

Hmm, you can't see the Babylon in that for some reason. they were in there as well.


Edit: ok fixed it

FWIW, Im back to playing FM'10

That's cool, but are you supposed to be able to see the map as well? All I see is a tan background and the hexes as cities grow, etc. It would be better if I could see the map.

I thought I had seen the map before, but guess it has just been the hexes. I agree would be neater if it had the map too

I've been playing it on and off, still trying to figure the optimal early strategy. How about some of you posts your top tips for the less fortunate?

Edward, what type of victory are you interested in?

The German ability seems way overpowered. Between converting barbarian camps and two militaristic allies I easily have the most powerful military in the world and I've only built one land unit.

Desipte many flaws and problems with the game (it does have the potential to be a great game), I think they did a good job on the diversity of civilizations/leaders. I think you can win, various ways, with any of them. But of course, some are much better than others. Here is one person's view on the leaders, which I tend to agree with more than some of the views:


The other thing about Bismark is that he definitely becomes over-powered playing at Marathon.

One of the key things when thinking about early Unique Units is their upgradability. Most of them, whether strong or weak early, do have good upgrade paths and their bonuses are kept throughout (which may be partially nerfed in the first major patch, along with the dozens of other over-powered stuff). I took Greek's Comp Cav (dubbed the Four Horsemen Wonder since they can single-handedly conquer everything) to a Knight and then to a Cav.

I've started a new game, as the Babylonians, so I can work on growing fewer cities to a big size and ramping up production. Did lousy at that in my first long game.

I agree with Bismark (Germany's) UA being not as useful as Jphillips thinks. Maybe it is another case of me preferring to play on small maps and faster paced games, but Barbarians usually are wiped out after a fairly short period of time. After that it is fairly worthless.

Regarding Alexander in Buc's list, I mentioned previously that my best game ever so far was using him. The City States UA is no joke. I didn't even build any Companion Calvary either (which are very overpowered), since all of my units in that game were gifted to me. So if I had those, I imagine it would have been even easier.

So far I agree Greece has been the easiest game so far. (I've played I think 10 or so different leaders thus far.) My least favorite was Hiawatha

I have a high personal interest in playing Hiawatha and with a standard bias start, he does end up in a huge forest. I've read that with certain improvements and the Longhouse, no one can out-produce him, and that the Mohawks are good, esp. upgrading. That intrigues me but I haven't heard a lot of good things from those that actually played him.

I pretty much put alot of random in my games, just to make sure I try different leaders in different conditions. So the one or two times I have played him, I had hardly any woods around. So I am sure that influenced my decision.

Up to 51 achievements unlocked now. I unlocked a ton today in one game. Finally beat the game in a one city challenge. The one city challenge seems tougher to me in Civ V than it was in Civ IV, but maybe it is just circumstances (no iron or coal anywhere near me or any of the city states, but my rival civs had plenty of both).

Managed a cultural victory for the first time, unlocking that achievement as well as several of the complete policy tree achievements. This was also the last victory condition I had to beat, so unlocked the achievement for winning a game in all methods too.

I decided to play a different style of game this time, focusing on military. I've just finished wiping out my entire continent, but Siam has done the same thing on theirs. However, they have already reached the modern age, while I'm just about to reach the industrial age. I had some happiness issues while expanding that slowed my growth and science. Either I try for a tech victory or do my best to attack him once I can build a navy.

New Civ- Mongols and scenarios coming next week in Free DLC:Sid Meier's Civilization V DLC Next Week - Blue's News Story