I would if it were more compelling. I'm generally always looking for a challenge, so I tend to play on the biggest map my computer can handle at the highest level I can compete at. I've increasingly found that by the late 20th century, the game is either won or lost and there's no point to continue. Usually the game becomes mired down once flight is discovered and it's just one war after another. I'd love for the late game to be meaningful.

Hrm. I just saw in the help database where GMG distributed their keys for Mortal Kombat last week at UTC 2:00 on July 3. That'd be, um, 2 and a half hours from now if distribution time is the same for BNW.

There's no mention of Brave New World in the help database, though, so who knows.

I wouldn't trust any reviews from IGN. Here's a video review from someone who knows how to play Civ

Civilization 5: Brave New World REVIEW! - YouTube

Looks like preload time is 11:00 PM CDT for me with release time being midnight.

I'm not sure I can stay up that late night.. but I'm going to try. :)

I'll get around to playing something this weekend but in the meantime, I am looking forward to reading the civilopedia, watching tutorial and let's play videos and seeing people's hyped-up expectations hit reality. ;)

There's a preorder doodad on GMG that says "out 9th July," even. C'mon, guys. Key, please. :D

I normally wouldn't care when I got my key, but since it looks like I may be up at release time, I'd like to have what I paid for. I only went through GMG for the extra discount ... guess I may now know only buy things through GMG that I don't care about. They are cutting this way too close.

+1

Yeah, I bought through Steam just to make sure I got it. Not only that, but I usually don't buy many Day One releases, but I'm more than happy to give Sid Meier $10 extra just to show him some support and get it on time through Steam. I don't do that for many developers, but I'd do it for Sid in a heartbeat. Feel like I'm paying it forward. That guy has brought me more quality gaming hours in my lifetime than any other developer.

Agreed. I even loved SimGolf! Not the crappy 1996 version, but the awesome 2002 version.

I should have gone the Steam route ... first and probably last GMG purchase. I don't buy a lot of games anyway so it's no loss for them. My budget-mindedness won out this time, but getting what I want when I want it will win out next time.

GMG is great if you want to save 20-30% on a preorder, not so much if you want to play the game right away.

So how does it work with Steam on expansion packs? Does it just automatically update the title? Will I see it downloading? I purchased it but I don't see it listed anywhere. I must have gone through this with Gods and Kings but don't remember how it updated.

I bought G&K retail and it just downloaded the stuff (and appended to the main EXE apparently; Civ IV, Beyond The Sword seems to be its own thing, but not Civ V and G&K).

This is my first digital purchase of a Civspansion.

It just pops up and starts downloading. Nothing yet, but I'll keep looking back every three minutes. :)

Hmmm, running into an issue on Steam. Saw that BNW was unlocked, so I launched Civ V. In the DLC section, Brave New World Expansion Pack is there, but unchecked. I check the circle, but the check isn't sticking.

You may have to restart Steam a few times (for those waiting for it). It took me about 3 after before it kicked in. Download is less than 1gb so it should go pretty fast.

It downloaded, so I'm doing a verify integrity of the local game cache.

Downloading now.

Downloading here now too. Have to close and restart it from what I saw.

There we go. Verifying the cache fixed it.

Performing setup. 33 steps?????

Download took 9 minutes. Getting to step 14 took 17 minutes so far. Lol.

These new trade routes are going to take some getting used to. It says I can establish trade routes, but I don't seem to be able to build a trade unit yet.

edit: ah, have to research Animal Husbandry first

/waits patiently for GMG to get its shit together

Their rep on the forum was claiming it'd be in by an hour before release.

Only 50 turns into a first game as Venice. The trade routes still aren't making sense, and that is the biggest new thing I've seen so far. For Policies, there are several new trees, but it will be a while until they are unlocked for me.

Venice sounds like a fun challenge but a difficult one out of the box. Interesting to hear how it works.

It is almost like a One City Challenge, except you can make City-States into puppets with Merchants of Venice. Just did that to one City-State.

Barbarians seem to be "smarter" in this version. They will do better with healing, as well as upgrading their units.

Appears Gamersgate buyers are also code-less, so it's plaguing other retailers than just GMG. Is it a 2K problem, Steam trying to assert dominance, or incompetence?

Steam and GMG forums are in full meltdown mode.

Ok, if I don't stop now, I'll be up until 6am. :) The changes are subtle, but intriguing. It is going to take a while to soak it all in.

My code came in about 2 and a half hours ago, FYI. If you ordered from GMG, check your email; my account still doesn't have a code associated with it, but I got an email including it.

I got my code in my email a little before 4am CT. It doesn't show up in GMG unless I click download.

I left my pc on last night.. it's all loaded up and ready to go.

Will kick off a game tonight after soccer practice.

I'm going back to bed for a few (if I had known GMG would be four hours late, I'd have gone to bed earlier), but I fucked around with BNW for about half an hour.

I...think the Shoshone are going to be my new favorite Civ to play.

Also, per a press email I just got from 2K Games:


If you have vanilla Civ V and not Gods & Kings, you can skip straight to Brave New World unless you want the extra civs and scenarios (and pick up BNW in a Steam sale or something to get those civs cheap).

Fell asleep last night while playing the game. Did make it in a ways. Really like the changes to some of the victory conditions and how you achieve them. Gives you more options on how to win, which it didn't feel like it was quite as open before with G&K.

Playing some more now. Nothing like the one more turn influenza.

dola

It does feel like it's a bit harder to keep the civ happy. Going to have to play through a bit more to see if it's just this game or if things were adjusted slightly in the new expansion.

My first game is the opposite. I'm swimming in happiness, and that's usually a weakness of mine.

What's a bitch is defending trade routes. I've built three trade routes and had a barbarian pillage them within three turns each time. You have to eradicate barbarians to have trade routes.

Following every step of pre-release there were two major changes for those playing straight up strategy: removing the three gold exploits and changing the victory conditions to something less cheesy or boring. Now if they can dial back happiness and policies so we don't get so much of them, that will to decision making.

Still trying to figure out the trade route stuff. My bank account is suffering right now.

Damn, Steam release in Spain is in two days, hate this stuff about zones with Steam, first i had to pay it in Euros, paying a 30% more than in $, than i need to wait two more days :/

It looks like you have to have a prospective partner (intra- or extra-civ) within a particular distance of the origination point or you can't assign the caravan to the route.

Goes to show you how differently I play these games than lots of folks. I don't even know of one, much less three, gold exploit.

I tend to play on "king" difficulty level and it's usually a toss-up as to whether I win. I really enjoy the game and have put over 190 hours into it (according to Steam), but I think I'm a bit more casual about how I play.

My fear is that it would be overly complicated, and it some ways it is. There a few too many caveats on when and who you can connect to and how many trade routes you can have.

My bigger pain is great artists. I had a great writer, but I only had a great artist slot. Sigh.

The Shoshone are evil bastards. I was friendly with them, then the asked me to join them in a war against the Aztecs. The Aztecs were on my eastern border and more powerful militarily than me, so I didn't really want to mess with them at the time.

Few turns later, I have a massive Shoshone army marching up my ass. They declare war even though there appeared to be no reason -- they didn't covet anything I wanted and they weren't ticked about anything. I had a diplomat in their capital, and he never saw this coming.

After they took my capital they offered me peace asking for two of my cities in return. I counter offered an unconditional peace and they took it. I've never seen the AI take a peace counter offer before. Nice.

Playing with the Shoshone next game. Can't beat them, join them.

Some of the Yogscast gang take on Brave New World-one as the aforementioned Shoshone-another as France, and the third as Venice who makes some rather unfortunate decisions :)

Civ 5: Brave New World - Part 1 - Gotta have Faith - YouTube

It seems that if you want trade routes, you have to focus your military on barbarians. Forget about trying any kind of conquest.

1 - Happiness seems much harder to come by.
2 - I'm thus far underwhelmed by trade routes.
3 - I think it's kinda neat that certain wonders can only be built if you pick a certain social policy.
4 - It's extremely minor, but I like the fact that iron is revealed with bronze working, instead of iron working.
5 - Those Egyptian sons of bitches are going down tonight. Got a map that started me on a good sized island with just me and Egypt. There can be only one.