Alright boyz, here we go!!! Civ 5 first impressions & tips thread!
 

Let's get it started (finally) for the latest edition of Civilization, arguably one of the greatest computer game series around. For those of you lucky enough to play it Tue morning, the rest of us will be waiting for your first impressions.

I'll be playing at 10am tomorrow morning. Should be able to get some multiplayer impressions later Tuesday and Wednesday as well for those that are interested in that.

Do we have a Steam ID thread on here? I couldn't find one with a quick search.

I can't wait for tomorrow morning, I should have most of the day free to play this.

D/L'ing the $60 Steam Edition now... Steam ID is Broth32

will let everyone know. i got an early copy...

its sweet so far..

okay, i'm kidding, i don't have a copy yet.

Starting this thread when you can't actually play the game yet should be a boxing. :mad:

No shit. You can't start the thread unless you've played the freaking game!

I went ahead and got the Deluxe version from Steam since that did include the soundtrack.

That's ok, I started the Civ4 thread just before it was released.

Retroactive boxing!

this is Bullshit. Making me think the game came out early. Kiss my ass Josh Grobin!

I'm curious. I have a 24 hour Walmart near me. I wonder if I could get 'em to sell me the game after midnight? :)

I don't see why not. Even Steam users can download/install all of the files, that's no different than installing from a DVD. Both will be activated at the same time. Perhaps it's the other stuff on the DVD that they don't want you to have until Day 0?

Yeah, I don't think having the game at midnight is going to let you play it early anymore than the rest of us who downloaded can play it before 10am tomorrow.

What else would be on the DVD, though?

If you get the Special Edition, you would have access to the soundtrack CDs, which they may not want you to listen to until release.

Thought this came out the 26th. Gonna be awesome....

They might sell you the new Selena Gomez CD, though...:p

First impression: the retail copy comes with the tech tree wall poster. Yay!

Sweet! I'm going to be hitting up Best Buy before I head home from work today so I can have it tonight. I either missed or lost the tech tree out of Civ IV, so this is good news!

All of you guys at home today that get to play this in about 43 minutes can all go to hell!

I hate you!

For sure. I figured with the emphasis on saving dead tree in this version it wouldn't be there, but when I opened it up...a glorious tech tree map was right on top.

How about those of us who are going to get to possibly fail miserably in an attempt to play this in about 43 minutes? Hatred, or empathy?

Icon still won't work.

Countdown clock is gone. Icon not working yet. I'm guessing they'll be hammered for a few minutes.

Unlocking! 25%!

Yeah, I was on the phone with my wife as she was trying to cancel a reservation online and the steam thing popped up, so I guess it's working. But so am I... :(

Ah, I logged back out and logged in again and now it's unlocking.

LOL......HUGE banner add on the front of Steam saying 'Play Now'.

I've noticed that Civ V has been on top of the sales chart every day despite lots of deals for super cheap games. Amazing how many copies Sid sells. Make a good game and people will come.

Yeah, that's what I did. logged out, clicked the icon, and now up to 37% unlocked.

So much for 'you will be able to play immediately.' Assholes. :D

Yea, the same thing happened with Dragon Age, damn thing took almost 2 hour to "unlock"

They must have some NSA caliber encryption on this thing.

I think 'decrypting' is code for 'installing.' The download last night must've been the install file, and since it requires 8 gigs of space post-install...

IT'S DONE! I'll see you in two weeks, world!

You go to hell. You go to hell and you die.

*gets behind his 42%, huffs, and puffs*

Reading my tech tree map while I wait on the final 51%. Anybody curious about the policy trees? :D

Here we go...please run, please run, please run...

Pffffff. Obviously a Civ noob. Everyone knows a Civ game runs for just over 6,000 years, not two weeks.

The good news: the game WILL run on this decrepit machine.

The bad news (or extra-good, depending on your perspective): I think I need to stay logged out of AIM/Y!IM, etc, to minimize outside disruption which might cause the game to lock up or freeze.

But I can run it!

Free shipping = maybe get it by Friday? :(

You've given hope to us all.

But on a separate note: I'm hating all of you right now. Stupid work. :mad:

The game defaulted straight to the minimum settings, for what that's worth. Also defaulted to a 'small' map and the shortest game duration. Not sure if changing either of those would screw with my experience.

And, obviously, it doesn't look nearly as pretty as it will when I do get a new machine.

How does it look in the strategic view?

Updating Steam took about 30 seconds, now it is verifying the Civ files, slowly: 20% in 2 minutes. Probably lots of uncompressing going on.

Now it is crawling: 1% every 15 seconds.

First impression?

Steam is crap

Still trying to get it to launch.

Will my Steam do all of this unlocking and shit even though I'm not there?

Screw England

I believe so. My wife told me that steam was doing something on its own when she was on the computer.

Validating took about 10 minutes, now it is downloading the remaining files (expansion, soundtrack, patch?). That will take 20-30 minutes, it appears.

I hope so.

A bit of a funny story. My wife has been giving my 17 year old step son a hard time since Halo Reach came out because he has been shut up in his room all day and night playing. He only comes out to eat. :D

So, I tell my wife this morning "Hey, Civ 5 comes out today. I'll be locking myself in the basement playing for the next week just like Jared."

She says, "Cool. Don't expect me to be here when you climb out of the basement next week...Dork."

Since Steam sucks, it kept giving me an error of an incomplete installation. I uninstalled and am re-installing to see if that fixes anything. Good thing I'm not losing any playing time right now since I'm working but hopefully this fixes it before tonight

Is this Steam thing going to give me problems installing the retail copy on multiple machines? Anybody with any experiences with other games have any insight?

You can only have it on one steam login; however, it can be installed on however many machines you want. So if you want it on desktop, laptop, and work machine for you to use, you're all set. If you and person xyz both want to play at the same time, then not so much.

If Steam causes any problems from me playing my store-bought box copy tonight, I'm going to be very, very upset.

It gives me the option of using DirectX 9 or DirectX 10/11.

I have all of them installed, but the DX10/11 option never loads.

9 works, however.

DX9 is the one that runs for me, although I can only seem to get about 15-20 turns in before the video card or driver starts throwing fits.

Alas.

Guess I'll need to upgrade the machine sooner rather than later after all.

I'm in and playing (or at least watching the intro).

Maybe we should have had an interim "@#($^&$ Boyz, Civ V/Steam download and decryption bitching thread" before this one got cranked up.

The default video settings on my PC, which is minimum requirements, are mostly low with a couple of mediums.

Even at those settings, the game looks fine.

I think most of the problems are related to unlocking the preload files, which has always taken a while right at release, though you don't need to do that with a box copy. I've very rarely had problems installing games on Steam, though i haven't installed a box copy since the release of Half Life 2 so don't exactly know how that process works now.

So, if I want to do LAN play with my wife with laptop and desktop both at the same time, it won't work unless I buy 2 copies?

If anyone else has this happen before uninstalling you can try to verify game files and it should try to find and download any missing files. To do this open properties by right clicking on title in Steam, then the option to Verify Integrity of Game Cache is under the Local Files tab.

Correct.

The problem I found was Steam servers simply was not responding to me. I guess overloaded by Civ fans.

I decided to step away from it before I really got mad. Came back after making lunch and steam servers magically are responding now. So trying to repair my install now.



For those familiar with Steam, do I have to connect any time I want to play it ever, or is there off line play after you finally get through this hell?

You might be able to play LAN with one computer using Steam in offline mode.

Only required connection is one-time validation at the beginning (or, I guess, if you install it to another computer). Once installed and validated on that computer, you're set.

I am pleased the keyboard movements work very well with hexes, despite the manual saying you are to move your units with a mouse. Had to turn the grid on so I can see which direction I need to move.

Nevermind, Steam servers have lost connection again. ugh

Yeah, typically when there's a big release either download speeds are slow or unlocking takes a while right at launch.

There is an offline mode that it will give you the option to start in if no connection is detected, or you can choose to go onto it from the menu bar.

If the server you're using isn't working well you can try using a different server in Settings.

England is about to get it's shit ruined.

You guys suck. Not only are you playing before me, but you're not posting shit.

This thread better have 150 posts by 2pm for you bitches are in trouble. Understand?

If Steam would let me play, I would post stuff :)

Here's some info on the Babylon Civ for those that got it in a bonus version:

Babylon
Nebuchadnezzar II

Earn free great scientist when you discover writing. Earn great scientists at double normal rate.

UU: Bowman (6 combat, 8 ranged -- "stronger in combat than the Archer, both defensively and offensively")
UB: Walls of Babylon (80 hammer, 1 gold maint, 7.5 defense -- not only is better defense than normal city walls, but increases combat during bombardment)

I'll try that the next chance I get a break from work stuff

It appeared to have picked New York for me by default. After I switched to Boston and restarted, that seemed to do the trick. Now it is doing yet more downloading! (C++ libraries or something it appears)

Loaded it up and did the customary first time listening to the opening movie in full room surround sound / big screen.

I'm pumped, so far!

Alan, throw a homie a bone. Post a pic of your starting position for your first game.

Got to figure out how to. Normal screenshot buttons don't work and don't at least easily see an in game screenshot. Might have to use a screen scraper, but don't have one on this computer.

That's one of things we don't know yet, I don't think - whether the starting position is optimized or would you need to explore?

I got placed in the middle of a few nice resources to start off. Then when I didn't do anything for a while, and just left the game running with my settler chosen, a help advisor screen popped up seemingly on its own (unless I did somehow while alt-tabbing) that told me it was an ideal spot to start a city.

So at least in my first game, it seems to be suggesting to ideally build in my initial spot.

If you're alt-tabbing to use a browser you also have the option to use a browser in the Steam overlay. Hit Shift-Tab and there will be a button for Web Browser. Using that is faster than using Alt-Tab for me in most games.

Three hours into my first game and just toppled Arabia. So far I'm liking the stack-less combat, but not really a big fan of the new interface.

+1

Cities seem to be their own combat unit as well.


I also love capturing London with an American Minuteman.
Suck it Elizabeth!

Since you need Steam to run the game, and there is lots of interest, I created a Steam group called FOFC Civilization so we can chat or whatever while we're playing.

Steam Community :: Group :: FOFC Civilization

Is it just me or does it seem like the turns in this version take FOR-F'ING-EVER

You on low end or high end for computer?

For those that are getting the DVD, apparently there are no install files on the disc. It will download from Steam regardless.

So the retail version comes with a decorative coaster, too?

...what's the point of having a disc at all then?

It does have some install files. It just isn't the core game. It's the peripheral stuff like DirectX.

I think the main reason is because 2K doesn't want to piss off the retailers. Explains why even a retail copy procured before 10 am wasn't playable, though.

coaster for your favorite night-time beverage?

I think it took until about 10:15 or 10:20 until I was able to play with the decrypting and DirectX/other stuff being installed.

I started as the Americans on the third difficult level (the one closest to fair, with a slight advantage) with it being my first game. Stardard size continents map, 8 civs/16 city-states. Like people have said the game seems to look at what kind of PC you have to determine the default video options (everything on high in my case :cool:).

I didn't look around to begin with, I had 2x ivory, sheep, gems, and deer all within two hexes of my settler so I figured that was as good a place as any to found Washington. I explored my starting continent and eventually discovered four city-states but no additional major civs so I haven't gotten into diplomacy on anything past the city-state level.

The city-states have asked me for some favors, mostly with taking out barbarians which I was happy to do, wanting to try out combat for the first time on the new game and also to get some experience/promotions for my units. Eventually Athens and Tyre got into a disagreement and both of them wanted me to take out the other. Athens was already friendly with me so I massed up five units (archer, pikeman, spearman, and two horsemen), surrounded the city (I already love the embark feature, it's so nice not having to bother with transports/galleons) and took it down in a few turns. Athens was grateful and we are now allied.

Now I had read about how it's often better to puppet a city rather than annex it with the happiness penalty being severe but I went ahead and ignored that. I didn't look up how many shields it took to build a courthouse (240, by far the most for any city improvement where I'm at in the Medieval Era) so that was kind of unpleasant when I found out. All of my cities stopped growing until I built a few colosseums to get back into positive happiness. Tyre's courthouse won't be finished for another 15-20 turns. Luxury resources are also a big help with the +5 happiness they provide.

Early in the game I was worried about falling behind in the tech race after three of my seven competitors reached the Classical Era before I did. But soon I built the Great Library (free tech) and got a Great Scientist (another free tech, I couldn't find the option to build the academy which was mentioned in the Civilpedia) and was the first civ to reach the Medieval Era. I recently checked the demographics and am first in food, production, population, and income. Maybe I should have started at the fourth difficulty level or maybe it's just the advantage of not sharing a continent with a competing civ.

For now I just want to keep expanding on my continent while keeping an eye on the happiness while moving towards Astronomy and the Caravel unit so I can sail in deeper water and make contact with another civ.

Fo, were any resources required to build those? If so, how did you get them?

It seems that one of the subtle differences between Civ5 and Civ4 is that you have to pay more attention to what you build. In Civ4, you just build anything and everything; you apparently can't do that in Civ5.

Only the horsemen, which require horses as I'm sure you'd guess. I had horse tiles near my first two cities, one of them can support four units that require horses, the other tile can support two units. You just build a pasture, there is no need to link the pasture to your cities with a road like you had to in previous games.

Sounds like they simplified the game to get rid of a lot of the tedious stuff.

Yeah. If you've played Civ Rev on the consoles, you got at least an idea of where they decided to go after Civ IV in terms of streamlining.

From what I've been able to play, V is definitely not "Civ Rev for PC," but it shares some philosophical elements.