• Welcome to WePlayCiv

    Welcome to WePlayCiv! We are a community of fans for Sid Meier strategy games. We cover the Civilization Series, including Civilization IV and the up-coming Civilization V, as well as the Alpha Centauri Series including the expansion Alien Crossfire. We bring you all the up to date news on developments of any of these games plus any news of interest to the community. We have lots of discussions occurring in our forums so please drop in for a visit. With our close ties to Firaxis and Sid Meier, developer of the Civilization Series, we are your complete source of news and information for the up-coming Civilization Network and Civilization V!

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    by Published on 03-09-10 03:27

    The CivPlayers Admin team is pleased to announce that in order to get our Civ5 league off to a good start, we will be running a cash contest this fall.

    On Dec 1st, 2010 the top Cton/FFA, Duel, Teamer, and overall highest skill player, will recieve $100USD for their efforts. Yes in theory one single player could come away with $400 if they manage the difficult task of leading in all categories.

    We will be publishing the detailed rules for the contest in good time. But rest assured that rules will be in place to prevent any abuse or cheating in the contest. In the end the player(s) that master Civ5 MP in the first few months on Civplayers Civ5 league will be rewarded.

    Yes I know it is not winning the lottery or anything, but it will certainly put your name in lights and give you some more cash for the busy Christmas shoppng period!

    Feel free to give us feedback in this thread

    http://forum.civplayers.com/index.php/topic,9165.0.html

    CS
    by Published on 01-09-10 09:16

    A new feature has been posted at Civilization5.com. The feature discusses the social responsibility of helping to take care of the world we live in.

    When creating a game about the rise of mankind from lone settlers to global superpowers, one cannot help but reflect on the responsibility we all have to take care of the world we live in.

    Civilization has been around for a long time, and has responsibilities and respect for its audience that many games don’t have the opportunity to garner. So we decided that instead of a few extra print ads or banners, we’d cut out a portion of what we were doing from the marketing budget and apply it to what is important to you and what is important to us. Civilization V strives to be a more socially responsible game. Here’s what we’re doing:

    2K Games is donating $250,000 to four education-based charities, and you, the customer, will determine how the money is dispersed! Simply select your choice from the pre-selected charities during the game’s installation. We’ll tally up the total percentages and disperse the funds as our customers have directed.

    We’ve made the formerly 200+ page printed manual an improved interactive PDF. This PDF manual allows you to click on screenshots to see them clearer than thumbnails, navigate much easier with clickable links, and most importantly, look forward to manual updates as we make changes to the game. But don’t take my word for it; I have a sample of the manual for you to check out: Click here to see the sample. Included in the retail copies is a small quick-start manual to get you up and running as quickly as possible.

    All of the paper included in the retail box is recycled paper with 30% post-consumer waste. We’ve removed all solvent inks in favor of soy and UV based inks. Even the box itself is a recyclable box called the BioBox.
    by Published on 01-09-10 00:34



    Tantalizing temptation to treat. "Focus: 'Civilization V'" features Daniel "DanQ" Quick, with Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl and Peter "Maniac" Steenbeke from ModCast, interviewing Jon Shafer and Pete Murray from Firaxis Games on Civilization V. Shafer is the game's Lead Designer and Murray is the company's Marketing Associate.

    The summary of topics is as follows:

    - 02m23s | Introduction
    Informing who is Jon Shafer and Pete Murray of Firaxis Games: what does a typical workday for each of them entail.
    - 05m09s | Definitions
    Definition of a game designer, favourite part of the task and working relationship between departments developing Civilization V.
    - 09m56s | History
    Looking back at previous Civ titles to inform design decisions, and then all about the hex-based grid system: decision to use, progression through and getting oriented.
    - 16m21s | Policies
    CiVV's Social Policies mechanic: particulars within variety, choice benefits and consequences, and overall balance.
    - 25m49s | Religion
    The reimagination of representing religion in the Civilization franchise, and good -- as well as bad -- relations with other civs in-game.
    - 31m12s | Modding
    First, future and inception of the CivV in-game Modding browser, quality review within and installation of Mods. Then, influence of CivIV's BUG Mod, and transition from that game's Python to Lua programming language in CiVV. Finally, evolution of Civ's modding capabilities and its furthering, CivV's World Builder, ability to add data to specific objects and personal preferences for content.
    - 43m52s | Legacy
    Challenges and comforts in designing a successor title in an established gaming franchise as compared to one that is new and untested.
    - 45m17s | Comparison
    Comparing CivV to CivIV on terrain and maps, and barbarians.
    - 53m06s | Advisors
    Setting CivV's advisors apart from those found in Civilization: II and Civilization: Revolution.
    - 55m39s | Realization
    Three words: Giant Death Robots.

    - Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
    Disembodied voices, getting certain medal figurines, adding a certain resource to CivV, exotic protein, and a couple of unmentionables.

    PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; this is the seventh in its "Focus" series highlighting a particular Civ or Civ-related title. Sibling shows ModCast and RevCast focus on Civ modding and Civilization: Revolution respectively.

    Enjoy.
    by Published on 31-08-10 19:55

    PC Gamer magazine have published their World exclusive review of Civilization V.

    It's a whole new world with a whole new set of rich, intricate rules to master. It's also impossible for a strategy fan to resist picking up...or to quit.
    They give the game the excellent score of 93%, describing it not as a Civilization IV beater, but an equal able to stand on its own.

    This is more of an equal that exists in parallel, offering a fresh and invigorating style of play with more emphasis on combat.
    If anyone has/receives this issue of PC Gamer magazine please post in the forums your thoughts.

    Thanks to CVG for the news.
    by Published on 31-08-10 16:05

    BradyGames’ official strategy guide for Civilization V is now available for preorder at Amazon. It ships September 10 and will set you back $13.49.


    Civilization V Official Strategy Guide (paperback)

    Thanks to CivLegacy for the news!
    by Published on 31-08-10 16:02

    CivLegacy and Joystiq has both released some new screenshots of [i]Civ5/i] for us to glare at! Please use the napkins handed out at the entrance for wiping off the drool, thank you.

    Starting screen(?):


    Policy screen, showing the effect of Oligarcy:
    by Published on 31-08-10 14:52

    Swedish webshop Webhallen.com has opened up for preordering of Civilization 5!

    The price is 395 SEK, which equals roughtly 53 USD with the current exchange rate.

    The preorder bonus is three unique maps:
    • Cradle of Civilization: Asia
    The Indus River valley was home to the early Harappan civilization while the Yellow River valley in China saw the rise of the earliest Chinese dynasties. Both these regions would be included on the same map (which would be dominated by the Himalayans and jungles of SE Asia between these two fertile zones).
    • Cradle of Civilization: The Americas
    Although civilization blossomed later in the western hemisphere, the region from Peru in the south to Mexico in the north was just as important as an incubator for the development of ancient cultures. This map would span this rugged area of jungles and highlands.
    • Cradle of Civilization: The Mediterranean
    The period of Classical Antiquity saw the rise of city states from Phoenicia, Greece, and later Rome and Persia. Their struggles all centered on the great sea in the “Middle of the Earth”, hence the name Mediterranean. This map will cover the entire Mediterranean basin including the nearby peninsulas and coasts where these great empires grew and prospered.


    Thanks to CivLegacy for the news tip!
    by Published on 31-08-10 10:32

    Voodoo Extreme (VE3D) have posted an in-depth 4 page preview of Civilization 5. After a long time playing, and many games, the reviewer does an excellent job of giving a deep and meaningful preview of the game.

    So you may have read some previews out there already, but we wanted to take our time with the game because after all we’re talking about Civilization. One simply cannot get a true feel of the game after a single play session. Every nook and cranny must be explored through multiple full games, and really we got all up in it. As a result of us taking our sweet time, we’ve tried war mongering, going for the space race, cultural wins, and even the more peaceful (to a point) diplomatic route. No matter how we went about it though, Civilization 5 was a total blast to play!
    The preview sums up in a very promising way for Civilization fans.

    I could go on and on, but this in in danger of turning into a review. Just rest assured that as a life-long Civilization fan I can very happily say that Civilization V is a fantastic game, and should bring hours of entertainment to others like me later this month. Big thanks to 2K for including us in the media preview.
    Read the full preview here.
    by Published on 31-08-10 01:16



    Does not necessarily make it a good one though. The ninety-ninth episode of PolyCast, "Not a Bad Plan", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and Lisa "qnl" Bang with returning guest co-host Sal "Thorburne" Serio and first-time guest co-host "obsolete".

    The summary of topics is as follows:

    - 02m26s | Senate
    Five Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword strategy tips from "obsolete" based on community forums' observations, panelists' self-identified weaknesses in gameplay and going after smaller or larger empires in consideration of vassalization mechanics.
    - 21m20s | Forum Talk
    What no technology trading, as set in the up-and-coming Civilization V, means to gameplay with comparison to its applicability within CivIV.
    - 28m51s | News
    All about cities, happiness, gold and strategic resources in CivV according to the game's official website.

    - Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
    Memories of some early Digital Rights Management efforts, voice actor for CivV revealed and what else that may be revealing, and treading softly.

    PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding and RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution.

    As always, enjoy.
    by Published on 29-08-10 20:51

    Dutch geek/technology site Tweakers.net has posted two articles about Civilization V based on their visit to last week's GamesCom: a preview and an interview with Civ5 lead designer Jon Shafer. They also included 14 screenshots. The preview focuses on the new combat model, explaining that this area of the game has become more tactical. A translation of one paragraph:

    In Civ V it's important to encircle your opponent. Using the right tiles is crucial in an attack. The fun part is that ranged units can now fire over other tiles. This starts with Archers that you can build. They can shoot over a tile, and you can put melee units in front of them to protect them. Some canons that are available later on in the game can even fire over two tiles, keeping them out of range of the ranged units that can be produced earlier in the game. It's a matter of occupying as many tiles around the enemy as possible, so that your units get the bonus for being adjacent to each other and so that you can attack with as many units as possible. Here it's more important than ever before to put the right unit in the right spot.
    The article continues to explain that cities can now defend themselves and are formidable forces, making city capture a challenge especially in the early game. The author then talks about the role of city states, noting it's more important to keep them as friends early on as they are difficult to conquer. If you build up the relationship, a city state ally will act much like a vasal.

    The article then talks about the trade-off of annexing vs creating puppet states and briefly explain the new culture/social policies model. Author Paul Hulsebosch concludes that the game appears to be fine addition to the series and praises in particular the combat changes.

    In the second article, Hulsebosch interviews Jon Shafer about the game. When the former notes that Civ5 seems to have taken a lot of elements from CivRev, Jon is quick to explain the complexity of the game is on the same level as Civ4 -- only some elements were taken from the console port, such as the simplified interface and the advisors, which should make it easier for newcomers to jump in. Another lesson they took from CivRev was to make every unit truly unique and have its own specific role. When you research a new unit it's not just the same unit as its predecessor but with higher stats, it will offer entirely new capabilities.

    Jon then talks about how Civ5's graphical style is more mature than that of Civ4 as the team now has more experience with building fully 3D games (Civ4 was Firaxis's first fully 3D title). With the leaders, the aim was to make them look heroic to create a positive view of history -- there are already plenty of dark games out there. Shafer continues to talk about the engine, catering to the tech-savvy Tweakers.net audience. The following is a re-translation of the Dutch translation of Jon's comments:

    We started with a number of elements of the Civ Rev engine. We had a few programmers in our team that also worked on Civ Rev. The biggest part of the engine however was built specifically for Civ V. We built a new animation engine, a new particle engine and a completely new renderer. And because we're developing for the PC, we could take the latest hardware into account. For example, the game runs much better on quadcore than on dualcore. We also built the game on DirectX 11, that's the API we used as foundation and support for earlier versions was derived from that. Of course the game will run on DX9 and DX10 as well, but DX11 was our starting point. We also based our design on the latest Intel processors: Core i3, i5 and i7. With Civ IV this was less of a priority. That engine was not optimised to take advantage of the available hardware and hardly performed any better on a quadcore than on a singlecore. We just received a hexcore system and the game runs absolutely fantastic on that. The engine is job-based, where one of the threads is dedicated to assigning tasks to the other available threads. Together with the folks at Intel our programmers optimised the work load distribution. As a result, on our hexcore machine all six cores now run at 90% effiency, which is a very high score. I don't think any other game scores that high and we are very proud of that. That is also the main advantage of developing solely for the PC; we don't have to worry about making sure the game also runs on consoles.
    The interview then moves the discussion back to gameplay: why hexagons? Jon explains that travel in all directions is now the same, that the borders of tiles are now much more obvious and it just plain looks better: a mountain now looks more natural, not as square as it did in Civ4. On the other hand, technologically it's more challenging as path finding is more difficult, and it also has a stigma dating back to board games.

    The next topic is terrain height. Jon explains that combat range now works the same way as line of sight: an Archer can't attack a unit if there's a forest tile between them -- unless the Archer is on a hill, in which case it can see/fire over the forest. When asked why city states don't expand and found new cities, the lead designer explains that they exist to offer new diplomatic options, not to potentially form a threat to the player. Asked about if Firaxis ever considered the 1UPT model before, Jon says no, he took it from Panzer General. Talking about Sid's response to the game, Jon notes that he did need convincing about the 1UPT rule, although it had been considered for Civ2 as well. Eventually he came on board with the idea though, and it was Sid's idea that adjacent units should receive a bonus.

    The interviewer wonders why the promotion options in Civ5 are so limited, to which Jon replies that he wants the player to really think about a few major options, the decisions are more important now. Finally, when asked if it was considered to include any hero units in the game, Shafer says that he wants all units to be important. Players should get attached to the units they promoted a few times and that maybe only barely survived an important battle, not to units that the game designates as important. There is a Great General however, which is similar to the one in Civ Rev: it can give a combat bonus to nearby units or be used to build a citadel improvement inside your borders, which gives a massive combat bonus to units inside it, making it perfect for choke point defence.

    As Dutch and Belgian readers may be aware, one of Tweakers.net's prime features is their Pricewatch, which tracks the prices of hundreds of thousands of geek products and the reputation of hundreds of Dutch webshops that sell them. The cheapest pre-order offer for Civilization V is currently a mere €34.95.
    by Published on 29-08-10 15:26

    German gaming site 4players has posted a short two page preview of Civilization V. The previewer praises the city states and military aspects of the game, while being more sceptical to parts of the new diplomacy system.

    A Google Translate-excerpt:
    Should I get along with Oslo? Just now my Scout maritime city-state has discovered on the map. He is neither the Americans nor the Russians, but manages to free as a Hanseatic city best times to himself. But when I roll out my relationship to Oslo on gifts or special missions such as defense against barbarians or the supply of luxury goods, I can benefit from it: At a certain level of sympathy I get such automatic access to the commodities of the city and depending on political type I win in culture, or even get a military unit for free!

    Of these city-states, there are up to sixteen on a map and they enrich the gaming experience of Civilization V significantly.
    Thanks to CFC for the news tip.
    by Published on 29-08-10 14:12

    Gameinformer has published an interview with Civilization V's art director Dorian Newcomb, where the artist explains the art deco style of Civ5. He also sheds light on two of the new leaders in Civ V, what role classic LucasArts adventure Grim Fandango played in the game's early development, and how he and lead designer Jon Shafer "don't want to make a game for dumb people."

    As I worked with Jon, there were two leaders that he wanted to put in the game -- Ramkhamhaeng and Askia -- that I had never heard of before in my life. I said, "Oh, goodness. How are we going to make these guys stand out?" People are going to be meeting these characters, and they're supposed to be famous historical figures, and I don't know who they are. I found both of those guys very interesting to research and interesting to get to know a little bit better. They both had huge impacts in their regions of the world, and I just didn't know about them. When it came to finding out more about Askia -- he's a western African leader -- finding out about how organized and powerful his empire was, but also how there was a tendency for brutality, especially toward people in his inner circle. That's what influenced him burning his own city -- purging his own city of the evil that he found there. That was interesting. Ramkhamhaeng, who is a Siamese leader, is someone that was massively grand in the scope of being peaceful and a cultural leader, and someone who if he was your president you'd be thrilled to have him. That was cool to see: someone who was fiercely brutal, and someone who was fair and honest and had a lot of integrity. Balancing those extremes off of the better-known guys like Caesar and Elizabeth was fun.
    Thanks to Cyberstratège for the heads up.
    by Published on 29-08-10 04:42

    Elizabeth Tobey hosts the seventh official podcast over at Civilization5.com and talks to Ed Beach, Lead AI and Gameplay Programmer, and Jon Shafer, Lead Designer about combat in CivV.

    This interesting podcast covers combined arms attacking, naval combat, city defence, ranged combat, flanking, ZOC, and even some insights into the multiplayer combat environment!!

    Yeah something that we wanted to make sure of is that naval units were more significant in this game. So something that we've done is all of the naval units are now ranged and they can actually hit on land as well. So they can bombard cities directly they can bombard units on the land directly.
    I think the first thing to keep in mind is that you're gonna want to use multiple units in conjunction like we were mentioning and a key part of that is that there's now a flank bonus that is given to an offensive player when he has additional units that are adjacent to the defender and then he makes an attack with one of those units. It actually also applies in defense if the person attacking you is surrounded by a bunch of your defending units you also get the same bonus.
    Because ranged units are so important, something to keep an eye out for are hills. Hills allow your ranged units, if stationed on them, to shoot over other obstacles. Normally if you have a very dense forest your ranged units aren't going to be able to shoot as far as they normally can. However if they're on a hill they can actually restore their range so identifying hills and getting your ranged units on top of them will be something that's pretty important to winning.
    Check out the full podcast at Civilization5.com
    by Published on 29-08-10 04:08

    Rockpapershotgun.com take a laid back look at city-states in some detail. The writer starts off sceptical, but ends up being won over by this new addition to the Civ world!

    At first, they seemed like they were just dead space on the map, architectural squatters preventing my expansion but offering none of the trade benefts of a full-on Civ. Get away, shoo! Get off my land.
    They’re the only element of Civ V that I’ve ever hissed at, but taking a few steps back I recognised the irked purist in myself and had a closer nose. What City States actually mean is a whole new way to play the game. I stopped hissing pretty quickly.
    The degree to which you can pursue City States as a game-wide strategy makes a fascinating (if slightly oblique) addition, a whole new level of micro-strategy say on top of the streamlined Civ core.
    Read the full article at rockpapershotgun.com
    by Published on 29-08-10 03:53

    A late released, but interesting interview from the E3 convention between Gameshark.com and Dennis Shirk featuring some nice info about Jon Shafer, Panzer General and CivV combat, how culture interacts with the various other aspects of CivV, the less bogged down end game and the big role gold will play in our affairs of empire, and more!

    He loved the thought of taking the combat out of the cities. Bringing these stacks down to individual units where you can actually take advantage of the terrain. Rivers mean something. Hills mean something. It’s not just who has the biggest stack. It’s not just who’s pounding the most units inside of a city. So terrain really matters. We’re pulling combat out of the cities and into the landscape. So you can do things like have bonuses for flanking and have friends on your flanks fighting.
    What we’re doing with the Social Policy tree is culture now acts like currency to tailor your civ, so even if you’re playing a military game, if you’re generating culture you can actually focus that military game even more with these bonus. These are powerful bonuses. Some of the bonuses are good for military, for science, for happiness. But if you’re focused on a culture win, you’re obviously going to use specific branches that really help your culture. It’s just a really great way to integrate your culture into the rest of the game.
    Gold can be accumulated obviously – we wanted to do more interesting things with gold. In the past there wasn’t a whole lot you could do with gold. Obviously you had some bribery and you could rush units. Land purchasing is expensive. It can be very expensive. It can be very expensive versus just buying an open plain next to your city that’s really close. So, it’s a viable strategy, but you’re not going to have any gold left to actually rush units or buy them outright, to bribe City-States, to bribe other civilizations, to buy luxury resources you need. Also, strategy resources are finite in the game. If you’ve got two iron, that means you’ve got two swordsman. No more. That’s all you get.
    So, there’s a lot more buying and trading, horse-trading, for resources in the game. So, gold has a lot more value. If you spend it a lot or too much in one place, it’s just not available anywhere else.
    Read the full interview at Gameshark.com
    Thanks to French Civ site Cyberstratège for pointing us towards this story.
    by Published on 28-08-10 17:43

    Civilization V lead designer Jon Shafer has been busy lately, as another interview of him has surfaced, this time from Strategy Informer. They ask him how he feels about being this close to release:

    It's relieving. It's been a long ride... we've spent three years on this game and its finally coming to an end. It's kind of a surprise, well, not a surprise, but it's interesting when a project wraps up because you've spent so much time on it, you've seen It from beginning to end, to the point where we're showing off everything. It's really cool, it's relieving... and a little weird, all at the same time.
    He continues to talk about some of the major changes in Civ5, in particular to the mod tools. He indicates that he doesn't know exactly when the World Builder will be released, only that it will be around the same time as the main game. When asked about whether the mod tools integrate with Steam, Jon says:

    The mod service itself is actually separate from steam, so that's all handled externally. The game itself is able to load and read mod-packs using this special tool. So if somebody wanted to make a mod they run it through this special tool and it creates a package that the game can then read and load. It's something where, instead of like in Civ IV where you have to take the files and change things manually and figure out what to do, the whole process has been streamlined now, and it works with Steam a lot better than other games.
    He continues to explain that it's not required for mods the use the in-game browser, fan site databases can still be used to distribute them as well, and even RSS feeds will be made available.

    After that the interview moves on from modding and Jon talks about the Panzer General-inspired combat model, other games he's looking forward to playing now that Civ5 is done, the role of Civ in the field of strategy gaming, how Civ keeps reinventing itself, the response from the fan community and the UI.

    You can read the full one-page article on Strategy Informer. Thanks to French Civ site Cyberstratège for pointing us towards this story.
    by Published on 28-08-10 17:21

    Firaxis Marketing Associate Pete Murray gave a presentation of Civilization V in front of a large live audience at GamesCom last Saturday, and German gaming site ESL TV was there to record it.

    The (mostly English-language) video primarily shows off modern combat, including Jet Fighters, Stealth Bombers, a Nuke and of course a Giant Death Robot. A very low-res version version of the video can be found for free on the ESL TV'website, a more high-res version can be purchased from there.

    Credit goes to French gaming site Cyberstratège for finding the video first.
    by Published on 28-08-10 15:52

    Bitmob user Rob Savillo posted an interview he had with lead designer Jon Shafer about modding in Civilization V. In it, Jon talks about wanting to open up mods to a wider audience, hoping to set an example for the rest of the PC industry and other games with great mod support he's excited about. When asked to explain the mod browser in Civ5, Jon obliges:

    From the main menu, you’ll go into the mod section and then into browser. Once you’re there, it’s just another screen inside the game. You’ll just be able to search and sort and do all kinds of things depending on what you’re looking for. You’ll be able to rate mods -- just thumbs up, no thumbs down. We don't want to open the system to griefing. [Laughs]

    You’ll be able to sort by what has the most thumbs up. You’ll be able to see what people really like and sort by type of mod. You can sort for just maps, for certain tags, like World War 2, or whatever you want.

    [Once downloaded,] you’ll be able to enable, disable, and install whatever [mods] you want. We have a guy who’s been working on that for a while now, and he’s really into it. We’ve got a lot of really cool things with it.
    Shafer also talks about the SDK that Civ5 is planned to ship with, similar to the one in Civ4, the kinds of mods he hopes to see for Civ5 and he provides some details on the stand-alone World Builder, which will support features like undo and redo, can import Civ4 maps and can generate random maps from scratch.

    You can read the full two-page article on BitMob. Thanks to French Civ site Cyberstratège for reporting the story first.
    by Published on 28-08-10 14:03

    ...it has not been on purpose, honest

    There was a misconfiguration in our software that caused any messages sent through our contact form (and a few other places) to not go anywhere, they were stuck in the system somewhere without ever being read by anyone. We only discovered this problem this week while doing unrelated maintenance, but it appears to have been going on pretty much since day 1 of the site. Thankfully the form seems to have been used only very sparingly until about 2-3 months ago so the number of messages affected is fairly limited. Still, every ignored message is one too many.

    We apologize to all the people who sent us messages but never got a response. Needless to say, we've rectified the problem and should now receive all your messages. I have gone back through the backlog for the last three months and responded to everything that required a response. The next oldest few messages that would normally require a response from us (mostly problems with registering or downloading files) date back to last December through March, I deemed those too old to still respond to.

    If you still have any messages (new or old) that you sent to us but never got a reply to and that you'd still like us to follow up on, please resend them through the same contact form or PM Dale, Solver and/or me and we'll get back to you as quickly as possible.


    While I'm apologizing, I would also like to apologise to the subscribers of our news RSS feed. That was moved when we upgraded the site to vB4 earlier this month, but we never redirected the old feed to the new location. Some of you have already resubscribed to the new feed yourself, but some of you were still using the old feed as well. For the latter group I added an automatic redirect today, which fixes the lack of RSS updates in the last few weeks, but unfortunately also bombarded the affected users with over two weeks worth of updates in one swoop. My apologies for this, there was no way to prevent this without forcing everyone to manually switch over. It should not happen again (at least not until we upgrade to vB5 )
    by Published on 27-08-10 23:06

    2K Greg has posted on the Civilization 5 website that the demo of the game will be available on September 21st.

    I’ve gotten several requests for a formal Civilization V demo release date over the past couple weeks, and today I have the answer. The Civilization V playable demo release date is September 21st; the same day as the North American release date of the full game.

    The question many of you are probably asking now is “didn’t you say it would be available before the release date?” The answer to that question is yes, I did. At the time of that announcement, we expected to be able to get the demo out before the 21st, but unfortunately we weren’t able to finalize it in the timeframe we had initially planned, and for that we’re very sorry.

    However, we have managed to get it out the same day as the North American release. So for those of you who have been waiting to try out the demo before buying the game, you can still do that with enough time left to run out to the store (or purchase on Steam) and have the full game on the same day as everyone else.