I can't get Civ 5 by retail or by download!

I'm a British expat in China and Steam won't accept my PayPal that's connected to my British bank account and it won't accept my credit card because I'm not living in the country that my credit card is issued in or my bank account is in!

Direct2drive doesn't have China in the list of countries it will sell to, so that failed!

Went to Wal-Mart and Bestbuy in 2 of the largest commercial districts in Shanghai and they had no copies and no idea of when they would be getting any in!

I am so willing to hand over my money right now to the creators of this game or any online distributor that will sell it to me or a shop here that will sell it to me, but I can't find any!

Is there any other way of me buying it?

Did you try to contact internet vendors that might sell to China? I admit I'm ignorant on such deals as far as China is concerned but you should see if Wal-Mart, BestBuy, or Amazon.com will be able to sell it to you over the web, and then ship it to you.

Do you know anyone who could gift you a copy through steam?

Amazon is a bit of a catch 22 because if you want things shipped to China then they redirect you to their Chinese website and Amazon China only accepts payments from within China, which I can't do.

Not sure about Wal-Mart, but Bestbuy China's website is all in Chinese and it looks a bit basic, so I'm not even sure if they sell online yet.

I don't know anyone who could gift it to me on Steam and not sure how that works. If Steam won't let me pay for it, would they allow me to accept it as a gift from someone else that I paid?

I will write to customer support at Steam and see if they can help or make an exception or something. It unlocks in 11 hours over here, so I'd really love to have it before it unlocks!

Worst case, play the demo until that time...

At least gets your feet wet and you get used to the new UI.

WTFF is allowing you to save 50 bucks and you've got a problem with it? Someday you'll look back on this and realize you dodged a bullet.

*Update**

Got a reply from Steam this morning:

"Our records indicate that your purchase was declined due to your current IP address differing from your billing information. We have removed the lock on your account - you will now be able to complete additional purchases."

Bought it, downloaded it and been playing all day.....love it!

Wow, great customer service. Thanks for the update.

Panda_Power said:

*Update**

Got a reply from Steam this morning:

"Our records indicate that your purchase was declined due to your current IP address differing from your billing information. We have removed the lock on your account - you will now be able to complete additional purchases."

Bought it, downloaded it and been playing all day.....love it!

Click to expand...

So it all worker out! Happy Civving.

I will cite this thread in the future as proof of how not-evil-corporate-villain Valve is.