Civ 5/Steam:Offline Mode Question

atticus finch

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 20, 2009
Messages
35
Location
United States of America
I've never bought a game off Steam or a game that required steam. However, Civ 5 has made me consider doing so. But here's my situation. I have my gaming computer in my room. We have a computer in our living room with the internet on it. I'm 15, my parents would never let me have the internet on my computer, so that's out of the question. I was wondering if I would be able to temporarily hook my computer up to the internet, install Civ 5(or any other game requiring steam) then go into offline mode, take my computer off the internet, take it back into my room, and play just like a any other game. Would that work?
 
Yep, that'd work fine. You'd just need to tick the "remember me" box when you log in online so it gives you the offline mode option.
 
Steam will need you to connect to the internet at regular intervals (I seem to recall it's something like every 3 weeks) but otherwise it should be fine.
 
Steam will need you to connect to the internet at regular intervals (I seem to recall it's something like every 3 weeks) but otherwise it should be fine.
afaik there is not even the need to do this. I never noticed anything like this, so I would assume this i snot needed.
 
Yeah, you won't need to connect to the internet after the initial activation at all (unless you want to update or something, but that's pretty obvious)
 
Really!? So that would work fine, and it be just like any other game? I just double click the icon, it loads, I play it? I would never have to think about Steam again, unless I had to reinstall it?
 
I've never bought a game off Steam or a game that required steam. However, Civ 5 has made me consider doing so. But here's my situation. I have my gaming computer in my room. We have a computer in our living room with the internet on it. I'm 15, my parents would never let me have the internet on my computer, so that's out of the question. I was wondering if I would be able to temporarily hook my computer up to the internet, install Civ 5(or any other game requiring steam) then go into offline mode, take my computer off the internet, take it back into my room, and play just like a any other game. Would that work?

it would work :goodjob::goodjob:
 
Really!? So that would work fine, and it be just like any other game? I just double click the icon, it loads, I play it? I would never have to think about Steam again, unless I had to reinstall it?

Well, yes. Steam starts automatically in the background when you start the game. It doesn't close when you exit the game, however. So if you are worried about the 10MB memory resources it uses, you'll need to manually click exit from the icon in the icon tray.
 
No way in hell will I ever buy a game that REQUIRES me to be on the internet. Guess it's CIV IV for the rest of life.

Yes, because going on the internet is totally something you'd never do.

What a horrible thought.
 
Attacking someone for a belief they have causes them to build a barrier. As a genuine advocate of Steam, would it not be more productive to be either neutral or positive in explaining away the myths?

Is it done out of compassion for the Steam-boycotters, wanting them to not have to miss out on civ5?

Why do so few people prefer the middle ground? Is it because they don't care to comment? Is it because the amount of disinformation from both sides only polarises the positions that people take on Steam?

Chalks, it's you in particular I struggle to understand the true motives of. You obviously think Steam is a good platform. Do you hope to encourage more people to use Steam? If so, do you think positive encouragement as opposed to sweeping generalisations can be a better way to achieve such a goal? It seems when a question is asked, you answer with a positive answer. If a false statement is made however, all hell breaks loose.
 
No way in hell will I ever buy a game that REQUIRES me to be on the internet. Guess it's CIV IV for the rest of life.

It is the way of the future and it really doesn't have anything to do with Steam except that Steam happens to be what Civ 5 will be using. Don't be suprised to find that every new title released in the not-so-distant future requiring a connection to the internet in order to funtion.

It's kind of like text messages on your phone- you can hate it, resist it and refuse to go along all you want but that isn't going to stop it from happening.

Fortunately, Steam has been successful enough itself to ensure that it isn't going to suddenly go out of business without some very obvious advance notice. The same can't be said for independant developers who are just as likely to close shop as they are to stick around and release another title. So at least this way your game will still work regardless of what happens to the developer as long as Steam keeps running.

I've been using Steam for several years. I absolutely hated it at first, mostly because I didn't understand it, perhaps I was afraid of change or uneasy about the unknown, it doesn't really matter as now I've grown quite fond of it.
 
I myself am not very fond of the idea of Civ 5 having to have steam. But I love Civ, and I'm willing to go to the extra trouble. I didn't know before that I could play in offline mode, and I'm glad that I've got all the facts. I've been wanting to try Empire: Total War for a while now, and I really want to play Civ 5. Now, I just have to upgrade my computer and I can get E:TW and Civ 5 when it comes out. I don't think companies should require people to use Steam to play their games. But,I like Civ, so I'll buy it anyway. If you can't beat em', join em'.

Thanks to all of you who answered my question. Now I know that I can play Civ 5 even if it requires Steam.
 
I myself have a steam question (I apologize if this has been already asked/answered).
Is it possible for me to install civ 5 , verify it with steam, and then uninstall it, if so would this also be true for E:TW (since I already have that)?
 
I myself have a steam question (I apologize if this has been already asked/answered).
Is it possible for me to install civ 5 , verify it with steam, and then uninstall it, if so would this also be true for E:TW (since I already have that)?

No, steam is a core component of Civ 5. Many things Civ 5 does while you're playing the game are done through steam.

Without steam, Civ 5 would be missing big chunks so there is no way it could run.

Don't worry though, you won't notice steam running in the background when you play the game - you can prevent it from loading on startup or ever bothering you with any messages. I doubt you'll have trouble with it.
 
Thanks for the quick reply! :)
O well, nothing is perfect. The problem with steam is I'm against all this 3rd party stuff, I'm not trying to argue, I just don't like it.
 
No way in hell will I ever buy a game that REQUIRES me to be on the internet. Guess it's CIV IV for the rest of life.

It doesn't require you to be on the internet other than the very first session where you need to either download the game if you've bought it directly from Steam, or to get the encryption key to decrypt the files on the disk if you've bought it at retail.

I'd acknowledge that there are still some people out there without access to the internet, but that population must be decreasing in size. If you've not got a dedicated connection, but still have the means of getting online every now and then, you can unlock the game, set Steam to offline mode (ideally setting the game not to auto-update) and you're set to play.
 
Top Bottom