Question of interest....

When I bought a new computer, I had games to install from steam and from the original disks.
Guess which was easier/faster to do? The original disks.

Telling people that steam is not the devil is similar to telling people not to believe in god. They're going to have their opinion/faith regardless of any argument presented. And this is an internet forum. Without opinions, this place would be pretty damn boring.

Personally I dislike steam and avoid it when I can but use it when there is no choice. But it has influenced me to not buy some games that only marginally interested me where if they had been available in the discount bin at the store, I would have bought them. For CIV V, I used steam only because it was the only choice. (and I didn't have to pay for it)

And for the record, I did have an issue once with steam and a user key. Granted it was eventually solved but it took over a week and required many contacts. But I will give them credit in one other instance where there techs helped me with a compatibility issue.

But back to the topic.
I play tested V and stopped playing it within a few days of it's original release.
It was boring, and quickly lost that "one more turn" feeling that was in I,II and IV. (don't get me going on III)
Back to IV and never looked back.
 
misterfilmgeek said:
I have an old laptop that has no network any longer that I play Football Manager 13 exclusively on, and it has never asked to reconnect and has never stopped me from playing. I don't know why you think that this is so. I'm sure Steam wants to check for updates (maybe not in Offline mode; I've never verified that), but without a connection it doesn't know that there is an update, so it just blissfully continues along as I win title after title. It's possible that this behavior is exclusive to FM13, but I seriously doubt it. I also play BtS on Steam on another computer, and it has never updated it (no need to since there have been no new releases), and I'm sure if I put that on a non-network computer, it would run for eternity just fine.
Click to expand...

No, it would not run for eternity just fine if something happened to that computer and you had to, say, reinstall Windows. Or the hard drive developed a bad sector that affected Steam. Or if you just decided to upgrade it with a new motherboard and hard drive resulting in Steam needing to be reinstalled. Any of these things can and do happen all the time, and when I was in offline mode it worked flawlessly as well, until it didn't. Until this went wrong, or that went wrong, and for whatever reason the Steam software saw fit to "reauthorize" itself.

misterfilmgeek said:
If you face the prospect of no internet at all, then obviously Steam isn't for you, but there's no need to bash it. People need to seriously lighten up about Steam - it's not the devil. It just makes buying and playing multi-player games much easier, and in my experience much cheaper as they frequently have sales - I haven't paid more than $5 for a game in years. I have everything backed up so if my hard drives fail I can just restore it without internet, and I always have the option of restoring from Steam. There is absolutely no downside if you connect to the internet even occasionally.
Click to expand...

I absolutely will bash it, because all of those pluses you mention (automatic updates, moving from computer to computer, etc.) could have been accomplished WITHOUT the added DRM. That was a conscience choice, in fact, it's WHY they added all the good stuff. They knew just adding an always online or almost always online requirement for playing games one supposedly owns would go over like a lead balloon all by itself. So they added all the great stuff (and there are some great stuff there) to get consumers to swallow the new, more intrusive DRM.

GOG is making a new client, similar to Steam's, with all the functionality of Steam's and it will remain an OPTION. I can install their new client, have it hook to the internet as necessary, update and automatically download, etc. if I want to. OR, I can choose NOT to, and still install and play the games that I bought and paid for without need for asking GOG's or anyone else's permission.

People don't need to lighten up about Steam, consumers need to demand what's rightfully theirs, and that's the ability to play THEIR GAMES when they want them, on whatever computer they want them, and in the manner they want them.
 
That's another thing with steam, and others too I believe. You buy the games, but you don't actually own them.

Also, everything in your account could be locked out at any moment if they choose to do so for whichever reason. It has happened to some people. Everything you thought you owned is suddenly worth zilch.

But hey, they have these annoying achievements and you can check when your contacts are playing game X, so it's all fine.
 
So basically, gaming is over. The dark age is upon us.

I was really looking forward to getting Football Manager when I get a new computer. Oh well. At least I can get Civ4 Complete - if I can find it, that is.
 
GoG is my favorite games site, they do not have everything so far (but i got some newer games like Divinity OS) and it's really easy and comfy to use. Always DRM-free, you own those games there.
 
Fippy said:
GoG is my favorite games site, they do not have everything so far (but i got some newer games like Divinity OS) and it's really easy and comfy to use. Always DRM-free, you own those games there.
Click to expand...

I really like them too, and have probably bought way more games than I need. Had so much fun with Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale. Don't want to think about the amount of hours I put into those games... :crazyeye: Different genre to Civ4 of course, but a lot of fun, and also tactically diverse. The RNG isn't as evil either :lol:
 
slengtorm said:
So basically, gaming is over. The dark age is upon us.

I was really looking forward to getting Football Manager when I get a new computer. Oh well. At least I can get Civ4 Complete - if I can find it, that is.
Click to expand...

Assuming you are running windows os, search on Amazon for Civilization 3&4 complete edition. Cheap price, DVD, civ 3&4 all xpacks for both games plus comes with Colonization. And Civ4 it pre patched to version 3.19. No steam needed. Also installing allows you to run the game without the disk. My computer runs windows 8, civ works perfectly. I will admit I haven't installed nor played Civ3 on my new computer, no need to with Civ4 being a superior game. But for a low price why not have both 3&4 on one DVD?
 
@Pangaea, in your post you mention Baldur's Gate. Is it just the original untouched, or has it been altered to run on modern computers? Some months ago I loaded BG to my shiny new comp, but it just wasn't compatible with my new machines OS. I would really love to reexperience the joy of BG.
 
Did you try running it in compatible mode?
 
civfanchambers said:
@Pangaea, in your post you mention Baldur's Gate. Is it just the original untouched, or has it been altered to run on modern computers? Some months ago I loaded BG to my shiny new comp, but it just wasn't compatible with my new machines OS. I would really love to reexperience the joy of BG.
Click to expand...

Works fine on my computer, which is pretty new. That's another good thing about buying games on GOG. They make them compatible with modern computers and operating systems. I do like to use a few mods though, like a widescreen mod so I can play in a higher resolution.
 
right click on the program and select properties. There's usually a compatibility tab and you can select the appropriate one.

We have to do that for playing civ IV MP. If you select XP compatible it eliminates most of the OSS errs when playing.
 
civfanchambers said:
@Pangaea, in your post you mention Baldur's Gate. Is it just the original untouched, or has it been altered to run on modern computers? Some months ago I loaded BG to my shiny new comp, but it just wasn't compatible with my new machines OS. I would really love to reexperience the joy of BG.
Click to expand...

GOG already does the "hard part" for all of it's old games, it's just a matter of downloading, installing, and playing most of the time. Even old DOS games are just point and click. They do all the behind the scenes work needed to get older games to run on new OS's, and then make it a simple install file that you can save on a thumb drive, and install on any and every machine you want to, when you want to, how you want to.

At times there may issues on individual setups, but their support staff is top notch, and if they can't get it working on your machine they give you a refund.

No better gaming retailer in the world, IMO.
 
I've spent years rejecting the internet, only having access these last few years thru my smartphone. Other than Skyrim and possibly some civ4 mods, I've really had no reason to get internet access for my computer. But with GOG and an itch to play older games I may very well join the 21st century. And yes I know that to play Skyrim I would need to make a deal with the devil (Steam). Five years I've yearned to play in the land of the Nords. Perhaps with GOG I might even dust of my cd of X-com.
 
If you get the original discs of civ4, it is relatively easy to install them on linux using wine. Don't know if wine deals with newer "complete edition" installers correctly. I'd rekon it does, but haven't tried it myself.
 
slengtorm said:
I'm not, though. That's the problem. I've been looking for YEARS. Will probably bump some three-year-old threads soon.
Click to expand...

What are you running? I'm on Linux, and the game works perfectly. I got BUG+BULL working, and am now playing and submitting games for the Hall of Fame with BUFFY. Works like a charm.

Here is what I did to get it working
Pangaea said:
Got a new taste for linux the last few weeks and am now running Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon (which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS). Yesterday I managed to get the game running, and it runs quite well to be honest - most of the time. I installed it with PlayOnLinux, using the script. Then opened the patches as an exe within the virtual drive, and they all installed without a hitch. Even got BUG and BULL working now. However, there is an odd issue, sometimes, but not always, the map is pitch black. It looks like below. Do you know what is causing this and how I can fix it?

The strange thing is that it sometimes works, and I can play, but when it ends up like this with the map black and parts of the UI missing, I need to try again. It seems to be enough to go back to the main menu and try from there, without having to restart the game.

Edit:
Never mind, I seem to have figured it out :) According to the script, it installs MSXML3, but something isn't right somewhere. According to this page the native version isn't complete, which I can vouch for. msxml3.dll file inside the virtual directory was 130kb, and after installing it via "add component" in PlayOnLinux, the file is 1MB. I read there were also problems with wonders/techs that centre the world map - Stonehenge and Math Calendar, so I tried a test game where I got Stonehenge the next turn. With the addition to the setup Stonehenge was built without issues, and all games I started went okay. When I removed it again, the map turned black when Stonehenge was built, and several new games I started were borked again. Turn msxml3 back to native via the install, and it works again. So this seems to be the solution.

I've not played long games yet, but right now everything seems to work perfectly :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
 
I'm running OS X and my next computer is also likely to be running it. I may, however, partition the hard drive and run Linux as well, in which case I would use that for Civ if I had to.
 
Civ IV with BTS is quite frankly the best Civ game out there. It's the most complex, most diverse, and most gratifying for me. It's one of the last games made before Companies started nerfing popular game titles down to stupidity. Much like Sim City 4 actually, there are also a ton of Mods to keep it fresh.
 
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