Any chance of a classic retail version with a manual?

I am one of those dinosaurs who feels nostalgic about the good old days when games came in nice boxes with printed manuals. Sid Meier recently acknowledged Civ1's "amazing manual that Bruce [Shelley] created that really supported the fantasy of the game and helped you to step into that world". I still remember falling in love with Civ1 before even playing it. Even the few pages about Cities and Civilizations got me excited, but when I had finished the first chapter, turned the page, saw that drawing of ancient children in their studies and saw that the next chapter was simply titled "The World", I knew I had a winner. That manual was very detailed and descriptive and really conveyed a sense of awe towards civilization.

For me, Civ5 had the cards very much stacked against it by lacking a printed manual ... and the digital one being nowhere near the quality of Shelley's writing. I'm wondering whether there are any other people feeling like that and whether there's any chance of a version that includes a printed manual with more ambition than explaining the interface?

For the Meier quote, see here at 23:52:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h65FXaJHbhE

Civ2 manual was awesome. I had it on my toilet for years.

Frequent patching even before release means that printed manuals are usually obsolete before you receive them, and become more so with every change to the game.

If Civ V had come with a printed manual, how much use would it be right now?

I think for me its more having it in a nice deluxe box that you can keep forever. I have every single boxed version of Civilization and they are proudly displayed. I was disappointed to not see a deluxe version of Beyond Earth, and even more disappointed of not seeing one for Civ6

There was a nice deluxe box for Civ 5:

A special edition of Civilization V was also set for worldwide release on the same day as the standard edition. The package consists of a 176-page artbook, a "behind-the-scenes" DVD at Firaxis, two-CD game soundtrack selections, and five metal figurines of in-game units, as well as the game itself.

Click to expand...

chances are something similar will be available for Civ 6

I think I bought the Civ V game guide from Prima on release. It was really nice and a good read but the problem was of course that it went quickly out of date with the add-ons etc.

I'll still probably buy the Civ VI one though if they make one!

I just want a foldout map / poster

Don't know what the chances are, but I do have good memories of reading all of the 300-page Civ3 manual, save some of the unit specs, after being unable to play it initially on account of technical difficulties.

hugojackson18 said:

I think for me its more having it in a nice deluxe box that you can keep forever. I have every single boxed version of Civilization and they are proudly displayed. I was disappointed to not see a deluxe version of Beyond Earth, and even more disappointed of not seeing one for Civ6

Click to expand...

Indeed, I have Civ2 and Civ3 on display on my bookcase. Slightly regret telling my parents they could discard the Civ4 box several years ago, and don't remember exactly where my Civ3 Conquests box is.

But I went digital with Civ5 and saved some dosh. And probably 98% of the games I buy these days are digital. And TBH, I'm kind of glad I don't have boxes for all 200 of the games I have on Steam (not even counting GOG), even if the price were the same.

Amazon is selling a CD edition in addition to a Steam Key only version; for both "standard" & "deluxe". I'm currently seeing the same price for both "CD" & "Steam Key" on their site.

I have no idea weather or not the CD edition will include a printed manual, but I note that the PDF of the Beyond Earth manual was already out of date in the details of winning multiple victory conditions on day one of the release.

In the case of Civ V, the manual and printed cheat sheets were accurate on release but become somewhat dated within three months with social policy & tech trees changing.

In the case of Civ IV, the main thing that happened to make cheat sheets inaccurate was tech costs for the second half of the game greatly increased within six months.

In the case of Civ III, we have a weird case where the Vanilla manual stayed reasonably accurate, but the Civ III Conquests manual had inaccurate info about the Forbidden Palace National wonder upon CD release and it took several patches to make it function close to the manual.

Quintillus said:

Don't know what the chances are, but I do have good memories of reading all of the 300-page Civ3 manual, save some of the unit specs, after being unable to play it initially on account of technical difficulties.



Indeed, I have Civ2 and Civ3 on display on my bookcase. Slightly regret telling my parents they could discard the Civ4 box several years ago, and don't remember exactly where my Civ3 Conquests box is.

But I went digital with Civ5 and saved some dosh. And probably 98% of the games I buy these days are digital. And TBH, I'm kind of glad I don't have boxes for all 200 of the games I have on Steam (not even counting GOG), even if the price were the same.

Click to expand...

Hi Quint, long time fan.
I remember reading your expansive stories in the Civ 3 stories and tales.

I still have most of my boxes from Civ3 onwards. Civ2 I played on a borrowed disc so I never 'owned' the game and I was casual at the time and only invested a few months here and there.

I never played Civ1 outside of the SNES version.

Come to think of it, I wish 2K would put out Civ1 in some form on GOG or STEAM or heck Mobile. It would be better than CivRev2

It's certainly true that lists of statistics like unit values, building effects and tech costs can become widely dated through post-release changes. If I remember correctly, Civ1 introduced number-of-cities-unhappiness in a patch, but that was the only major change after release.
The game was sold as a finished product rather than as something that people expected to be tweaked, developed and expanded in the months after release.

For me, unit and building lists add to manual mainly because they show how rich and detailed the game is. From that perspective, straightforward notes about the strategic importance of a unit ("a group of carriage-mounted, smoothbore cannons. Cannons are excellent on the attack and their arrival often opens a new round of offensive wars, especially when accompanied by Rifleman who can stack with them for defense.") are more helpful than a set of numbers.

At any rate, a good manual should focus on explaining the concepts and rules of the game in some detail. Paradox' manuals for Hearts of Iron II and Europa Universalis III are excellent examples of how to do it well. That approach may require a talented writer like Bruce Shelley or Chris Stone and will involve a lot more work than just compiling lists of statistics, but it can turn a manual into a something worth reading in print.

So has it been announced there is no retail version?

If so... too bad. For $59 you should have that option.

Sherlock said:

So has it been announced there is no retail version?

If so... too bad. For $59 you should have that option.

Click to expand...

Amazon is selling a DVD version in addition to the steam key version. Sadly, Amazon is charging the same amount for the steam key version as the CD version ($59.99, unless you are a member of "prime" in which case their standard 20% discount for both preorders and recently released items apply.)
The DVD version has a listed shipping weight of 4 ounces. This weight is slightly more than expected for a single DVD on the one hand, but way less than what a manual should weigh on the other. It's about right if a printed cheat sheet chart is included.

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-VI-PC/dp/B01FEHJYUU

Sadly 2K's margins on retail versions would be tiny.
Probably $15-25 after the retailer has take its cut, and packaging/shipping ; Compare this to 70% of the Steamstore price digitally.

I think they will do a token retail release, and if they do anything fans want, it will likely be in $120-$150 ultra-deluxe collector's edition if they were to do a retail version to get maximum returns. That one might have a poster and an amiibo style unit in the box.

I would expect that they'll do a retail box version. Even though the margins are small, there's still money to be made.

Well, Civ III had over 200 pages? I still own it. Now it seems it costs them too much.

dexters said:

Hi Quint, long time fan.
I remember reading your expansive stories in the Civ 3 stories and tales.

I still have most of my boxes from Civ3 onwards. Civ2 I played on a borrowed disc so I never 'owned' the game and I was casual at the time and only invested a few months here and there.

I never played Civ1 outside of the SNES version.

Come to think of it, I wish 2K would put out Civ1 in some form on GOG or STEAM or heck Mobile. It would be better than CivRev2

Click to expand...

Good to hear from you! I'm still around in the Civ3 forums, though more towards Creation and Customization than Stories and Tales these days. Seems to work better with my more limited Civ time. Although there's still a story in my sig that I'd like to finish, I just need to get far enough along in the game to have a good backlog to draw from when I post it, and it's a slow game.

I would be interested in buying Civ1, or Civ2 with its various expansions, from GOG as well. It would certainly simplify running it on a modern system over buying the old 16-bit CD-ROM or floppy disk version, and I suspect they'd get a decent amount of sales just from existing fans who are curious or would like to complete their collection.

I do agree that their margins on a Civ6 retail release would be a lot lower, but there are still people who don't have good enough Net connections to download a multi-gigabyte game (people in very rural areas, people in certain parts of the military, etc.) but would like to buy the game. So they probably do make some money, even if they lose a bit from people who could buy the higher-margin Steam version but buy retail instead.

Civ5 did have a Special Edition, described by The_J here, and announced by Firaxis here. But while it contained an art book, it did not have a printed manual.

A special edition without a printed manual is a sad sight indeed. The Civ3 manual was the last one in a decent format. It had some problems - the tutorial chapter had serious flaws and putting interface documentation into a separate "reference" section created some redundancies - but its quality was still leagues above the Civ5 manual. If Civ6 is supposed to be a great game, it should be treated as such and at least any luxury edition should have a printed manual.

Civ 5 is one of the few software applications which nearly covers all necessary information within the Civilopedia. It is available when and where I need it (in-game). If I can't find what I want in the Civilopedia, I could usually find it in the XML files or Lua code.

Most developers abandoned paper documentation without providing equivalent helpful information in any other form. It annoys me to rely on "unofficial" information from sources of indertiminate reliability and credibility (such as unofficial forums) for critical software usage information. Soon we will need to go online to find the instructions for opening a resealable package of macaroni and cheese. It will be posted on a forum by a person in a foreign country who hopefully speaks my language.

Learning anything previously required a phone call to an expert, transportation to a building housing books (library), or registering for a class with a professional teacher. Googling the design requirements for ABC123 model of a dual capacity widget from the ACME corporation, and actually finding a helpful suggestion in 30 seconds, does not seem that horrible in the grand scheme of things.

I am a big fan of the days when opening the package and perusing all the materials protected behind the shrink wrap was quite the initial experience with a software purchase.

Me personally, I'm holding my breath for the source code and data to be distributed on stone tablets such that I can transcribe them into source code files and build everything on my own system (with desired modifications). I am still working on building my strictly mechanical computer which does not require electricity. Only a few more glitches to resolve.

<Just kidding>. Lol

The Civilopedia is generally pretty good. My main nitpick with the Civ5 one is the section headers just have icons with no text, which makes it difficult to quickly jump to a topic (such as Wonders) if you don't know what the icon is... and they aren't all obvious. That's actually a complaint I have with several other applications as well, a good example being GMail where they've moved away from text-and-icons to just icons (although I switched away from around that time as well, so maybe they've re-added the text?).

So the Civilopedia does replace a lot of what used to be in the manual, and is flexible with changing rules and mods. The conceptual stuff could still fit nicely in a manual though.

It annoys me to rely on "unofficial" information from sources of indertiminate reliability and credibility (such as unofficial forums) for critical software usage information.

Click to expand...

I agree it's not as desirable as official documentation, but CFC does have some really useful, accurate information on the Civ games. And for the more in-depth stuff, I've often found that I can find it as quickly on CFC as anywhere.

a resealable package of macaroni and cheese

Click to expand...

Do those exist?