OK, I have played since Civ I in the ealry 90's.
Why do people keep mentioning this? It doesn't affect the issue at hand :/
Congrats though, I really regret not getting Civilization when I saw it on a shelf at a store as a kid (or rather talking one of my parents into getting it, sigh, at least I have Civ2
).
Just went out to get Civ V, came home to install. The DVD-ROM won't auto-launch, and when I go to the DVD Drive, I can't look at the files on it to launch the installer manually. Basically my system won't recognize the disk.
I did some trouble shooting, restarts, even put in other DVD and CD ROMS and they all worked.
Ideas??
Is the DVD scratched or damaged? Are you sure its a DVD drive? Yeah I have no idea why it isn't working.
If nothing works, then well you don't need the DVDs anyways. If you already have Steam (which the game requires to run) then just click on "Add a game" and enter your serial key and then download it.
If you do not already have Steam;
Go here and download Steam (green button on the right)
http://store.steampowered.com/about/
Install it and create an account (you must log into Steam every time you want to play the game, but you do not have to always be online as it does have an offline mode that usually works (I myself have had no issues)).
Go to the "Library" page in the Steam window and click "Add a Game" (lower left corner), then enter your serial key and the game will be permanently added to your account, you can then download the game as many times as you want (there is no installation limit, well except one install per computer/hard drive I guess but you don't need multiple installs anyways).