A Review: Don't buy CIV5 for Mac

[AlanH]

Alan: have you had a chance to try this yet? How is it working for you?

I've played about a hundred turns on my MacPro, and I ran a few turns on my MBP 13". I can't afford much time to play a long game at the moment, and Civ5 is not a compelling "one more turn" experience for me. It seems to run OK, but I haven't played any big or long games.

Technically, the Mac version feels similar to my experience with the Windows version in Parallels 6, except I don't see the slow map redraws that happened in Parallels when panning, the leaders animate successfully, and there are no phantom terrain images of roads and oases. The main negative I have is that the terrain colours seem to be too saturated, so deserts look fluorescent, plains look like deserts, and snow is a white-out.

 

[civ_king]

Lol at the piracy comment! Why would you even ask!? (However on steam they let you uninstall the mac version and install the PC version. Which hopefully is the future of gaming.)

The steam forums are clogged up with unhappy mac users saying this game runs like crap. I am a little angry, I just purchased it last night (haven't played yet, the DL was 2 hours) I was looking forward to playing tonight. Looks like it will hardly work. Definitely a huge blunder to release a game that is so unstable. Did they even test the mac version? Seems so unlike a big name company to release a defective game like this. At least they are planning on patching.

Alan: have you had a chance to try this yet? How is it working for you?

sounds like when Civ V came out for the PC

 

[AlanH]

sounds like when Civ V came out for the PC

... and Civ4 ... and almost certainly Civ3, given the number of revisions that went through.

 

[civ_king]

... and Civ4 ... and almost certainly Civ3, given the number of revisions that went through.

precisely, some people think that the next Civ game should come flawlessly on release, this irritates me to no end.

 

[Dahr]

I already purchased the PC version and played it using Crossover games. After experiencing the native mac gameplay, I'm setting my crossover wine-bottle back up. It plays just as well and I get all the features I want to use, so if any of you also have crossover games... stay with that.

 

[Lachlan]

sounds like when Civ V came out for the PC

But in Windows it was 1.00 and in Mac it is already 1.09, isn't it ?

So playing a Mac version is better for us, because it is optimized for Macs and have Mac security...

 

[civ_king]

But in Windows it was 1.00 and in Mac it is already 1.09, isn't it ?

So playing a Mac version is better for us, because it is optimized for Macs and have Mac security...

yeah, Aspyr is so awesome that they have already updated it to 1.09
Runs better than Parallels, but still slower than Boot Camp

 

[Methos]

precisely, some people think that the next Civ game should come flawlessly on release, this irritates me to no end.

I see no problem with people thinking that way, as I agree that's how it should happen. At the same time I also understand the reality of how things are done, so would be pleasantly shocked if it ever happened.

 

[Virtual Alex]

I played it, on turn 200 now, playing perfectly so far no hiccups. I am on a 27" i5 imac.

 

[Luma1961]

Hi,

I bought my MAc versin on dedcember 6 and already received an CIV5 update via Steam. On my iMac that is compliant with the minimum system requirements I could not encounter the issues you mentioned in this trhead. However, I once got stuck on turn 230 in an 4 civ game. I am new to CIV at all and I therefore hav not any experience with previous versions. Nevertheless, I like the idea of only have one unit per field instead of piling multiple units on one field. It is now more than playing chess wher you nned to think thouroughly about your next moves.

Cheers,

 

[Kevin Rohrer]

The first update causes some problems. The second update seemed to fix them. I am playing the Mac version error-free, which I can't say for the PC version when playing muktiplayer.

 

[Snowbeavers]

Complete garbage of a game. Crashes every 10 turns. Don't buy this.

 

[AlanH]

Complete garbage of a game. Crashes every 10 turns. Don't buy this.

Have you contacted Aspyr? It sounds as if you are in a minority who are having problems.

 

[achabot]

CIV V was a disappointment for me when I first bought it, but the new patch has made it a LOT better. I've had two freezes only in a Huge game that's over 600 turns old. Too bad I had to ditch my previous game that took forever to bring to turn 875 or so....

 

[gfeier]

Finally started playing seriously post patch on a 2006 Mac Pro with a Radeon HD 5770. Runs flawlessly through the first 100+ turns. I'm actually beginning to LIKE this game. It helped that my Persians just destroyed those upstart Greeks.

 

[MichaelShannon]

Add me to the disgruntled list. I asked my wife for the game for my birthday last year. I have yet to play a game past the 1800's on a MacBook Pro less than a year old. And that's playing with minimal everything, just like in 1985!

I am playing with a large map. Maybe I should choose 'sandbox.'

It's amazing that a game that won't run on the newest computers has been released. I guess we are not paying $50 each to beta test.

Great way to reward customer loyalty.

 

[Mavfin]

Add me to the disgruntled list. I asked my wife for the game for my birthday last year. I have yet to play a game past the 1800's on a MacBook Pro less than a year old. And that's playing with minimal everything, just like in 1985!

I am playing with a large map. Maybe I should choose 'sandbox.'

It's amazing that a game that won't run on the newest computers has been released. I guess we are not paying $50 each to beta test.

Great way to reward customer loyalty.

Strange. My almost 2-year-old Mac runs it fine, highest graphics, huge maps, modern era, you name it. So, if your 1-year-old Mac won't, maybe you didn't do something right?

Of course, I run SC2 on Ultra, too, and have since release...

(My daughters' new i3 iMac, cheapest model, runs it great, too, so not sure what all of you are doing to make it run so bad. My Mac was bought in April 2009.)

 

[Snowbeavers]

Strange. My almost 2-year-old Mac runs it fine, highest graphics, huge maps, modern era, you name it. So, if your 1-year-old Mac won't, maybe you didn't do something right?

Of course, I run SC2 on Ultra, too, and have since release...

(My daughters' new i3 iMac, cheapest model, runs it great, too, so not sure what all of you are doing to make it run so bad. My Mac was bought in April 2009.)

What software update are you running it on? I have a feeling it's related to that.

 

[forty2j]

Add me to the disgruntled list. I asked my wife for the game for my birthday last year. I have yet to play a game past the 1800's on a MacBook Pro less than a year old. And that's playing with minimal everything, just like in 1985!

I am playing with a large map. Maybe I should choose 'sandbox.'

It's amazing that a game that won't run on the newest computers has been released.

The thing about Apple laptops.. being "new" doesn't necessarily mean being a gaming rig. Civ V is very hardware intensive. (As for why THAT has to be.. well, you'd have to contact Firaxis.)

On my wife's MBP that is about the same age as yours.. it has the unsupported 9400m video card, so on that computer I only play on small maps, and then only in Boot Camp. It still felt like it was going to freeze every turn, so I just bumped it up to 4Gb of RAM.

 

[Mavfin]

What software update are you running it on? I have a feeling it's related to that.

Current Snow Leopard, very early model i7 2.67 GHz, ATI 4870, 6 GB of RAM.