The Official "I've Got It!" Thread. Post here....

[Blarg]

Pre-ordered from Amazon and got it yesterday. I had chosen two-day shipping. Strangely, both UPS and Amazon's tracking system merely said that billing info had been transmitted. The package's progress was completely untraceable.

Anyway, great fun! I stayed up till 5 a.m. last night playing it. Not because I loved it so much, but because I was honestly surprised it was 5 a.m. I had no idea; I thought it was at least four hours earlier. Sign of a good game!

And it's running perfectly on my ATI Radeon 9800, luckily enough. And I'm using drivers from April 2004.

 

[gakkun]

Just got the game in Melbourne central, Australia. Is running very smooth on my computer.

 

[WimpyTheWarrior]

GOOD NEWS: The game is in stock in Sydney. EB said if I had $50,000 (to pay the fine) they would let me have one today (2 Nov Aus), one day ahead of the "official" release.

BAD NEWS: I have to fly out for a week of business tomorrow!!!!! Flight departs at 9:30, so my only hope is if there is a game store in the airport. ARGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

 

[oriel94]

Anyone know when Civ 4 will hit the stores in HONG KONG? (not pirated versions!)

 

[ToFro]

I've got it!
I ordered from konsolinet.fi and got it in my mailbox today.

 

[atomicgopher]

Just got it last night at Best Buy. Im pretty sure it I had waited anyl onger my eyes would start bleeding.

 

[auzdafluff]

Got it the UK DVD edition through from Take 2 (took long enough )

Oh well off to play...

 

[ElvisLiS]

We (wife and I both play Civ3) heard about Civ4 a few days ago and booked the game immediately sight unseen. We got a call yesterday from EB Brisbane City Store saying it arrived and my wife detoured on the way to train to pick it up on way home from work. Game bagged and ready to go. In out.

My wife races in the door straight to the computer gets the disk out and puts it in. The computer refused to accept it. She looks at the box and horror of horrors...its a DVD. Like most people we know in our income bracket we still have a PC with a CD-Rom. And we have just made the decision to part with AUD$90 to get it. My poor wife was so tired she didnt even look closely at the box.

On to the phone quick as a flash. Can she bring it back and exchange it for a CD-Rom copy next day? There isnt a CD-Rom version we are told. Why dont you buy a system with DVD player? Nice if we had the money, as it we were treating ourselves getting the new game.

So my wifes taking it back for a refund today.

In discussing Civ4 before with other people and the store and talking about our computer which we upgraded a month ago, it surprisingly never came up there might not be a CD-Rom version of the game, or that we would need a DVD. I'm not the technically minded one, but even my wife couldnt pick it out in the scan we did of the threads.

So is the store salesperson correct that there isnt an official CD-Rom version or is the clerk being slack. Why? Is it a matter of whats needed to run the game or was it a marketting decision by the company.

If so its very disappointing to be excluded from the latest incarnation on that basis.

Can anyone tell me what the deal is? It would be a nice laugh to find out the store clerk got it wrong and there is a CD-ROM version for us "impoverished" gamers out there.

Cheers!

 

[Sid]

Elvis, check your PMs for a message and offer of help from me.

 

[norxis]

Yup, its finally reached the continent at the bottom of the world, got my copy yesterday and although its a bit slow, still works fine on my laptop! Isn't it great that us aussies seem to get it before a lot of europeans? great game!

 

[Sorceresss]

Got the game at a Walmart (in bilingual Quebec, Canada) on Oct. 31 (Halloween) for 67.67 $(Can), with federal & state sales taxes. The Box included :

1. 2 mislabeled game CDs
2. A bilingual manual (2 .pdf files) on a third CD
3. A bilingual Quick Guide
4. 2 tech-tree charts : one in French + one in English !...

Before purchasing, I had studied for days the various postings on this eminent forum complaining about horrendous technical problems with the game. I bought it anyway, realizing it was a risky throw of the dice.

Well... I got lucky : zero problems during installation, zero problems running the game (not even choppy graphics during the intro movie : no problems, no crashes, no glitches). I wonder why, because reading the various posts revealed that people with far better systems than mine had major problems. My system's specs are :

2.8 GHz PIV
1.0 GB DDR-2 RAM
1.5 GB virtual memory (managed by Windows)
128 MB VRAM GeForce FX 5200 (2 year-old weakling)
Latest (10/10/05) nVidia drivers
SB Live! Value sound-card (with 2002 drivers)
WinXP Home SP2 (with latest updates)

What might have helped me experience no problems are the following measures I took :

1. Close all possible background programs (such as an AV)
2. Defrag of HDD
3. Clean the system with all of the following :

Anti-virus + PestPatrol + SpyBot S&D + AdAware +Spyware Doctor

4. Verify WinXP's file integrity by running its "SFC scannow" program
5. Run "DxDiag" to see if it identifies any problem
6. Disable autosave by editing the game's config file
7. No anti-aliasing
8. Set resolution at 1024 x 768

Then, even if I did set the visual quality (in the game's options) at max-level of quality (but with no AA), I experienced no problems, even if I played on a huge map.

I don't know why I was so lucky. One hypothesis to explain why some GeForce-card owners are having trouble is because there are some files or programs in their systems which are interfering : for example, sneaky adware or malware files & programs which were secretly injected while surfing the Web. I have to run 5 scans (see above) to intercept & purge all the crap. Just running 1 scan (such as an AV or AdAware) is not sufficient : you really have to clean your system with a robust battery of programs.

On this excellent forum, I have read horror-stories by gamers who possess much stronger systems than mine (which is 2 years old). If I can run the game with no problems on my computer, it might not be the publisher's or the developer's fault. I'm not sure, but perhaps some of you guys out there have polluted systems. Of course, my hypothesis cannot explain why some of you have formatted your C: drive and have then been unable to run the game properly.

I guess I'm just a luck *itch.

I never was a great fan of Civ 2 and Civ 3 because I felt too far removed from what was going on. At first glance, I like Civ 4 much more : the 3D landscape & close-up zoom really immerse me.

 

[tomcat885]

Finally got my copy!! Civ 4 "officially" came out in Australia today. I live in Brisbane and I read some posts saying that EB stores in Sydney were selling copies yesterday WTH?

 

[BLiTZWiNG]

I got it I got it!! Melbourne AU is a go lol

 

[sam0t]

I finally got my four Civilization4 special editions here in Finland!

Gamed 6h hours straight yesterday and loving the game! ps. Don´t ask why 4 copis

 

[Ultima Dragoon]

I just got mine!

Preorded from E/b and got it at 5:15 today!

Haven't been able to play yet, got hommework to do.

But still,

 

[LauriL]

Got an email from play.com saying that its been posted, should hopefully have it by the weekend.

I ordered it from play.com as well. Yesterday I got an email that it has been posted. I hope to get it on Friday, but they said 3-5 days so in the worst case it's Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday in the next week.

EDIT: Can someone tell, how long does it generally take play.com items to arrive since they have been posted?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I got my preordered copy from EBGames in Adelaide only 3 hours ago-and have just gotten home to install it! Fingers crossed, I hope there is nothing about my computer that will stop me from playing it .

And here's a picture

 

[Grashopper]

Got Mine yesterday. Played the Tutorial for 5 hours before my wife started threatening to leave me. Hmmmm.. What's gonna happen when I actually play a REAL game.

 

[EliteLord]

I finally got it today in Belgium!! It's great, though I had the ATI problem, but it's resolved now.

 

[balearicrazy]

Got Mine yesterday. Played the Tutorial for 5 hours before my wife started threatening to leave me. Hmmmm.. What's gonna happen when I actually play a REAL game.

Learn how to combine Civ with sex, that's my suggestion, but then again many people at work tell me my suggestions are unhelpful.