And then suits go and make a "smart" business decision which ends up making people like me angry.

Meh, its all blurry .. but it was probably a proposition by Valve/steam, accepted by 2K games, and then dumped onto Firaxis

I don't think Valve did anything but make a good business case.

As an evil (dangerously evil) greedy capitalist, I am a huge Valve fanboy. Don't think of Impulse as "good" and Steam as "evil".  Think of them as both "good" or both as "evil". Or maybe one less evil than the other but still.

Most people don't know this but Stardock makes millions a year from our technology being preloaded on various pieces of hardware and software. It's a big part of our business.  So when I say that I have first hand experience at what happens when someone dominates I mean that.  

Back in the 90s, Microsoft was beloved. Adored by fans. They could do no wrong. And they basically gave away software and Windows itself. Great guys. HP and Dell and Compaq and Gateway and so on could all do whatever they wanted with Windows because there was an alternative -- OS/2.  Even though OS/2 was tiny as a percent, it was an alternative OEMs could pick.

Once OS/2 was gone, now, if you want to do anything on first boot, you have to pay or negotiate with Microsoft (who no longer gives things away but instead charges $60+ for Windows 7). Windows 7 Basic doesn't even let you change your wallpaper.

Microsoft isn't evil. I always related more with Microsoft (makers of Windows) than IBM (makers of OS/2). Business is run based on the concept of leverage. If you have it, you use it. If Impulse gets 70%+ of the market at some point (and before you think Steam has it won, late Summer you'll see some announcements that will call this into question), I'll help lead the boycott of any third-party exclusives. 

Firaxis is a great company. I've had friends there for years.  The original Civilization is what got me into programming PC games in the first place. My college degree was in EE but so obsessed was I on having a Civilization set in space that I picked up Teach Yourself C in 21 days to learn how to program GALACTIC Civilizations (I'm not very clever on naming).

Sid Meier is my god. The Elemental team has a print out from his various lectures he gave this past Winter (Mr. Meier went on an extended speaking tour on game design, we took notes, wrote a bible out of it and use it). 

Guys like Jon Shafer (lead designer) who came from the modding community are OUR guys. If you're not in the gaming industry, it's hard to explain but it's a very small community.  If we were all located locally, Soren, Jon, myself, Chris Taylor and so forth would be hanging out watching Lost or whatever. 

The industry, by contrast, is very different from "our guys". And I can't go into too much detail on that because, well, I have enough business sense than to talk about it. But suffice to say, the decision makers are largely focused on making their "number" (defined as revenue generated in a given quarter).  Most of my career has profited from that kind of short-sighted thinking. That's why I'm "rich" despite being an engineer. That's why I get to mouth off on forums with you guys rather being silenced by "the suits". Most people think Stardock is tiny as opposed to being in roughly the same category as Valve in size. Companies often don't think long term and it catches up to them.

I love and support Impulse for the same reason thousands/millions of others do - because they realize it's the PC platform's last best hope for it to remain an open platform.  Direct2Drive and whatnot may talk about this or that but at the end of the day, everyone, publishers and gamers alike, know that the PC market will boil down to what platforms are available and the choices between them.

As a gamer, I only want to pay for stuff that I want in a game and not a cent more. I don't want features to be mandated by a third party. Right now, it's still an open platform. But as the OS wars showed, it isn't necessarily certain it will stay that way.

Anyway, like me you can love Firaxis and love Sid Meier but still disagree and object to forcing users to create a store account in order to play what is predominantly single player game, a decision that was certainly (in my opinion) not made by Firaxis.

I'm a huge fan of Sid as well, but I will not be buying Civ5 due to the protections. I'll try out a friends copy when they are done with it, and will only buy it if a non-steam version is released (which likely will happen eventually). If people buy it, than it only encoruages them to keep doing it. If we all stick together and REFUSE to buy any game with that kind of protection on it, than eventually they will stop when the games stop selling. It may take a title or two - they are likely to try and blame other factors until it is clear that steam protection hurts sales.

I think the one think I would have liked from Civ, is that once I was huge-empire kicking ass and taking names, I would like for the other nations to rally together against me. Just to, ya know, give some challenge to the final battles.

Or, for instance, to get some use out of my high-end units (instead of winning before they can arrive at the front-lines)

I completely understand the capitalist mindset, and I don't fault Microsoft for charging me $100 for Windows - shady business tactics aside, they dominate the OS market for a reason, for all its faults I think Windows is worth that $100 - if it wasn't I'd be running Linux. I'd pay $100 for a good game too, heck I paid more than that for Civ4 + both expansions, and I was willing to pay even more than that for Civ5 - but I'm not paying a dime for a game run on steam, I've tried steam-only games before and no thanks.

My problem comes in when I say to myself "hey, I haven't played Civ5 in a few weeks, and I've finally got an hour or two to kill.." and then I have be online, log on to steam, spend 30 minutes downloading+installing an update or two all to play a quick single player game - it's supposed to be an enjoyable way to kill time, not an interactive ever-evolving online experience, and I find myself searching for another way to kill time while I'm waiting for my time-killing-game to be ready. Money is one thing, charge more of it if you have to, but the moment you deliberately inconvenience your customer not once, nor each time they install your game, but every time they want to load your game.. that's not a game I want for any price.

[Sorry for the rant, I have admittedly had plenty of games that worked fine on Steam, particularly multiplayer games where online/patching requirements are a given anyway. The experience has just been ruined by a few particular single player games that had problems patching and couldn't be patched outside Steam, wouldn't work in offline mode, forced patches before being run, insert other miscellaneous Steam-related problems. Optional software to support easily downloading/patching/getting DLC for games is a great idea, no complaints for Impulse so far, Steam has just screwed me one time too many for me to buy another game exclusive to it.]

I personally don't understand all the Steam hate, especially the Civ fans who aren't willing to give it a go... I can understand not liking DRM, but to me Steam is probably the only type which I actually like with all the community stuff built around it etc...

It's not that we hate steam per-say, but we hate being FORCED to have it installed, and not able to play without it, or a connection to the net. This means that if while playing a single player game, your connection fails, you can't continue playing until the connection comes back. Same thing if their servers are down- you can't play.

I'm not pro-steam, but let get the facts straight. Playing an installed steam-game does NOT require an internet connection, since steam has an offline-mode.

I didn't know that they would be forcing steam on us for CIV 5 =  love CIV -  still have the original (civ 1) in the box and manual somewhere  -  Magic too.  I brought the disk of Call of Duty modern warfare 2 and that installed steam.  I don't mind to any great extent but find it annoying to be treated like a thief when i payed good money for a game.  I brought the disk rather than down load because so many down loads are like 3 installs ever -  and things like no/limited upgrades.

It really depends on how they treat me -  if i can't play the game without being online i wont be happy. I think there is a limit and having registered it with steam i should be able to play offline.  I don't mind registering  - I don't mind havign an online security accouut for all my games -  provided that I can play them offline after that and there is no DRM that stops me upgrading my computer etc.

Great work on elemental so far by the way Frogboy - I'm sure the AI will kick my butt but I'll learn and have fun, Elemental is a game not eye candy (at the moment at least) and I think that's a great approach to a game... remember privateer?  took me weeks to play my way through. Games used to be more fun. Now they're too much eye candy and not enough fun and I feel confident that Elemental will be FUN and no nasty DRM

You do, however, need an internet connection to register the game onto any computer.

Therefore, you do need an internet connection to play the game ... you just don't need said connection all the time.

Steam is a royal pain in the ass.  I purchased Empire Total War not long after it came out and for some reason Steam refused to authenticate my CD.  It was a well documented problem.  It assumed it was a copy or stolen or something like that.  Basically, I didn't get to actually play the game that I threw 50 bucks down for until about 3 months later when the problem was fixed and I couldn't return it to the store because it had been opened.  And then, as we all know, I discovered that Empire Total War was virtually unplayable due to embarassing AI (but hey, that's not Steams fault.  Just insult to injury).

To be fair though, Steam and Impulse are the future of the industry and if there are in fact novel ways to prevent piracy, then we should try to explore them.  I don't mind being treated as though I might be a thief just like I don't mind having to wade through security at airports: it sucks, but I know its for a good reason.

However, it isn't appropriate to inflict honest buyers with this kind of burden until the kinks have been worked out.  I think Steam got a bit ahead of itself and frustrated many, many people with myself being included.