You're sure that system won't play it? I'd check the demo, you'd be surprised how inaccurate requirements sometimes are. Demo is coming out the same day as the game is.

My only guess for your problems is my 3500 vs your 2800, your Vista vs my XP, I'm guessing my raptor is faster, and then the usual installation/bloatware/etc. thiings.  My boot/OS HD is just for games and system programs.  I keep all unnecessary programs and services from running in the background, drivers updated, regularly clean out old files and defrag and CCleaner and CleanUp! and all that stuff.

Your system should do better, it seems to me.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

His system is more than capable.  Vista doesn't magically kill performance, it just has a bad reputation from a poor launch.

CIV IV had a bad launch, but I havent read about any problems afte BTS. CIV IV turned out to be the best game ever made in my opinion.

My only major issue with Civ 4 was that I felt that you didn't get enough time to really do stuff in the modern era. Whenever I tried to fight a war in the modern era I wouldn't even have time to finish it before someone launched a space shuttle and won the game.

Couldn't you turn that win option off?

I guess I kind of liked having the option to win by a space victory. I'd just prefer if it were possible to fight a war in the equivelent of 1940 and finish it in time for it to help your economy in the modern era.

I've bee a fan of civlization for awhile, so when I say I agree with you, it's with the understanding that I generally love the series. I've always felt the last part of the game felt like it was on crack. You're either rushing to spit out as many space components as you can get, could be in a war that lasts f o r e v e r or your just chugging along untli the last turns crank out. It has a completely different feel from the beginning which is probably why I start and end so many games without finishing. They could use some work on the modern era stuff.

In my coop games we switched off every victory condition other than conquest. That was the only way to 'play to the end'. Only took about 100+ hours per game.

Yes, as I already said.  7 launched practically perfect, Vista didn't.

W7 launch was so good because Vista did all the dirty work for it. Vista was a pretty good SO, but it had to break lots of things for the future of Windows.

Vista was an irresponsible resources and performance hog. I had it on one machine, and replaced it with XP after a few weeks. W7 was wonderful right from the start, and seeing that half of my boxes run on Linux, it does take a bit for a Windows OS to actually impress me.

As for Civ5, well, I pre-ordered it and waiting for the 24th to come! Nearly cancelled it because of Steam, but I guess in the long run it's not avoidable unless I skip some major titles, for pretty much no actual gain. I've played Civ since the first version (started back on an Atari ST) and it would seem strange to not buy a new version. But we don't discuss Steam in this thread, so ... ...

... looking forward to the gameplay changes, though I'm uncertain how well the AI will be able to cope with the "one unit per hex" change (and hexes in general). The AI in Civ4 was already not very impressive even though the combat rules were easier than they are going to be in Civ5. I guess there's always online play, though I prefer playing TBS against or with the AI. Just hard to schedule games when people have jobs and families.

This reminds me that I wanted to download the newest FreeCiv release. There goes my night!

If my understanding is correct, Civ 5 being on steam does mean that I'll be able to download it again at a later date if in 5 years I feel like playing Civ 5 on a new computer but I've lost or scratched my CDs (similar to Impulse). If that is correct (and it may not be), then it's kind of the best of all worlds for me because it means I can buy in the store and get the (hopefully) cool manual while still having my constant floating copy of the game on the internet without worrying about CDs.

Yes, this is correct. You can download it as many times as you want, and install it on as many computers as you want (but only play on one machine at a given time). The downside is that you have to run Steam whenever you play, even if you only play in single-player mode, and that if Steam goes belly up, you may not be able to play at all (they claim that they would then unlock all games). Buying the game in the store pretty much only gives you the box, a Steam code, and the initial files. There is an official FAQ about how it all works here.

So yeah I personally love having the whole floating install thing so much that it beats out any other negatives. There have been plenty of times when I've wanted to play a game again years later and either had to rebuy it again or just give up because the CD was either lost or damaged. I'd prefer that they be on Impluse but I'll take Steam as a secondary alternative. If every game I bought was setup like that I'd have saved at least $200.

Hope there's a setting for longer tech research durations- in past civ games I never felt I stayed in an epoch long enough and had any realistic conflicts without units upgrading after an hour. A game that could last four-five days where I had to use ancient tech for a long time would suit me better. The turns would have to be slowed down, naturally.

In what universe?  Seriously, 90% of the performance problems people had with Vista after the first six months were OEM stupidity.

It performed HORRIBLY on the strongest power saving settings, but they always used that anyway (especially Acer.)

Yeah, it was mostly third-party issues with drivers, and then, my favorite, deciding that they would just be able to sell more products by not putting out a driver and telling everyone to buy their new stuff. Vista isn't really a problem now. It isn't as good as 7, amd 7 has better performance, but I see few reasons to avoid Vista. My laptop is Vista, my old desktop is XP and my newer machine is 7.  I have no intention of updating my laptop.

I took a $10 off preorder sale at D2D for Civ5. I regret that now. Should have paid the extra $10 for the manual and bought it at the store. Of course D2D had the non-refundable offer due to offering Civ3 with it. Last time I preorder from them. Oh well, no real big deal.

I believe it only comes with a PDF manual anyway. The box is likely to only have a leaflet with credits and technical instructions. (I pre-ordered the special edition box, which comes with a 170+ pages artbook, two soundtrack CDs, a DVD, and some figurines, but it's 70 Euro, and if it wasn't for my Civ collection, I'd certainly not shell out that much.)

That would be disapointing, Civ always used to have great manuals.

In a lot of games I disable the following techs:

-gunpowder
-Scientific_Method
-rifling
-steam_power

That stops the game pre-gunpowder, and gives an opportunity to enjoy the age of sails techs.

One of the beauties of civ, that such modifications are simple for non-modders.

Even simpler are things like turning off certain victory conditions, or tech trading (one of my favorite changes as it slows down teching considerably, and I never liked the idea of researching a tech I didn't want and that the AI didn't research for the purpose of trading it to the AI for multiple techs that I did want -- seems very unlogical and counter-intuitive).

There's going to be a live steam of the game Monday at 4pm Eastern. Good chance to see how things really work, assuming it doesn't get overloaded.