Civ 5 Steamworks FAQ

[Sam_Yeager]

One of the 2K reps has posted a copy of this here.

[Boris Godunov]

I don't understand the kvetching about Steam. I bought a boxed game that used Steam some time ago and it sat on my desktop causing nary a problem. I didn't notice any issues when I played the game, it all seemed smooth. Part of me thinks the biggest complainers about it are the ones who intend to engage in piracy and are just raising a stink about other aspects because they hate the DRM.

[Tstorm]

Q. Will it be possible to get any required updates and patches on another computer to transfer via thumbdrive, or will they be only accessible via the computer the game is installed on?

A. Patches will only be available to download via Steam. However, Steam does provide a method for backing up a game installation to restore on the same or different computer. You could use this feature to download a new version of Civilization V on a friend’s faster Internet connection and then transfer it to your computer via a thumb drive. After restoring the backup, you will need to connect to the Internet once to validate the new version.
Details of how to use this feature are on the Steam Support page: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...8794-YPHV-2033

So, hopefully the patches are small enough that a slow Internet connection can handle them. If they're not, then this turns out to be a poor decision for some customers. Only time will tell, on this concern of mine. Looking back at Civ IV patches, they ranged in size from 27MB to 165MB. Hmmm...I'd rather download a single update file than go through a convoluted backup/restore/validate procedure. The more I think about this, the more information I need to decide whether it's a PRO or a CON.

[Dinner]

I don't understand the kvetching about Steam.

Oh, I will probably end up buying a copy even though I really, really, really hate Steam as a matter of principle. I don't like being told what to do and requiring me to login to some 3rd party every time I want to play the game pisses me off.

[Boris Godunov]

I don't like being told what to do

Do you fly into a rage if a program tells you to insert the next disc or press any key to continue?

[Al B. Sure!]

Steam is great

[Brael]

Do you fly into a rage if a program tells you to insert the next disc or press any key to continue?

I never run into that problem myself. I have 10 cd/dvd players all connected to my computer. Any game I plan to play that requires a disc is sitting in one of those drives at all times.

[Dinner]

Do you fly into a rage if a program tells you to insert the next disc or press any key to continue?

All the time.

[Al B. Sure!]

I never run into that problem myself. I have 10 cd/dvd players all connected to my computer. Any game I plan to play that requires a disc is sitting in one of those drives at all times.

That is really weird. Why do you have 10 cd/dvd drives?

[wodan11]

Jukeboxes (multi CD / DVD drives) are fairly common, actually. Less so now than a few years back.

But personally I think he was being sarcastic. Just me.

[MxM]

Part of me thinks the biggest complainers about it are the ones who intend to engage in piracy and are just raising a stink about other aspects because they hate the DRM.

I do not think that you right here. At least on this boards, one of the main complain is that you have to run STEAM all the time if you play the game. Other downloaders/distributors do it better, take for example Impulse - you need to run it during install and that's it.

Plus I had several occasions when I wanted to start game, but I could not because STEAM wanted to update and network was down, so I could not even put STEAM into offline mode.

As far as online distributors go, STEAM is one of the worst of them - way too intrusive.

Steam makes people to pirate games, because of those problems. Think about it - pirates have LESS problems than we, paying customers. Is this right?

[Jon Miller]

DRM makes people pirate because you have to have a CD running/etc which I hate.

I don't have to bother with that/etc with Steam, so Steam encourages me not to used hacked/etc exes.

JM

[Brael]

That is really weird. Why do you have 10 cd/dvd drives?

I have 10 because I have some old computers and to have them match the case color I had to buy new ones rather than recycle the old ones, it was an exaggeration though. Out of those 10 drives I only have 3 of them (2 internal+1 external) actually hooked up to my computer.

The reason I have multiple drives connected is for games that require CD's. Being incredibly lazy, I find it beneficial to have multiple drives. The external is for burning or any additional cd I need. One of the other two holds civ 4 (which I don't really need to do anymore, I'm just too lazy to remove it), and one holds another game I play.

[Al B. Sure!]

I have 10 because I have some old computers and to have them match the case color I had to buy new ones rather than recycle the old ones, it was an exaggeration though. Out of those 10 drives I only have 3 of them (2 internal+1 external) actually hooked up to my computer.

The reason I have multiple drives connected is for games that require CD's. Being incredibly lazy, I find it beneficial to have multiple drives. The external is for burning or any additional cd I need. One of the other two holds civ 4 (which I don't really need to do anymore, I'm just too lazy to remove it), and one holds another game I play.

Who needs to ever eject CD's! Just buy 10 drives!

[self biased]

I just burn the ISO to my hard drive and mount it on a virtual drive.