Is anyone getting/has already gotten Civilization V? It looks epic, but people say it's still a bit buggy. I'm looking forward to receiving/purchasing during the holiday season when it comes out for Macintosh. Is it better than Civ IV (which I loved)? Or is it a step back from the awesomeness of before?

Go to www.civfanatics.com and read the Civ 5 discussion forums.

It does need a bit of a beefy computer/graphics card to run it nicely, especially at higher resolutions. I pirated it myself, but there is no crack out yet for the 1.0.0.62 patch, so really in this state the game is IMO too buggy to be worth playing and I haven't done more than a brief 2 hour exploratory game when I first got it. The next patch is going to improve the AI and diplomacy, so if those changes are bundled with the mac version, I'd say go for it. But otherwise if you don't already have CiV, I wouldn't spend any money on it until the next patch is out.

You can download a free demo on Steam, but I suppose it won't work on Mac I only played the demo for like two hours right after the release and I must say at that point I did prefer Civ IV. It could change of course if I actually took the time to learn all the new stuff and played the game properly.

I had Civ III, but win7 broke it

I have been looking forward to Civ-5 for ages. When I got the email saying I can pre-order it now, I hesitated... which is probably what I should've done regarding Starcraft 2 also...

My opinion: wait for them to iron out the bugs and glitches. According to my endless forum-reading, many of the bugs are minor, but if you have high expectations (which you should, it's Civ FIVE after all), it will ruin your gaming experience. There are rare reports of major game-breaking glitches, but due to their rarity it is most likely down to hardware problems.

I personally am going to wait until around March/April 2011 before I buy it. All the bugs and glitches should be ironed out, the AI and diplomacy will be vastly improved, and furthermore, the retail price will have dropped by about 20 to 30%.

So, do what I did, buy a dirt-cheap copy of Civ 4 Complete Edition (if you havn't already played the game with the Add-Ons, I definitely reccomend it.) It adds a lot of functionality, ~16 new civilizations, ~24 new leaders, whole new espionage game-play - you can start using Spies as early as you discover Alphabet. Each Civilization now has a 'Unique Building' as well as a 'Unique Unit'. And their is also the Warlord unit, which functions similarly to the General units in Colonization IV. What's more, Civ 4 complete only costs around £5 or 10 euros. Probably about $10.

Also, by waiting until early 2011, it will allow me to upgrade my computer significantly. Civ 5's minimum requirements are crazy. And you have to factor in that in most games you'll be playing against 5 to 10 Computer AI's, or even Online against that number of humans...

Oh how I can relate to this

I hate how Civilization turned into a board game instead of an RTS. What a fail. Civ2 is the best version.

Broad games are awesome. Especially within the recommended range of 2-8 players.

Playing Civ with more than one human player takes forever :<

That depends. Are you using hotseat or multiple computers? It was tedious to take turns on one computer, but I had tons of fun playing with my friends over the internet.

You're kidding right? There is so many unique factors and things put into Civ 3 and 4 that it is the best TBS every (turn-based strategy). It just wouldn't work in an RTS environment.