Civilization V from Sid Meirs was a birthday present from the girls and I to Jim. Luckily for Jim, he has been playing the series for years and has shown our two oldest how to play the turn based strategy game.
If you buy a computer game for a computer geek and its broke, that counts as two presents, right? According to Anna math, the game, the game he actually wanted, and a broken game that he has to fix. So thats three presents.
Unfortunately for Jim, even on his high end computer, with large amounts of monitor space, memory and graphics card memory so he can see to use the computer – even though he sits about two inches from the screen – Civilization V doesn’t seem to want to work well.
I did all the homework of a non-geek mom – I saw the box, knew my retired, legally blind husband loved the game series, and put it in the shopping cart to be wrapped and presented with love.
Had I done my homework online as only a true geek, nerd, gaming geek, or retired Microsoft Jim can do, I would have found all of the issues people are having with the game not working. Playing Civilization V on a high end system with all the settings turned on is causing all sorts of issues. Jim and Eilis watched the opening cinematic movie the first time thrilled together. The second, third and fifth time when they could not skip past it, the thrill was gone and Eilis left the room abandoning her father to his present and his fate alone in favor of a SpongeBob rerun.
In my quick checking, I found a suggestion to turn the settings all the way down to I guess Civilization IV or the stone age, and Jim responded in true geek tones “Yeah I saw that also, but follow-ups have people saying the game goes black or crashes even more”.
As I write this, one half of the left screen is blank, the rest a beautiful image, and on the right screen a very very small rest of the game that I can’t see and he has no chance of using. I will stick with the shoulder rub form of proven tech support and follow Eilis out of the room.
Good luck and Happy Birthday enjoying those three wonderful birthday gifts xoxo
@beautygirlsmom Interesting post about Civilization. DD14 was disappointed version V didn’t come for Mac. Now I’m grateful.
@MomsPanelErin Jim was able to tweak his computer and get it working. He’s enjoying the game tremendously now that the frustration is gone!
So glad that you got the game to work. My son is a huge Civ fan and we almost bought the game…
Jon Shafer, lead designer @ Firaxis posted –
Hey guys. Just a quick update. Sorry for the recent absence, I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately.
There are several things which we are looking at improving with Civ 5. Most of my time since getting back has been spent working on the interface, particularly with making more information accessible. These changes will go out with the next big update in a few weeks. The plan is also to make major revisions to the diplomacy system, and while I can’t talk about the details yet, I think you all will find them an improvement. That will be added with an update later this year. Also included will be a number of AI upgrades.
Thanks to all who have purchased the game – the plan is definitely to continue improving the experience for everyone playing. The game isn’t perfect, but we feel good about the foundation laid so far, and expect Civ 5 will stand up with every other game out there and continue to get better over time. I can ensure that I’ll be working on Civ 5 as long as I’m able to.
Jon