Well... you could very well be right - but in my case, I don't expect to be adopting 1 until I encounter some sort of hardware failure and - knock on wood - that won't be for 2-3 years... at which point I'd be willing to adopt as I'd wager the vast majority of issues will be resolved (or at the very least, there will be enough reviews out there to point me at a good drive (must be at least 1 in 2 years, right?)). 

Very interesting links - thanks for the info.  Read them and I guess we'll see. 

Civ 5's multiplayer is worse than beta software, this makes me sad.

MP is not as polished as it should be, for sure. But "worse then beta" is overblowing it. So long as you set autosave in the game options to save every turn, MP is pretty functional.

I ment the sheer lack of features mostly (either bugged or missing), even betas have more stuff working (and it was an exaggeration, its actualy just beta level).

Rebel: And how do you load that save game? (its lols)

Hey folks. Running the game in DX 9 works more or less perfectly for me, on highest settings (Except AA which seems unavailable?). Kind of counter-intuitive Thanks you all

Otherwise, random thoughts:

Now, pre-order gimicks are just that, and I don't usually go in for them unless I know I'm getting the game anyway, but I have to say that the Mesopotamia map is pretty fantastic, and easily my favorite at the moment. Definitely feels like a lot of love went into it.

What difficulty are you playing? I started out at chieftain for a game, but steamrolled the AI in every aspect, and the happiness boost makes spamming cities a little to easy. Tried prince for a few games, which forced me to play a conservative game in regards to city placement. The AI obviously receive a happiness boost, as England, my closest neighbor in the latest match, has far, far, more cities than I do and is still expanding, but doesn't seem to have access to any greater variety of luxuries. Next game I'll move it up a notch or two.

Diplomacy, in a word, is limp. Limp is a good word, and it serves to describe diplomacy well. Pacts of Secrecy and Pacts of Cooperation don't have any apparent function. The relationship with the AI also pretty constantly drops unless you go to war for them, or bribe them with resources and gold. I have noticed they are more likely to sue for peace when things go badly, often ceding cities, which is an improvement over previous games.

On a similar note, someone on another forum was saying they felt that AI civs now feel more like actual participants in the game, striving to win, while the city states have taken up the NPC banner, if you will. After thinking about it, I'd have to agree with them. AI Civs do feel like they are more motivated and active, like they are striving for the same things you are, and less like sources of "free cities" and extra cash flows for those redundant resources. City States, meanwhile, fill a nice static niche. They offer a little help in wars, and their culture/food/unit bonuses aren't bad.

You could certainly build entire strategies off of city-states. If you played it right, you could feed a mid-sized empire off maritime tributes, and likely build as large an army as you need off the free units.

Compared to Civ IV, what is the deal with Civ V's MP?

Thx for links aractain - will help them out. 

Hmm is it just me or are there no African nations at all to choose from? Zulus?

The game is pretty good...very simplistic compared to the older versions it seems as well.

We really do seem to be going backwards on MP, particularly in TBS games this year. It's particularly sad in the case of co-op, where shooters are getting better at it and strategy games are going backwards in a hurry.

I think it's just gotten to the point where the number of people who are willing to play a very long drawn out turn based multiplayer strategy game (particularly one that does not have simultaenous turns) is a very small niche. When most people want a game that they can play with their friends they usually want one where they don't spend much more time waiting around for their turn then playing. I must admit that while I used to quite happily play some games like that (with strict turn time limits) I no longer really want to either.

People on the other hand love to play cooperative or competitive games where they they can constantly be in the action, which is why there has been such a surge in MP shooters and the like. RTS is also a quite popular field for it. But even if a game like Civ  or elemental managed to get the multiplayer working flawlessly, the number of people who actually were willing to play it would be a fairly small demographic compared to the number of people who buy something like modern warfare for the multiplayer. This is why companies don't spend a lot of resources on it.

TBH I don't know why anyone would want to play a game like civ with strangers.