In this special feature, Brad Cook had the opportunity to speak with Firaxis lead designer Jon Shafer about the Civilization series, including the most recent installment Civilization V, and what makes the series both endearing and enduring.  Brad Cook is a self-described “technical, marketing, and PR writer able to effortlessly move among consumer-focused web copy and newsletters.”  You can find more information on Brad at his website bradcook.net. (Editor’s note: Jon Shafer has left Firaxis since this article was written.) “You are challenged to build an empire that stands the test of time.” The gauntlet was thrown down in the user manual for the first Civilization game in 1991, and it remains the underpinning of the fifth entry in the series. As lead designer Jon Shafer explains: “The success of the Civilization series has shown that most of what’s in the game works well, and has from the very first Civilization: turns, tiles, cities, technologies, and so on. We made sure to incorporate that foundation into Civilization V, and that meant most of the framework was solid right from the start.” So where could the team at Firaxis find places to introduce new concepts and new wrinkles on well-known gameplay mechanics? It turns out there was room for plenty of new ideas in an area of the game that had always been previously downplayed: combat. “The changes to the military system in Civilization V are probably the most dramatic of all the new elements,” Shafer says. “The motivation for that came out of our goal to bring true tactical combat to Civilization and offer players a chance to come up with all-new strategies to win wars.” Lest anyone think that the game’s original creator, Sid Meier, might be aghast at such a dramatic move, Shafer points out that “he was a particularly big proponent of the changes we made to combat. The concept of unit flanking bonuses came from one of his suggestions.” Shafer also relates that Meier “has a hand in everything we work on” and was the go-to person for advice when the team hit a roadblock.

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For those not aware, Apple is launching a brand new Mac App Store on January 6, 2011.  The Mac App Store promises to bring the ease and functionality of the iOS App Store (for iPhone, iPod, and iPad) to Mac computers everywhere.  You’ll be able to search for thousands of different apps for your computer, and purchasing, downloading, and updating these apps should be easier than ever.  The apps also promise to be portable across different Mac computers. We at Aspyr are particularly excited about the prospects and potential the Mac App Store could have for gaming.  As almost anyone that’s paid any attention to the iPhone and iPad probably know, these devices have turned into incredibly popular gaming devices, with tons of new, innovative, and accessible games available for users of all ages and interests.  You’ll be able to find content from Aspyr in the Mac App Store in the opening days of the store’s launch. However, we want to know: what do our fans and customers think about and expect from the Mac App Store?  Will there still be a market for boxed retail applications?  Will you still purchase your favorite games from traditional outlets, like the GameAgent store and/or Steam?  Let us know in the comments if and/or how you expect the Mac App Store to change the way you use your Mac!

Aspyr Media was founded in 1996 with the basic premise of bringing great gaming to the Mac.   At first it was the sales and distribution of other people’s Mac games but then the idea to port great PC games to the Mac came abou,t and the public got to play Tomb Raider II on the Mac.  The release of Tomb Raider II was the foundation of what has been Aspyr’s business since – bringing great PC brands to the Mac natively.

Below is the latest installment in our Aspyr Interviews segment, featuring our own Ted Staloch, Executive Vice President.  His role oversees all Sales, Marketing and Content Acquisition -  so finding and licensing Mac games, selling the Mac games and marketing the Mac games.  We get lots of questions about upcoming content, what we think of various industry topics, how we feel about the content we sell,  so we thought we’d shoot some questions up the chain and share them with you guys.

What games do you love these days.
I’m playing a ton of iPhone games right now, with Chillingo’s Cut the Rope leading my portable distraction time. Civilization V is simply awesome on the Mac! Anything Mario or Lego on the Wii is on my weekend list with my 2 boys. Like millions of other people, I play COD:Black Ops.  I also really enjoy my sons baseball and Flag football games on weekends.

A guy walks into your office with a MacBook under his arm, sits down, and tells you to explain Aspyr to him in six words. What do you say?
Biggest Brands, Highest Quality, Dedicated People!!!!

Digital distribution: Blessing? Curse? A bit of both, maybe?
Blessing without a doubt, but you have to reset your company around embracing it. Meaning, Aspyr has had a 3 year transition period from 100% boxed game sales to today about 75% boxed. By the end of 2011, Aspyr will be closer to 25% boxed and 75% digital. But, for the first time ever almost 4 million Mac computers are being sold every quarter and soon everyone will be able to download the game through one of their favorite sites. (Mac App, GameAgent, Steam, etc)

I still buy some boxed games and think there is great opportunity for a retailer like Target or Best Buy to create a Mac “Top 10” game section and be a category leader. As Apple continues to shrink game shelf space and move online, this is the time for a more traditional retailer to step up and create a Mac destination with iPhones, iPads, Mac games, etc.

So for us, we are thrilled that the Apple platform is growing, the distribution is growing and our potential to reach 100% of our audience is a reality.

Some people think that video gaming isolates family members from each other while some think it brings them together. What’s your take?

I don’t think games should do either with families. If you are relying on games to bring your family closer, it seems like you’ve already missed the boat. Some people tend to over think the role of what games, movies, music, the internet, etc, should do to families. My belief is you have a set amount of distraction time everyday and that if you try and tie it to education, family time or work, you just re-defined it as not being fun or a place to be distracted. It’s OK to play RollerCoaster Tycoon, Call of Duty, Lego Star Wars, etc, for 20minutes on a Sat morning.

Now a different conversation can be had about how to incorporate gaming design and play into today’s workplace and education, but that wasn’t the question

Who are some of the people at Aspyr that you’d want to tell the OS X gaming world about?
We are a small and hardworking team, so this is a tough question.  Let me start with 2 people. Lori Durham is our VP of Operations and she can manage anything. Seriously, she can Produce a work-for-hire development project, while certifying a XBOX 360 game, while managing a couple Mac games being launched world-wide, while helping the company look at new Health Insurance Policies, while interviewing new staff for next years projects, while, while, while….the best juggler we have at Aspyr.

Next is Andy Brazell, our fearless Director of Services at Aspyr, including our QA. Everything at Aspyr starts and ends in our QA depart. Andy has assembled a team that is best in class on Mac gaming (as well as other platforms) and absolutely will not allow us to cut corners. Several times throughout the years sales guys or business development guys like me have requested to push something to a patch or update after we release and Andy will simply just say “NO…our customers deserve better”. When I defined Aspyr in six words above as “highest quality”, it’s due to people like Andy at our company.

One more shout out is to Ken Cobb, who is one or our Senior Engineers. I appreciate brilliant engineers as much as anyone and Ken is certainly one of our Rock Stars here. But, what really separates him into the Rock Star category is his lack of ego. Different than confidence. He has a calm and reliable confidence on every project and everyday of the week. But that fact that he does such amazing work and remains so level headed is somewhat unique in game development. He really sets the stage for all of us to love and appreciate what we do for a living, while remaining humble. Dedicated people (above), certainly defines Ken Cobb.

Aspyr has brought out tons and tons of games, but also some of the biggest and most popular games ever made (like The Sims and Civilization). Where do you go from here? And don’t just give us the stock “bigger and brighter” answer on this one!

Clearly we want more of the same, which is big-big brands with gameplay beyond reason. But with the adoption of Apps vs Games, size is less of a driver and game companies can have tremendous success with bite size game-play. Aspyr will introduce more of this type of gameplay in the future, while supporting the biggest and the best. Angry Birds is today’s example, but within the next 18 months, there will be an App that sells 25 million downloads, maybe even 100 million downloads. These huge download events may or may not be with established brands current in the games industry. So, that size opportunity, on an OS or iOS that Aspyr holds expertise, is an area that we are very excited about and that we are perfectly positioned for future success.

To be specific, are you doing Black Ops for the Mac?

We would love to and are working on making that answer “yes”, but are open to suggestions on how to get full attention and sign off from a publisher experiencing the largest product launch of all time!

To coincide with the release of the new Civilization V Mac patch, we’re launching a new feature on the NonBlog called “Aspyr Interviews.”  The feature will have us interviewing various figure heads and others in the industry, including some of our in-house guys. However, our first Aspyr Interviews feature is a doozy!  We had a chance to ask some questions to one of the greatest names in video games, Sid Meier!  In the event that you haven’t heard of him, Sid Meier is the Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games and was instrumental in the creation and development of the Civilization series, among other fantastic and groundbreaking titles (you can usually spot his name in the title of the game itself, i.e. “Sid Meier’s Civilization”!). Have someone you would like us to speak with, or perhaps have questions for us or anyone else?  Let us know in the comments! 1. After four incredibly successful and well-loved Civilization games, what features were you most excited about for Civ V? Sid Meier:  The visual presentation in Civ V is the first thing players will notice when they launch a game. From the beautiful landscapes to the accessible interface and the fully animated leaders, the game quickly draws players into this dynamic world. I’m also a big fan of the new tactical combat system. It adds another layer of strategy to warfare and really ramps up the excitement level of each battle. 2. Why do you think the popularity of Civilization endures? SM: One reason is that with each new version of the game we’ve stayed true to the core design: Make the player the central figure in the game, present them with exciting choices and interesting decisions to make, and let them create their own history and do something great along the way. We’ve found that people like to create something epic and what could be more epic than leading your own civilization from a handful of herders to a powerful nation that builds the wonders of the world and is off to explore the stars? We’ve also given players a lot of freedom in how they can achieve victory, so when they finish one game, we hope they say “Great! Next time I’m going to do it differently!” and start the adventure all over again. 3. It seems like every game series with a devoted fanbase has to cut the difference between pleasing hardcore fans and accessibility to newcomers. How does Civilization handle that challenge? SM: In making Civilization games for 20 years now, we’ve learned a lot about what keeps people’s interest in the game and how to ease them into the kind of rich experience you get in Civ. In our minds there’s no disconnect between pleasing the long-time fans and making a game that will draw new fans in. We’ve made great strides in the user interface design in Civ V, so new players can quickly get into a game and play their way into the epic world of Civ that veteran players have loved for a long time. 4. Moving from squares to hexagons seems like one of those tiny details that could have a lot of impact on how the player approaches tactical gameplay. What was the motivation for that? SM: We realized early in the design of Civ V that hexagonal tiles would enable us to create the visual world we wanted in the game – a beautiful, living world with photographic landscapes and realistic movements.  Hexes also helped us to create the tactical combat system we wanted for the game. They allow units to move naturally around the world and create more realistic battle situations. 5. How do you bring your own love for history to bear on your games? SM: History is full of all kinds of cool stories and interesting lessons, and that has inspired me as a game designer. Giving players the chance to go back in time and become a central figure in some of the most intriguing eras in history is very exciting. And they’re not just reliving history; they’re re-creating it based on choices and decisions they make as a powerful leader.  At the end of each game players have accomplished great things, and that makes for a fun experience every time.

UPDATED: We’ve been promising a patch since release, so we wanted to share that the first Civilization V Mac Patch is available at 10am CST via Steam. Updates to Sid Meier’s Civilization® V Mac have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include: 1.0.0.621a • Graphic issues with Opening Cinematic caused by 10.6.5 have been addressed. • Fixed crash when switching between 9400M/9600M on MacBook Pro. • Updated Manuals are now installed in the Sid Meier’s Civilization V Folder. • Resolutions higher than 2048×1440 have been disabled. This is to prevent the “grey bar” issues that appear at super high resolutions. • DX9 no longer appears on Title Bar when in windowed mode. • Users can now save to the Steam Cloud. (Mac games do not save to the same Steam Cloud as PC.) • Private games are now available in Multiplayer. • Launching the game in French or German and then playing the tutorial will no longer change the Spoken Language to English. UI • Fix for production prompt that sometimes appears with newly created puppet states that could stop the player from being able to end the turn. • Aircraft banner corrections – now when you rebase an aircraft, the number will move with it. • Resource icons now come up with Ctrl-R again, instead of sharing the same button with Build Roads. • Selecting a great general will no longer cause yield icons to appear. • Added option to disable auto-unit cycling. • Misc additional fixes to mouse controls, and other interface issues. • Rounded out financial information in the Economic Overview screen. Details now provided on the amount of gold provided by each city, the cost of buildings in each city, etc. • Auto-populate save menu with save file name • Allow selection of other cities by hex from within the city screen. • Added detailed trade route info to Economic Overview screen. • Added new tab to the Economic Overview Screen: “Resources & Happiness.” • Added option to activate the mp score list in single player (for “always up” score similar to Civ IV.) • The Annex/Puppet/Raze popup now indicates how much extra Unhappiness will be assumed with each action. • If there are less than 5 buildings still needed to construct a National Wonder, the production popup tool-tip now lists which cities lack them. • Added Yield & Culture tool-tip info to the production popup. • Tweak information on the Global Politics tab in the Diplomacy Overview screen. GAMEPLAY • Exploit – Raze/Annex happiness fix. • Workers – Added option to force workers to ignore manually made improvements (so they don’t change what you decide was best for a plot). • Workers – Fixed bug where number of turns to complete were incorrect in build action button tooltip. • Economy – Fixed bug where players could disband a single unit, and not see the economic return until disbanding 1 more. • Economy – Increased city wealth setting to 25%. • Economy – Multiple fixes to the way trade-routes are tabulated and recognized. • Economy – Can now sell Buildings in a city (to help lower maintenance for obsolete buildings later in the game). • Trade – Found and corrected a Trade problem that could cause your Resource inventory to multiply. • City States – Fixed a bug where you could not gift aircraft to city states. • Military – Medic promotion now only provides healing bonus for adjacent units. • Military – Fix for Minuteman movement. • Military – Correct promotions for “archer-like” units (horse archers, chariots). • Military – Embarked units will no longer slow enemy land units. • Military – Improved unit cycling logic. Camera will jump around much less. • Balance – Engineers +1 hammer • Balance – Disbanding units now provides only 10% of their production cost in gold. • Request – Enable “one more turn” button if you lose, but are still alive. AI • Military – Better handling of unit need (navy vs land, etc.) • Military – AI will tend to build ships to deal with blockaded cities more often. • Military – Corrected an issue hampering movement of AI armies, especially when in close proximity to enemy forces. • Diplomacy – AI will be more reluctant to offer or accept open border agreements with more powerful opponents. • Diplomacy – Fix for never ending deals (peace, research agreements, etc.) • City – City specialization and city focus improvements. • City – Cities that are Avoiding Growth will not grow while that option is selected. • Workers – Priority of trading posts reduced, and rebalanced priorities on other improvements. • Workers – Improved the path-finding mechanic when building route-to roads improved, including a large performance increase when evaluating road-pathing. • City – Make sure Puppets don’t construct buildings that require Resources. • City – Add a Puppet city strategy that turns off training buildings and emphasizes gold. • Military – Defensive tactical AI update. When you are at war and threatening an enemy city, the AI will better utilize the garrison, as well as the surrounding terrain in defense of the target city. MULTIPLAYER • Exploit – Fix for gifting unit exploit. • Chat – Color-coding, sound alerts, etc., added for in-game chat system, including a larger window. • Deals – Additional deal validation put in place to verify deals before they are committed. MISC • Research treaties that end because you declare war will no longer grant the free tech. • Save/Load – Fix for corrupted saves being experienced by some players in late-game. • Strategic View – Crash fix for units rendering in background. • Strategic View – Fix for selecting units either standing on a city plot, or garrisoned in the city plot. • Tutorials – Many tutorial tweaks and adjustments. • Multiple crash fixes • Taller than wide map crash fix • Fix for Puppet State production exploit What about PC to Mac multiplayer? The PC and Mac versions need to be on the same version number in order for multiplayer to work via Steam.  We were hoping to achieve this with this patch, but with 2K’s release of DLC and patch coinciding with the Mac patch, we are still out of sync.  Our development process has been to port the game, then port the released patches and DLC. We ported the game, then started on the patch code that we had available at that time.  The timing is such that when we were near complete with our available code that a new PC patch was being released, thus making us out of sync again.  We understand the PC-Mac multiplayer is highly desired and hope to have dates for everyone on both DLC and multiplayer very soon. The plans for our next patch will be to contain the remaining available patches. But I don’t see my problem addressed. As mentioned above, we are porting the PC patches at this point so known game issues will be worked on in order of patch release. You are reducing resolution in order to deal with gray bars?  What’s the deal? Aspyr has ported Civ V from the DX9 path from the PC.  This means we port the patches specific to the DX9 path.  High-resolution support is a known issue on the PC which will need to be addressed on the PC for us to offer full support of the higher resolution. My hardware is not on the supported System Requirements list.  Can I play the game? If you have a specific question about your system profile, submit a ticket at support.aspyr.com along with your system profile and our guys will actually try it out! (If we have the hardware).  Try before you buy – can’t beat that as a service. Why do you release a game then patch it? During the porting process we often engage in development far before the PC version is released.  This means we at some point have to say, “This is the code we are using,” and finish the job based on that code.  Meanwhile, the PC development team is still moving forward with development and patching.  If we were to wait for all patches to be complete it could be a very long time before the Mac version exists.  Our preference is to ship the Mac version of the shipped PC version and follow the patch path of the PC devs.

‘Tis the season for pleasin’, and we’ve got a new promotion that’s sure to please everyone! Today we’re kicking off our new “Give and Get” charity event, benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of America, and the way it works is simple.  Starting now and running through December 24, all you have to do is go to the GameAgent.com homepage, add the new special product “Give and Get Charity” to your cart, and make a purchase like you would any other!  Each charitable donation is $5, and you can make multiple donations.  As part of the charity event, Aspyr will match up to $5000 of the money raised through our GameAgent charity listing! Of course, there’s more pleasin’ to go around!  For each of your charitable donations, you will receive a coupon code worth 20% off your next GameAgent purchase!  Multiple $5 donations means multiple coupon codes, so you could really rack up some savings over the life of the coupons! Coupon codes are not all you’ll get, though.  Each $5 donation will also give you an entry into a random drawing for a daily giveaway!  We’ll be giving away an Aspyr t-shirt and a FREE game of choice from the GameAgent store to one lucky winner each day through the end of the event (starting Thursday!)–make multiple donations on multiple days to increase your chances of winning! And yet, there’s more.  Our final incentive is enough to make even Santa Claus envious!  After the charity event has ended, we’ll be giving away 5 (!) copies of the Civilization V Mac Special Edition, all signed by Sid Meier!  Like our daily giveaways, each $5 donation will get you a separate entry into a random drawing, so the more donations you make, the better chance you’ll have of winning!  The winners will be announced here on the NonBlog on Tuesday, January 4, 2011. We’re really excited to be doing this charity event, and we hope everyone is willing to participate.  After all, with the coupon codes and a chance to win FREE games, what’s there to lose?

With Christmas right around the corner, we’ve gotten into the Christmas spirit and have set up a series of sales we’re calling the “12 Days of GameAgent Christmas!“  Starting today and running over the next 12 days, we’ll be discounting a particular game (or collection of games) each day by 20%.  Each sale will last approximately 24 hours at which point the next sale will open up! You’ll need to check back with us daily to figure out what game(s) is up for sale.  However, we know there are those out there who are just too impatient to wait, so we’ve put together this handy hint guide to give you at least a small taste of what to expect in the coming days:

• Day 1 (12/13) – Seeing as how this one is today, we’ll just give it to you–you can now grab Call of Duty 2 (Mac) and Call of Duty Deluxe (Mac) at the 20% discount!
• Day 2 (12/14) – Strategy was important during World War II Men of War (PC) and Men of War: Red Tide (PC)
• Day 3 (12/15) – This modern game set a new standard for the genre when it was released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Mac) and Call of Duty Boxed Bundle (Mac)
• Day 4 (12/16) – Thank the Russians for these two thrilling PC games Cryostasis (PC) and NecroVision (PC)
• Day 5 (12/17) – These games could keep you busy for thousands of years Civilization IV (Mac), Civilization IV: Gold Edition (Mac), Civilization IV: Warlords (Mac), Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (Mac), Civilization IV: Colonization (Mac), Civilization IV: Complete Bundle (Mac), and Civilization IV: “Expansions” Bundle (Mac)
• Day 6 (12/18) – Can you tell what year it is? 1701 AD (PC), 1701 AD: The Sunken Dragon (PC), and XIII Century: Gold Edition (PC)
• Day 7 (12/19) – It will take all your wits to survive these galactic battles Star Wars: Empire at War (Mac)
• Day 8 (12/20) – Light or Dark? Your decisions will have noticeable consequences Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Mac)
• Day 9 (12/21) – Will you follow the rules of the academy or be shunned as an outcast?
• Day 10 (12/22) – The grid has been updated in these PC puzzlers
• Day 11 (12/23) – There’s too much power to control
• Day 12 (12/24) – Don’t forget to manage your own affairs while managing theirs

As some of you may remember, prior to the Civilization V Mac release, we were having internal debates on whether to enable SteamPlay for the title or not.  We even opened up the debate to our fans and followers in a Call for Comments post here on the NonBlog.  We had tons of great feedback from the community and ultimately went with the wishes of our customer base by enabling SteamPlay. What became clear through the comments that poured in, however, was that it was generally unknown how SteamPlay worked.  There were a lot of assumptions about the business side of it that were not necessarily correct.  In a recent interview with Inside Mac Games, our very own Elizabeth Howard talked about the subject of SteamPlay and explained how it’s not always an easy decision to make for Mac game publishers:

On the sales side, Valve’s support of the Mac platform via Steam right now is reliant on publishers participating in Steam Play which is Valve’s program of releasing every game “Hybrid” despite who did the development work.  Right now there is no compensation for the publisher if their game is downloaded but not purchased. For the publisher this is tough to swallow and I think this is a hindrance to Valve seeing the same market dominance on the Mac as it has on the PC.  I believe if Steam even offered a Mac version of an existing PC game for just $5 there would be less of a barrier for Mac publishers to sell content on Steam, the consumers would still get a great gaming experience across two platforms, and a big catalog of great content could find it’s way to Steam.

This blurb is only a small part of what turned out to be a really great interview.  Talking points include transparency between Mac game developers/publishers and the Mac gaming community, DRM, the upcoming Mac App Store, and the potential threat of emulation software.  It’s a great read that will give anyone that’s interested a fantastic insight into the inner-workings of Mac game development and publishing.  Big thanks to the team at IMG for asking us to participate!

Here, have some wine, and let me slip into something a little more casual… Okay, that’s not exactly how it went, but the fact remains: the awesome folks at MacSoft have offered up a small collection of some of their great games for sale at GameAgent.com! GameAgent is now bolstering its collection of casual and family-friendly games just in time for the holidays with multiple titles from MacSoft, including:

• Monopoly Classic
• Monopoly: Here and Now Edition
• Clue
• The Game of Life
• Scrabble
• Cake Mania
• Drop Point: Alaska
• Board Game Trio 2
• Board Game Trio 3

These games are a significant upgrade over their real-board counterparts and are great for a family game night.  And in order to get the ball rolling, we’re giving these games and others an immediate 15% discount!  From now through Monday, December 13, you’ll be able to get each of the aforementioned games at 15% off the sticker price. And the “others” I mentioned?  How about our entire collection of family-friendly games?  In addition to the MacSoft titles, you’ll be able to grab other great games, such as Lego Star Wars, the Tycoon series, and the Sims series, at the same 15% discount! Check out the GameAgent homepage and grab your favorite game now!

As practically all of you probably know, a new game launch inevitably sees its share of technical issues.  Civilization V Mac has been no different (unfortunately), but the good news is that our tech support staff has been working super hard to make sure you guys get to play the game you paid for!  They’ve compiled a list of some of the top-reported issues and have asked us to post them to our Blog.  Have you had any issues with the game?  Check out the FAQ below to see if your support issue is mentioned!

Update (8/13/12)

I’m having trouble playing Civilization V since updating to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Can you help?

Aspyr is aware that there have been some performance issues that have popped up since the release of MacOS 10.8 and is working hard to find a solution. Please open a support ticket with Aspyr so they can get your system information/saved games/crashlogs. The info you provide will help the team work with their partners to find a solution.  Additional info can be found here.

Why can’t I play the game in OS 10.5?

Of course, we would like to have the game play in as many configurations as possible, but there are some new Open GL extensions that are essential to Civilization 5 that cannot be used in 10.5.  Upgrading to 10.6 from 10.5 is fairly inexpensive and as long as you meet the hardware requirements, you will be playing in no time.

You can purchase an OS upgrade from Apple here: http://store.apple.com/us/search?find=10.6&mco=MTA4MzI5ODk

When playing on a laptop, I can’t get the game to display on my  external monitor.  What the dilly?

You will need to tell the game what monitor you want to play on. When playing on a laptop, the system automatically chooses the laptop monitor as the primary display. To change to the other monitor, hold down the Apple/Command key while launching the game to bring up the initial configuration screen. On this screen, you will see an option to choose multiple monitors. Choose the external monitor, and you are on your way.

I get the error “Steam needs to be running” when I launch the game.

This usually happens if the user already has Steam installed, and they need to update. You can also try reinstalling Steam if the update doesn’t work.

I get grey bars on the screen when I try to play the game.  Make them go away!

This happens when trying to play the game at a super high resolution on really large monitors. This usually doesn’t happen on resolutions lower than 2560×1440. Lower the resolution and the problem will go away.

My problem isn’t listed here!

Don’t forget to check out our Civilization V Mac knowledge base at our support site!  Also, if you have ANY problems, please contact us by phone (512-708-8100) or email (support@aspyr.com).  We’ll get you up and running and on your way to world domination!