Best to wait until 1.1 at least (release date is "Octoberish"). The game still needs a lot of work but has a lot of potential.

I believe it's an Impulse exclusive, somewhat like Team Fortress 2/Left for Dead is to Steam

StarDock is owner of competing Impulse digital distribution platform, it would be stupid for them to EVER release anything on Steam.

Hi there.  Here's some answers:

1. There won't be a demo until after v1.1 comes out which should be "soon".

2. As the AI developer, I am unhappy with the current state of Elemental's AI.  I will say though, that 6 months from now, I think a significant portion of Civ fans will be Elemental fans because of its evolution.

3. It's hard to say. Elemental is more a a Master of Magic style game.  

My suggestion to you would be to wait for the demo and decide then.

Why are people telling him to wait for version 1.1? That would be stupid in my opinion because if you buy the game before version 1.1 I believe you will get 2 expansions FREE. If you wait till after 1.1 you wont. So, unless your going to utterly hate the game, which I doubt, I would buy it now and save yourself some money.

I must say, seeing developers posts is massive plus in my books. So thanks.

ElanaAhova:  Civilization 5 is broken.  Not just with the endless bugs and glitches that plague basically every game, nor due to the retarded schizophrenic AI, or the fact they've cut a lot of cool stuff out from previous games.  It is broken because some of the core game mechanics are just not well thought out or implemented. 

For example, the game has, as you know, implemented a one-unit-per-tile rule (1UPT).  That is great, but it makes it very very tedious to move an army - which is ironic, considering a bunch of other major changes to the series where done in order to "streamline" the game.  This is compounded by the fact that roads and rail now have maintenance costs, so you only build a single road between cities.  I'm not sure of the reason why this was done, as I never thought having road spam was a bad thing in previous games.   But anyways, now you have a dozen units all trying to go somewhere on a single road, all stepping on each others toes, and it seems that every turn, you have to regive the move orders to every single unit as they keep getting stuck between other units etc.

Another gripe of mine is the lack of "epicness".   It is very very hard to have a large empire due to a "global happiness" mechanic.  Towards the end of the game, where a few civ's have been wiped out, the world ends up being only half filled, as you can not expand due to happiness issues. Of course, the AI has no issue with this, as it seems to play by completely different rules...

I could go on and on... maybe after a few patches, a couple of expansion packs, and some well developed mods, the game may be good, but even if that happens, it is a long way off.

First, I'm glad my GalCiv2 log on works in this forum. Second, I have been waiting to comment somewhere (and so will do so here) to reiterate that Civ5 has done to the Civ franchise what MOO3 did to the MOO franchise----well, perhaps that is somewhat of an overstatement since MOO3 was such as disaster, but nevertheless Civ5 just isn't fun. Lots of other folks have given articulate explanations as to why Civ5 isn't fun (see civfanatics.com). 

So, my favorite games have been titles like GalCiv1 & 2, MOO, Civ 2,3,4, and so forth. I have heard mention that Elemental will take the place of the gap now left by Civ5. I encourage Stardock to put in lots of resources soon to capture the opportunity opened by the "other company's" blunder with Civ5. I say this partly because I'd like a fun game new to play, and if Elemental can be that, great. I also say it just because I am generally insulted that the "other company" has put out a game like Civ5. Now is a time for Stardock to go to its bank manager and say we need a great big loan to expedite Elemental because there is a $40 million business opportunity here to take over a gaming genre.

There has been much talk about how Civ5 was designed for the masses, with I think some kind of accompanying implication that it would earn lots of $$. I should have taken it as a sign when I had to buy Civ5 by getting in my car and going to Target. When was the last time I bought a game that way (if ever)? Now, I would just like to point out that even the 'masses' have not been hoodwinked because Civ5 is getting 2.5 stars out of 5 on www.amazon.com.

Based on what I have read, I will try out Elemental myself when V1.1 is released.