A digital distribution service owned by Valve Corporation. Originally created to distribute Valve's own games, Steam has since become the de facto standard for digital distribution of PC games.
Civilization 5 is the first (and only) PC game I bought that automatically made me install and register Steam and makes me connect to Steam in order to play it so this thread might be a little mis-informed. Anyways, I'm having trouble connecting to Steam at the moment so I figured I would just play Civ 5 without logging in but I don't know how. Is it impossible to play Civ 5 without being connected to Steam or the internet? If it is possible then how do I do it?
" I think you just have to put Steam in offline mode. Not sure where the option for that is though. Never done it myself. "
You have to be connected to steam when you put under preferences that from now on you want offline mode. (its actually under the steam tab in the upper left), Then steam would restart under offline mode and from then on you don't have to be connected online to play any steam game.
If you buy it from a digital distribution service other than steam, you can probably run it without steam, but otherwise you've got to use steam. You should be able to access it offline though. After it has failed to log you in there should be an option to start steam in offline mode.
@SuperBuster: Not entirely sure, I just tested it out by closing steam, unplugging my net and opening steam again. When steam couldn't log on, it prompted an option to use offline mode right there (and it worked). But of course, I had enabled offline mode before so take that to mean whatever you what it to mean.
If you buy it from a digital distribution service other than steam, you can probably run it without steam, but otherwise you've got to use steam. You should be able to access it offline though. After it has failed to log you in there should be an option to start steam in offline mode.
"
No, Civ V doesn't work without Steam. Even if you bought the retail disc, it wants you to hook it up to Steam. But you're right that after failing to connect it should just run in offline mode.
@RVonE: So even if you buy it from GamersGate or Direct2Drive you've got to use Steam? That's pretty weird. I'm surprised those services would sell the game if you have to install a competing product to run it. I knew the retail disk installed to steam, but it's really weird other competing digital distribution services doing it too.
@RVonE: So even if you buy it from GamersGate or Direct2Drive you've got to use Steam? That's pretty weird. I'm surprised those services would sell the game if you have to install a competing product to run it. I knew the retail disk installed to steam, but competing it's really weird other digital distribution services doing it too.
"
Well, that's what I've heard anyway. On the Direct2Drive site it says: "Other Requirements: Initial installation requires one-time Internet connection for Steam authentication; software installations required (included with the game) include Steam Client, Microsoft Visual C++2008 Runtime Libraries and Microsoft DirectX". And on Gamersgate it says: "Note: This product requires a 3rd party download and account". Maybe someone else can confirm? It's totally weird if it indeed works this way.
I know the "start in offline mode" option you guys are talking about, it usually happens when I boot up my pc side and there are no usual networks around but this is different. When I try to log in I get an error message saying:
"Could not connect to Steam network. This could be due to a problem with your internet connection, or with the Steam network. Please visit www.steampowered.com for more info."
If I try disconnecting from the internet and then try to run Civ 5 I get the usual window asking me if I would like to retry the connection, start in offline mode, or quit, but once I click on "Start in offline mode" I get the same error message typed above.
Maybe the problem arises because my Steam library isn't available to start the game from.
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