My experience as well - I liked the Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations mod, but most of all enjoyed the Final Frontier mod.

The combat system of Civ made very little sense, I agree, but most of all I missed the unit customization. I really liked building my own units in Alpha Centauri - well armored but poorly armed garrison units, extremely expensive shock rovers, eventually getting clean reactors...

My main problems with Civ4 were 1) its "this is how history goes" approach to storytelling - "Pity, you want to make a civilization that respects both science AND religion? ha! The Scientific Revolution always invalidates the science bonus of religious buildings! Because that's what the Scientific Revolution did, get it? hahahah." And 2), I don't know if other people had this problem, but the game took longer and longer to make a turn the farther it went on, and all my units started to move slower and slower and slower, regardless of how far I turned down the graphics. It was obnoxious.

By all accounts, Elemental is the game for me, and I put my money where my heart is. I guess I'll get to see first hand what an EPIC beta is like.

Besides the obvious fact that you stated one shouldn't forget that Stardock profits much more from a direct download copy than from retail. (I'm aware though that retail is important as well to get shelf presence)

Not that far away now WOOT!

But the main point still stands that they can't possibly give you a beta if they don't have the details of your preorder, or an account to tie it to

I think the civ issue is being blown out of proportion.

I look forward to the beta, gives me more QA testing thingamajig.

I suspect I will go ahead and pre-order sometime this week afterall(just the digital though as my gaming funds are all but depleted and the extra $10 for shipping is painful)...though I doubt my current old clunker will be able to run it proper.  (End of the year/start of next and a modern 64bit PC with 2 monitors at long last will be a grand old time...)

Besides, I'm the Roguelike guy.  Who wouldn't want a Roguelike guy in general helping to shape the game a bit here and a bit there?  What could possibly go wrong...

Edit:  Well OK, 1 minute ago pre-ordering still counts as sometime this week.

I am on pins and needles waiting for beta on this.

Trust me guys, the cloth map is hilarious fun.  Also faster than the 3d world.  Don't believe Brad!  Testing can be FUN!

But seeing as the game is designed to be able to run on low end as well as high end rigs, they will want to know how well it runs on your 'old clunker'

I'm still holding out on that 20% coupon that was said to be coming again before the beta started.

I'm still holding out on that 20% coupon that was said to be coming again before the beta started. 

Derr, what?

I dunno...the laptopish dealies they mentioned here and there as low water marks are something I would reckon that'd lord over my nigh 6ish year old desktop that wasn't anywhere near top of the line in any aspect save the 2 GB of RAM I wound up with.

We'll see how it goes and all going on though...for now at least I badly need a stable/working mouse on all fronts---hopefully before the new PC!

Thanks for the answers guys. Guess I'm heading down to the bank to put money in so I can spend it on-line this week.

Okay, I just pre-ordered it. You awful people provoking me to spend money. Good job guys

I'd like to preorder, but...

The preorder page says I won't be charged until the product is available. Does that mean when it ships? My card expires in November, which is almost certainly before the game ships.

Hopefully I can get some kind of answer before the beta ships, I'd hate to miss the deadline :/