Why don't you buy it directly from Stardock? You only need to be online once to activate the game. After that, you can play it offline for as long as you want. No Steam or other client-software required.

Strange, that should only be the case if you bought it from Steam. I bought it from Stardock and don't require Steam. Wait a second...

System requirements
Minimum:
Windows XP SP2 / Vista
800 MHz Processor
256 MB Available System Memory
32 MB DirectX 9.0c Compatible 3D Video Card (32-Bit Color)
DirectX 9.0c
56K Internet Connection or Faster for Online Metaverse
The free Steam client is required to install this game

They changed it! I don't believe it! First Sins:Rebellion and EF:LH, now GalCiv. What is going on here!?

Did you buy the game from Steam or from us? Still shows direct download for me...

Apologies, but we are only offering our titles via Steam keys from now on.

Meanwhile, there are still people stuck with GalCiv II on that unholy blight called GameStop.  Thanks for that.  I feel like such a valued customer, by the way.

I don't want to tell you how to run your empire, but that guy is a lost customer, and if you don't rethink this exclusively-Steam policy, a lot more people are probably going to join him.

Just because Steam is the platform for all your digital distribution today, doesn't mean that it will meet your requirements tomorrow or five years from now.  If some new platform takes off and blows away the competition you'll have the same problem of having lots of people on a legacy platform which technically you don't support any more, except Steam would be the legacy platform.

For your information, if I'd had to install Steam when I originally bought GalCiv II, then I might not even be posting here on this forum.  I might have never bothered to give any feedback or got involved in a beta like I did with DA and TotA.  A lot of people might have just passed it by.

If someone wants to give you their valued custom on your website, then you deliver the game.  Don't push it out to your buddies at Valve and expect everything to be rosy, it's not going to happen.

He's talking about Steam needing to be in memory every time you want to play the game.  If you only use Steam for game X and you don't have Steam loaded in startup then effectively you add a whole half a minute to the game's load time.

Tell you what, why don't we go back to loading games from cassettes while we're at it.

You don't have to have Steam in memory to run GalCiv II.  We're just using it to handle the updates and initial downloads. It doesn't use Steam.

I DO have a Steam account. I bought a few games with it. And I have found Steam is no good to me. And by the way GalCiv2 DOES use Steam, you CAN make it to run WITHOUT running Steam but it will require some dribbling with GCF and such.

The essence of question here for me is not about "OMG... Half a minute of waiting" and other bull*hit. Reasons like "to help you download initially and to receive updates" sounds really odd.  It was MONEY CONCERNS that blinded your mind. What were gaming companies doing BEFORE Steam came to gaming business scene? All the same: they were providing download links for purchasing and updating games. What is changed now radically? NOTHING. There are dozens of developers nowadays that continue to do it. I

But now even when you bought DISK version of game (what an old crap, is it? but many people still do it) and brought it home you see...what? right - you see that you MUST install this ***king Steam for registering, playing and updating your favorite game (I'm talking about YOUR game, mister Wardell!). And in era of digital distribution you simply have nothing in your hand and even on your hard disk. You just have your ACCOUNT  Where is my distributive, eh? I uninstalled my game and unknown Arabian terrorist blew Steam servers up. Where is my game?

It begins with Steam. After 2-3 years passing, I will have to install 3-4 small programs THAT I DIDN'T NEED TO PLAY MY FAVORITE GAME, DON'T NEED AND WILL NEVER NEED. But I DON'T HAVE my game. YOU have my game. You just LENT me this game, gave it to me to play for a while.

 And no warning on purchasing page by the way, you've made it literally yesterday.

 You simply IMPOSE your conditions. Your rules of Game   . But remember: it is not US who depend on you. It's YOU who depend on us. There are many other developers. There are many good and excellent games. There are many other ways to kill one's time with pleasure apart PC games. 

But... however, it is all up to you, do your worst. It's like turn-based game is it?  Your turn is processed. Your turn was Steam. Now it is OUR turn.

(Sorry for emotions. You create excellent games. But you chose the wrong way to share your creation with people).

And after all that^ I'm glad I've got my copies of Gal Civ 1+2 and ultimate on disc's

The original disks I bought are buried in storage, so I was looking to purchase the Ultimate Edition, figuring that such an old game would be dirt cheap.  The only problem is that Steam seems to be the only (affordable) way to buy it, and I don't do digital downloads.  I need a physical disk.  When I emailed Stardock sales and asked them about a physical copy, they said that they only do digital downloads now. 

That's crap.  What happens in ten years when Steam has been replaced with something else and nobody even remembers that it existed (and I STILL want to play Galactic Civilizations 2)? I'm sure I won't still have the same computer. What happens if I move back out to the sticks and have to make do with dial up? If the only way that Stardock will take my money is through Steam, then I'm afraid I simply can't give it to them (and I realy do want to).

I just don't believe in virtual merchandise that isn't pornography.

Yeah I wouldn't know how to mess with the registry, but if what you suggest would work with a Steam download, I'd definitely look into it. Maybe I'll email the sales department again and see if I actually need Steam to back the game up once it's downloaded. Thanks though.