The advantage for paying players is still being decided. It seems likely that pay to play players will get the advantage of extra generals that give your civ extra benefits like a unique unit or faster gold mining etc.

^kind of like how age progression worked on AoM. I just hope there's too much of a difference and that they don't get crazy with micro-transactions.

I played yesterday afternoon and night and other than having to try to connect twice to get in I diddn't get disconnected anytime.

Also, Slimebeast, I think if you already "purchased" the download even if you didn't get the gfwl client to work and actually download it you should still be able to make your download, but I'm not quite sure.

Its also been implied that certain techs won't be available unless you purchase the Civilization.  Like the 'Star' techs.  But we'll see if they do that.

In all honesty, if they were to charge like $5-$10 per civilization, I'd be fine with that.  I mean, you don't even need to own every civilization.  Say the game has 6 Races in the end, but you only want to play Egyptians and Persians.  Then you just buy two of the six.

the $150 there is a typo, right?

What I'd like to see would be some premium-only civs or technologys and units that open up new strategies and ways to play but DON'T screw the balance. Now of course that's hard to do but it'd be nice.

That's the other thing. If payment changes the core gameplay, such as having actual new units and not just different looking units with the same stats, then I'd rather they jsut make me [ay for the game than have me get screwed by paying more for the whole game in total.

Luckily it seems so!

True. Why does it seem like to access all the content you'd pay more than if you could just buy the game complete at a store...

Yeah, it was a typo.

Also, I'm pretty sure the Egyptians will play like they did in Age of Mythologies.  Cheaper but weaker units with a few key strong units like Chariots and Priests.

Yeah. They'll have elephants too, but maybe it won't be a regular unit.

I do trust they can balance civilizations, but it seems the premium content will be "intra-civilization" too, and that will probably have effect on balance.