If you just bought Civ V and haven't been able to launch the game, here's what worked for me.

[Oh-Meg]

I just bought the game yesterday and like many others have not been able to launch the game at all. After trying a few things I was finally able to get the game to run today.

I'm on windows 11 and never had the 2k launcher for reference.

Open Civ V folder C:/programfiles(86x)/steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization V

Run the CivilizationV_DX11 exe and that's it!
It did take a solid 60s to actually launch, so give it a minute.

I tested this with read only on and off and it worked for both.
it also worked regardless if I had "D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\CivilizationV_DX11.exe" -dxlevel90 set in the launch options. I tested it with and without and it launched both times.

I made a shortcut for CivilizationV_DX11 and am able to launch from desktop no problem.

Hope someone finds this helpful!

[Buggy Boy]

I tried this (and everything else suggested recently in these forums) but to no avail for my Windows 10. My "solution" was to play it in Linux which funnily enough works flawlessly, but it's not ideal as I'd rather play it on my Windows 10 laptop (and I can't install Linux on that because I need the Windows 10 install for work). Odd, and still something I think 2K need to address.

[Oh-Meg]

Originally posted by Buggy Boy:

I tried this (and everything else suggested recently in these forums) but to no avail for my Windows 10.

I'm going to assume this fix only works for Windows 11 then. I hope everyone is flooding 2K with support requests. Even with the work around it's obviously not ideal.

[De0z]

Originally posted by Oh-Meg:

Originally posted by Buggy Boy:

I tried this (and everything else suggested recently in these forums) but to no avail for my Windows 10.

I'm going to assume this fix only works for Windows 11 then. I hope everyone is flooding 2K with support requests. Even with the work around it's obviously not ideal.

Nope, the Windows 11 is the same thing,

[donald23]

If you encounter the "updating executable" please follow this with Steam Support:
https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithGameIssue/?appid=289070&issueid=701&transid=876340478075203789&line_item=876340478075203793

Steps:

1. Go to the Steam Support site and choose your game.
   
2. Select "Gameplay or technical issue" and then "The game won't download or install".
   
3. Select "Contact Steam Support".
   
4. Provide them with as detailed as possible information on the error and when it happens and hit "Send".

You can go through the first three options, but most will end up hitting "Contact Steam Support". Then provide them with as much detail as you can regarding when you see the error.

This is actually an install error from the Steam client.

[SixSkills]

I finally got it to work. I couldn't play for weeks. I tried reinstalling, verifying game files countless times. Deleting Civ V folder manually, admin rights, custom arguments and launch options as people suggested. Nothing Worked.

What worked :
Deleted the folder named 2k in %localappdata% (C:\Users\YourUserFolder\AppData\Local\2k)
Deleted the folder named 2k in %appdata% (C:\Users\YourUserFolder\AppData\Roaming\2k)

Hopes it works for you too!