Stardock, the developer best known for the Galactic Civilizations series, has brought aboard one of the rock stars of the strategy genre.

Big Download reports that Jon Shafer, lead designer for Civilization V and former Firaxis employee, is now part of Stardock team. He will begin by helping the company’s efforts with its PC gameElemental: War of Magic. The game got off to a troubled start in August 2010 but Stardock continues to dedicate resources to it. Shafer’s hire will surely help with current and future Elemental endeavors…

Good news for gamers! Amazon’s leading up to Black Friday 2010 with a Prelude to Black Friday Deals Week this week. Starting today (November 15, 2010), there’ll be special video game deals lasting all week. Each deal will only be good one day though, so don’t dally if there’s something you want.

Today’s promotion is expensive, but worth it if you’ve been lazy about acquiring Blizzard computer games…

Yes, Civ V is a good game, but that’s more a testament to how good a basic platform Sid Meier developed the current incarnation just seems to be missing so much that was in the earlier titles.

Nope, that’s not a typo. That figure isn’t missing any numbers. For a limited time, the Games for Windows site is selling copies of Civilization IV: the Complete Edition for less than $10, way less than its regular retail price of $39.99.

If you’re living in Europe, then you’re guaranteed a special edition release of Sid Meier’s Civilization V. 2K Games has just announced it. If you’re willing to pay £59.99 ($91) instead of £39.99 ($60), you can get lots of other cool stuff with your Windows PC game. Well, maybe not lots, but you get quite a few nice little extras.

As is customary with many special editions, the special edition of Civilization V will come with a “making of Civilization V DVD and Civilization V art book. This art book is quite hefty though, as it’s 176 pages. You also get a 2 CD soundtrack filled with music from the game, something that you also probably expected. The sole surprise is the set of Reaper Miniature Civilization V metal figurines. If you gathered together enough friends who also invested in the special edition, you could recreate a little Civilization V army.

At the moment, there’s been no news stating whether the US will get the same awesome Civilization V special edition…

The Babylonian civilization led by Nebuchadnezzar II will only be available to Steam users. You’ll also receive the complete soundtrack to Civilization V and a video feature called, “Behind the Scenes at Firaxis with Civilization V.” The free goodies don’t stop there though. Anyone who pre-orders Civilization V through Steam will get a free downloadable map pack.

2K Games and Firaxis decided April Fools’ would be the best time to introduce a revolutionary new feature present in Sid Meier’s Civilization V, Extreme Diplomacy. For the most part, Civilization games have been simulations requiring players to build up their nations through wars and diplomacy in an attempt to gradually rule as much territory as possible. Extreme Diplomacy simplifies and speeds up the process via a winner-takes-all death match.

Each of the world leaders will have their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as special attacks and finishing moves. For example, the screenshot above clearly shows George Washington unleashing the “Uncle Slam Attack” on an unsuspecting Oda Nobunaga…

A new Civilization game has been announced. In Fall 2010, gamers will be able to once again manage your own, well – civilizations for lack of a better word in Sid Meier’s Civilization V. That’s not all, in addition to the exciting Civilization V news a Facebook entry in the series, called Sid Meier’s Civilization Network, is also being developed. Firaxis games is working on both games.

Not much has been revealed about Civilization Network yet, aside from it being in the works, so let’s focus on Civilization V. It’ll have a player hub where people can exchange user created content and find matches to take part in, hexagon tile layouts over the maps which will presumably make the wars more interesting, fully animated leaders, improved diplomacy methods and options and an enhanced warfare system that encourages strategic thinking. Basically, Civilization V seems to be stepping it up a notch….