In Europe? Here’s the trick I used when Civ 5 was first released to get it a few days early… it’ll probably work for Gods & Kings, too.

I’ve just tried this and it works; thought I’d share my results with you so that any fellow Europeans can give it a go too.

1. Pre-order the game in your own country (I’m in the UK and bought my copy months and months ago; paid in £)

2. Pre-load the game (shocked if you haven’t already done this), so Steam says “Pre-load complete; unreleased”

3. Get yourself a US-based VPN provider. I’m using VyprVPN because I had an account with them already, but if you’re just after an ultra-short subscription for this one thing then you can probably get a better deal: here’s a starting point.

4. In Steam -> Settings -> Download + Cloud, change your “Download region” to one of the US ones. Save, and shut down Steam.

5. Connect to your VPN.

6. Open up Steam again: by the combination of (a) the VPN and (b) the download region, Valve will believe that you’re in the USA and activate your game! Hooray!

7. Play!

I hope you all appreciate the time I spent typing this when I could have been playing Civ 5! See you online!