I bought this game a few years ago and instantly loved it. I can play this game for hours on end while neglecting homework, :). The only two complaints I have for the game is that the graphics can be choppy and slow if you are running with minimal system requirments and some of the leaders faces show up as just a pair of eyes and teeth instead of a full face. If you have more than the minimal system requirments you will be fine. The only other complaint I have is that it allows you to build the Great Pyramids in England or Notre Dame in New York. I think it would be funner if the game were more accurate.

This is quite an upgrade from the previous Civ III title. Things seemed easier to manage in this version, upgraded graphics, easier user interface, and tons of fun. You can't go wrong with this game if you like building things.

I was slightly disappointed with the limited advanced technologies but I am guessing that was intentional so they could sell the expansion packs.

Overall, fun, interesting, and a game that you can dust off every year or so and still get enjoyment from it.

I was shocked to see how low this game was rated. After reading the reviews, I found that the early version of this game had a bunch of problems.

Rest assured, they are now fixed. Plus you can go online and install recent updates to get the most up-to-date version.

This game is a lot of fun and highly addicting. I've always avoided turn-based strategy games in the past so this is my first time playing a game like this and I absolutely love it. Don't be frightened off by the low reviews. It's all good now.

I purchased this game when it first game out, having anticipated its release. I was first impressed with the quite thick game manual. While useful, new players will not require reading through the entire thing as the game is fairly easy to jump into and start playing around. I can only describe the game to newcomers that the play style is similar to that of a Sim-City type game. The new mechanics added in not only each civilization (America, Germany, etc), but also each ruler (Roosevelt, Washington, Otto Von Bismark, etc) grant bonuses and change how the game will unfold. The beauty of the game is that it is never the same each time you play it. Not to mention, I have a blast playing this game over a direct IP connection with a friend where we play cooperatively at first then proceed to conquer each other at the end. The Civilization games were always very addicting and this may be one of the hardest games to tear yourself away from. You will always want to play for a few more turns, and then something else interesting will happen. Before you know it, the clock reads 5:00am!

As a side note, I really appreciated the Civilopedia included in the game. Between turns or whenever, you can read a bit of real-world history on any of the technologies, civilization, super buildings, units, and wonders. And they have Leonard Nimoy as the narrator for the game. I plan to never get rid of this timeless game.

I missed the original Civilization from way, way back but did catch Civ 2 when it first came out in the mid 90's. While the graphics weren't pretty, even for it's day, the gameplay definitely made up for the experience. A deep game, easy to play and yet difficult to master, and indescribably addictive. When Civ III came around the bend I was really excited to see the new improvements but was let down by what appeared to be a hopelessley buggy game with some serious corruption and unit imbalance issues. I finally threw my hands up in frustration after a month or two of trying to beat that game and swore off all future Civilization releases based upon my experiences with it.

My brother purchased Civilization IV when it came out and told me how great it was. I was immediately skeptical and this was further compounded when I saw all of the glowing reviews it was receiving in the various PC games magazines, all of which had said similar things for Civ III (I suspect a lot of times when magazine folks review games they may give it extra points for the popularity of the developer, and Sid Meier is almost a deity in the industry) and opted not to get it. Due to my brother's hectic college schedule he approached me one day and said something to the effect of "I know the last one sucked, but try this, I swear you'll like it". So I loaded it up over a year ago, and I am here to tell you that this is one of the greatest games I have ever played.

The basics remain the same. You choose a civilization (Aztecs, Romans, Spanish, etc.) and build your capitol city, striving against the CPU opponents to spread your civilization across the globe while trying to maintain a lead, or at least a competitive level in military might and scientific progress. One of the carryovers from Civ III (and one of the few plusses I found in that game) was the addition of borders, basically explained as the 'culture' of your civilization. A colony of the English, for instance, that is surrounded by larger Spanish cities is going to have a much harder time keeping a hold of it's British roots as it may quickly get inundated with that of it's surrounding neighbors.

Another carryover from Civ III was the idea of resources appearing on the minimap. These range from useful metals like copper or gold to luxury items like sugar cane or silk. In Civ III these resources were not permanent and could (and all too quickly did) run out. This has also been corrected in Civ IV, and it definitely gives one incentive to go out there and spread your civlization as getting your mitts on iron, copper, and coal are going to be nothing short of a necessity to your continued existence in the game as time goes on. If all else fails though the Diplomacy model has been reworked thoroughly (I can't tell you how many times I wanted to physically maul Hiawatha in Civ III for his lopsided "business" deals) so you can trade for much needed items if need be. The individual match setup is very intuitive and I find that anything past the "Noble" difficulty setting is basically an exercise in how long one can survive.

In previous games one could build temples and other religious edifices but it largely had the effect of appeasing the masses when they got ornery (Good grief...New York is in rebellion again. Ok, here's your Temple). There was no named religion, per se, more or less just the accoutrements of a generic one. In Civ IV they've added the major world religions, and while one is not really better than any other, if you found one you'll find that it can seriously help your civilization in the long run as a source of extra income, diplomatic heft, and research. The CPU players tend to make a beeline for Hinduism and Bhuddism at the very beginning of the game, so acquiring those requires one to move pretty quick.

Occasionally you'll get a random "quest" that your civilization can partake in. These range from building 5 libraries (one in each city) to the intriguing and difficult "Holy Mountain" quest, which requires you to plop a city down next to a mountain sacred to your civilization. That's not an easy feat as all of the other civs are champing at the bit to expand and may settle next to your mountain before you do. Succeeding in a quest typically nets you a reward along the lines of making a permanent free experience level for your military units, or boosting the research value of your libraries. It's a nifty gimmick in the game and I find I rather like it.

But the single greatest part of this game has to be the music. From the intro screen you're greeted with the best original game music I've ever heard ("Baba Yetu" by Christopher Tin, with a melody that gets in your head and stays there) in my gamer's life, and that's no easy feat. Much of the music you hear in the game is timeline specific, from tribal types in the beginning to Baroque music in the Renaissance period, down to the wonderful Classical selection they have in the Industrial period, featuring lots of Dvorak, Beethoven, and a little Rimsky-Korsakov. I could spend much of the review on the music alone, suffice it to say that I find myself listening to the tracks in my offtime and plan on shopping around for the complete works as the game music tends to be certain movements from each classical piece, not the whole thing.

I did not play this game when it first came out so I cannot speak about the bugs and imbalances that seemed to plague it when it was first released. What I can say is that one of the most infuriating aspects of the game is when I see an enemy unit armed with a sword taking down one of my Cobra gunships. Thankfully this is pretty rare now and like as not will happen when you have an already severely damaged unit that's doing the attacking. This was a huge issue for me in Civ III and the single biggest sticking point in that game. (And yes, I know there are multiple cases of folks with inferior arms taking down superior forces, but I can point to many more than that where it was the use of superior arms that won the battle, see Rorke's Drift, among others).

Overall this is wonderful and addictive game, and one can usually find me plodding away trying to conquer the world on an almost daily basis. It's like I've run across a secret stash of heroin I'd forgotten about.

I bought this game off of Steampowered and was expecting it to be epic, which I can see it is with all the different elements in the game. The only problem is that it's almost too complicated, once you get to the 1900's the turns take way too long and everything just slows down giving you nothing to do but move military forces around.

To be fair I was expecting something like Black & White and thats not what this is at all, its about thinking and strategy, basically an electronic board game.

Civilization IV:
A game of excelent graphics, and realistic scenery shows how magnificent this game actually is. I believe several hours could be spent on it, so overdoing game-time in CivIV is the greatest concern. This game is truly an amazing, and addictive computer game.

I've been a fan of Civ since the first one, and spent
countless hours playing Civ I, II, and III. So I was
really looking forward to IV.

In Civ IV, the units have changed to little groups of
people that run around. The map has changed from 2
dimensional to a 3D perspective view. All these little
people running around the 3D perspective view means I
couldn't tell where the grid was, couldn't tell where
one unit ended and another began, and couldn't tell
what type of unit was what. It was also ridiculously
slow to scroll around the map, hard to figure out what
direction a unit could or couldn't move, and quite
disorienting to just try to find a place: as in
"now where was that settler I sent to the west that
I was just looking at a minute ago?"

Then the program crashed before I even finished the
tutorial. I realized that the play had been so
cumbersome (and the plastic robot Sid Meier so annoying)
that I was almost glad it crashed. I uninstalled the
game without ever finishing the tutorial.

I'll go back to a previous edition of Civilization
until they publish something better than THIS. The
hyped up graphics and movement make Civ IV a lot of
fancy window dressing on a big turkey.

Civ IV is still recognizably Civilization, but with enough tweaks to make it fun and plenty of new stuff to master during repeated play.

The game has movies about each wonder that play when you finish it. It animates battle scenes with great detail and sound effects. It has great music - Gregorian chants, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikowsky and even modern opera to match the era.

The internal math has been updated. Food, production, and culture still work more or less as they did in Civilization III - land gets farmed or mined, its food or industrial production goes up accordingly, and when it accumulates enough culture points, it expands. But there are new ways to tweak them. There are lots of new resources, seem to be more on the map, and you don't seem to stress out as much over getting them.

And there are some whole new dimensions.

Instead of offensive and defensive numbers, military units have a single power number. They get different bonuses against different opponents - archers get an edge, say, against mounted units - creating the offensive or defensive edges Civ III featured. You can see odds calculated before you opt to fight, and see every unit in a city before attacking it. You avoid unfavorable battles. The ones you pick, go faster.

Also, there are a slew of promotions you give units as they become eligible, customizing them with different strengths. A swordsman can get a bonus against archers, handy particularly if you know he's about to face one. Or a bonus good for attacking across rivers. Or one good for faster recovery.

The infamous "spearman effect" has been quelled. A primitive unit with the right promotions can still be effective defending a city against a stronger, more modern foe but when the odds get beyond a certain point, they collapse to 100 percent. So your tank won't get destroyed by a spearman who's having a lucky day.

The game introduces collateral damage to discourage stacking units into numerically unbeatable armies. If you shell or bomb a stack of units, you can damage the whole stack. On offense, you can bomb a city to weaken its overall defenses, but you can also bomb the defenders themselves, with one bomb damaging them all, making conquest immeasurably easier.

Religion is a major element. If you discover a religion, you work to spread it. Other rulers are friendlier if of the same religion, more hostile if from a different one. You can convert to curry favor. Religion helps keep your people happy, as it did in Civ III, but it also allows you to spy on foreign cities where you've sent a missionary. (The "Jesuit effect.")

Every time you build a synagogue, a cantor chants something in Hebrew. (And every time you finish a new technology, Leonard Nimoy recites some pithy saying about it. Gunpowder: "You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with just a kind word." - Al Capone.

Health and sickness have been quantified and elaborated. The numbers tell you when you need to build Aqueduct, Grocer or Hospital, and how much you need to solve your problem.

Diplomacy has been updated. A running list of praises and gripes from rivals, whose attitudes you could only infer in Civ III, let you know who's a strong ally or enemy, who's on the fence, and why, which helps you figure out what to do about it.

The rulers have more personality. It's priceless when Julius Caeser or Queen Victoria, annoyed because you've refused trades or alliances, says, "I studied on killin' you."

Trade has been altered, in my opinion, for the worse. Resources can only be traded for other resources, or gold per turn, which other rulers never seem to have much of, meaning even a resource-rich empire must return to the market repeatedly to sell Silk for 2 Gold, then Corn for 1 Gold, then Wine for 3 Gold, etc. Or you trade Silk straight up for Corn, which the game thinks is an even trade. This is an improvement? It's a lot less like real history, when Silk or Spices were precious and rare, as they were in Civ III.

You have to trade techs for flat sums or other techs, not for gold per turn. Other rulers won't haggle much, which is no fun. In Civ III, I liked counteroffering 15 times until I'd shaped absolutely the best deal possible, or trading a resource for a tech with some gold and gold per turn thrown in on either side. I liked being able to sell techs repeatedly for hefty golds per turn and have them keep me rich for the next 20 turns. All that's gone. Feh. Also, there are options involving conversion or adoption of another country's civic values, but they're usually grayed out, and the game doesn't let you offer to convert in exchange for something. It should.

The graphics are fabulous. You can zoom in and see every building in your city, or zoom out to a globe view, handy when viewing a whole continent, estimating sea distances or scanning the entire world's resources.

There's a lot of automation. The game can suggest where to send workers or build cities - the latter usually near water - speeding up a lot of busy work. The new system for right and left-clicking units to move them, goes a lot faster.

Many minor flaws have been ironed out. You needn't colonize bits of land to keep opponents out, because the game won't let new cities form within two squares of another. Cities expand faster so more of those land slivers end up safely inside your borders anyway. Not only does corruption, now called "maintenance costs", discourage huge empires, but it also punishes fast growth, even early in the game. Besides farms and mines and a variety of mills, workers can build outlying cottages growing, with time, into money-generating villages and towns putting the city into the black. But before their surrounding settlements grow, new cities drag down your economy, so you don't want too many new cities all at once. At war, you can plunder those towns and villages for gold, which makes plundering a lot more lucrative, and gives your cavalry something to do while you're slowly moving footsoldiers and catapults into place.

Civ IV moves a lot faster. You can turn off some animation, once you've seen it all - seeing the Taj Mahal get built a dozen times was enough - to make it go faster still. I could spend 50 or 100 hours playing Civ III games if they had large maps and big wars. 12 to 24 hours is more typical for Civ IV. The game is also sped up by this: the characteristics of every unit, technology, resource, improvement or what have you is right there when you click on something. You don't have to remember that Optics lets you build Caravel, or that Caravel requires Optics; it says so right there in both places. You don't have to get out the instruction book or go to Civilopedia very often.

The down side is that a Civ III game became part of your life, a given map part of your mental geography that you'd pondered over every city. When a game was over, I was sorry to say goodbye. I still remember Civ III games I played two years ago. Civ IV games aren't as involving. Players don't really get into the city screen and get their hands dirty, and so may not really learn the game's guts.

But because each game is shorter, you feel freer to take chances and make mistakes. You have less vested in each game. I'd play safe in Civ III, not wanting to blow three weeks of work with a dicey attack or strategic error. A couple of days ago, by comparison, I had to decide between the UN victory in Civ IV and the space race, and opted for the latter. No matter: today I did the UN victory in the next game and learned how it worked. Finishing two games in three days never would have happened in Civ III.

I hadn't played Civilization since it was on 3 1/2 inch floppies. It was good then... but it's great now!

Everything was there as I remembered it- but the obvious evloution of the game was outstanding. the graphics were excellent, from eye in the sky to practically first person view point - it was a seamless transition.

It was easy to (re)learn, and many an hour since then has been spent playing. My son and I have played both over each other's shoulder, and using hte "multi-player" option.

I heartly recommend this to everyone.

My conclusion first, then details after for those with patience. Get this game, when all is said and evaluated and it is picked apart by critics it still remains to be a lot of fun. If you've never played a Civilization game before and you've got your fair share of hard core strategy love, start with Civ 3 or even Civ 2. The previous games are better but I would recommend this one to someone who has played the others and wants more, a friend with ADD, or someone who thinks a pet rock is too much work.

Here's why:
Civilization 4 is a lot prettier, its got some fancy bells and whistles, very enjoyable, but it threw away a lot of what us hardcore Civ fans came to know and love. Gone are the informative spreadsheets, gone are the advisers, gone is all the manipulatable information, replaced instead with the basic of useless info. Not that there's a lot of micromanagement to do anymore, the AI is good enough now to take care of it for you or just simply deny things that in the past made sense like moving population from city to city via settlers.

Speaking of denying, one of my favorite features, taunting the enemy by making outrageous requests is also gone, the game now assumes you wouldn't want to have that option and blocks it out in red till your enemy wants it as an option.

And although military action is now more enjoyable, they messed with the ultimate weapon, the Nuke! No longer is the day when a nuke sent everyone in the map out to get you, but also say goodbye to the raw destructive power. The nuke has been reduced to a dirty bomb, it no longer destroys roads, makes craters, levels cities or melts the ice caps into a water world of Armageddon. The worst a barrage of nukes will do is maybe poison a city with fallout and make one tile of land "globally warm".

Despite losing time fishing around the mis-decorated icons, Civilization is still a lot of fun! Great military progression, historic people, leader attributes, religion, and new government policy, and a plenty of ways to win as expected. Go play!!!

I find most games these days slowly following the trend of most of society most of everything is slowly being cheapened to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I was delighted to find that this was not the case with Civilization 4 it is fun, challenging and quite frankly the most addictive game I have played in years. There is also a very active fan community with a MOD list that is as long as your arm and still growing.

Overall-Well done and nicely played.

The fourth entry in Sid Meier's globe-and-history-spanning empire-building simulation game, Civilization IV is the latest refinement of the Civilization formula. Rather than introducing a lot of new features, Civilization IV tends to stick with the tried-and-true aspects of the series.

Those familiar with the series will recognize the gameplay. The player takes the role of a civilization - one of many real-world empires, such as the English, the Greeks, or the Japanese. The game is turn-based, with each unit moving a certain distance - and getting a certain amount done - each day. The focus is on infrastructure as much as warfare, with most of the units having to do with building cities or maintaining the land around them. Settlers build cities, which serve as a hub for a local network of farms, villages, and mines. Cities can build specific structures or units, and each has its own happiness meters to take care of.

Outside of cities, the major area is research - various technologies (with descriptions narrated by Leonard Nimoy) in fields like architecture, agriculture, literature, and religion that boost your civilization's power. Of course, if you can't resort to peaceful measures with the other civilizations, there is always war, conducted in a fairly simple tactical manner (mostly just consisting of unit strength and any bonuses).

New to Civ IV is the expansion of governments. There are now several key parts to the government of your civilization - the leadership, the distribution of labor, the enforcement of religion, and so on. Religion, also, is new to the game. Different religions have different effects on your empire. Furthermore, there can be a difference between what your "state" religion is and what individual cities' religions are. Generally, you have better relations with people of the same religion, so you should try to use missionaries to expand your chosen religion. Another new feature is the concept of "Great People" - individuals who are summoned by researching certain advances in the fine arts or whatever field they may specialize in. These people can give several sorts of one-time bonuses and are fairly rare, so their usage is very important.

The graphics are decent, but kind of minimal in usage. There aren't a lot of visual indicators, so really it's just more like a board game with little pieces. It serves mostly a utilitarian purpose, just to show where stuff is and not really have any sort of epic scale or embellishment. One part that is pretty neat is the option to zoom out and see the entire map as a globe, dotted by the various cities and empires. But, other than that, there's not much to the graphics. The music is nice, with different songs for each leader and each civilization. Music increases as you are over empires depending on their point in the timeline - a medieval civilization has the proper music, for example. This is a nice ambient touch and the music is well-executed in general.

As a whole, this game is more of the same. For some people, that's a good thing, but I personally felt like there wasn't enough depth in the game as a whole. It concentrated too much on the entirety of history and lost the enjoyment of being in certain periods. It is a good game, yes, but it just didn't really feel as deep as it could or should have.

8/10.

My daughter and I both tried this game and had the same feelings about it. I thought it'd be something different than it actually is. Neither of us liked the turn based system. We also wanted more control over the game. I also had mixed feelings on the graphics. Although I liked the colors of the game, the characters and the world were small - I couldn't get close to look at the cities, etc. I just didn't enjoy this game at all and was rather disappointed that it wasn't what I expected.

I have a computer with Windows Vista Ultimate 64. This game wouldn't play at all on my computer even after the patches for both the game and the Nvidia driver. I saw that the Beyond the Sword Expansion Pack says its Vista compatible, installed that plus the patches and now I can finally play this game. And its alot of fun.

I have been playing Civ since 2004 when I got Civ3, play the world and conquests. Last year i got Civ 3 complete, which it thought was very fun. I got very bored of Civ 3, so I got Civ 4 last year. I couldn't play Civ 4 because i didn't have a graphics card(which every computer game needs now. This year i finally got a graphics card and started playing. I think Civ 4 is very fun because the many new features and graphics. I recommend this to any person who played civ-civ3 or just likes conquering the world.

have fun gaming!

I have been a huge fan of Civ through Civ 2, Civ III and the Civ III Expansion pack. I recently got Civ IV for Christmas and I'm still adjusting to it. The only way I can really enjoy it is to erase what I knew from Civ III and just pretend that it's an unrelated game. There are some fundamental changes in this game, many of which have already been addressed in other reviews. I am going to add a few things that I'm bumping into as I learn how to play Civ IV.

1. Map size is much smaller
In Civ III on a std map, you might build 15 cities. In a Civ IV std map, you're going to get 5 and the game will tell you that you have the largest civ! The map appears to be much smaller, but I think the focus is to do *more* with less cities.
PRO:
Since you have less cities to focus on, you can really put your attention to fully developing them. You have a lot more ways of working your terrain, like building farms, pastures, watermills, forges, etc. If you enjoy terrain development and urban planning, you have less to focus on so you can give it your full attention. Cottages in your city will actually develop into hamlets and then into towns. Your cities will be much more complex.
CON:
My old strategies from CIV III, namely building as many cities as possible as soon as possible, seem to be less relevant here. In Civ III, on a huge map on a higher difficulty level, you would want to hastily throw up as many cities as you can. It's hard to change the focus, if you that's what you're used to.

2. Tech tree is diversified and seems to lack many pre-reqs
PRO:
A lot of new techs have been added to give you more diversified civic planning. Animal husbandry is a new one, for example, as is "Guilds". You'll need Bronze Working if you want your workers to be able to chop down forests (and forests will grow if you're not tending to them). I enjoy the new techs that give civic development more depth and seem more realistic.
CON:
-The tech tree seems to be a bit too loose. I discovered Nuclear Fission and built the Manhattan Project the other day before I had even discovered Medicine! The game will announce you've moved into the Classical or Renaissance Era or something and you might not have even discovered Alphabet yet. You can move ahead with technology where it's just not a logical development. In easier game levels, you'll discover new tech so frequently that it becomes annoying to keep clicking on the tech menu. I discovered so many new techs in the earlier part of an easier game that I didn't even have time to use them! It's too much to do with instant gratification and game action, I think, that it's distracting.
-This is probably my own learning curve but I cannot figure out the clear victory path yet. In Civ III, you'd want to throw yourself into discovering Lit so you could build the Great Library and get many free techs. Then, you'd want to concentrate on moving to Democracy at one point, because your workers would be so much more efficient and your income would dramatically go up. Then, you'd need Steam Power so you could have all your military units able to move across your entire map in one turn for attack or defense. With new religions, and civics and being able to develop tech in illogical orders, I cannot yet figure out the clear victory path in Civ IV.

3. Wonders, new and old
Forget what you know about Wonders from Civ III, b/c they are just fundamentally different now. It would have been even better if they just changed the names to avoid confusion.

4. Foreign Leaders are more complex
PRO:
If you mouse over a leader, it will tell you exactly why he's annoyed with you (your borders are too close, you traded with his enemy). You no longer have to guess why a leader is annoyed vs cautious. I love getting the detail on what the foreign leader's bias is.

CON:
-The leaders will bug the crap out of you constantly. While you're trying to build your cities, you will get numerous 'status' reports from them like, 'Stop trading with my enemy.' To be completely honest, it's annoying to me. I may no longer have to click 'ok' to happy city declarations like in Civ 2 and I may no longer have to constantly clean pollution like in Civ III, but I have to constantly listen to foreign leaders babble on; it's distracting. I miss the long periods of 'quiet' in Civ III, when I could focus on my development tasks and mull over military strategies.
-This is a very minor complaint but the leaders went from looking realistic in Civ III to looking like strange little cartoons in Civ IV. Oh well.

Anyway, those are some things that you might bump into if you were a serious user of Civ III. I think IV is a good game, don't get me wrong, but it's just very very different to III that I have to almost forget that they are related at all.

A lot of people have been complaining about this not working right so if you think you're going to buy this game then get a demo or borrow it from a friend to see if it works first. Let me tell you though it works on my computer completely fine and I have a 256 ATI Radeon Graphics card, 512 MB of RAM, and a 2.4GHz Intel P4 Processor. I have also installed it on my laptop (which blows my desktop away... Except for the cruddy Intel Graphics Accelerator card), my friends laptop, and my friends desktop. Anyway let me get on to the game. The gameplay seemed much better to me in one aspect because you did not need 40 towns to beat the other Civ's. The only other one I've played is Civ 3 and at the end of a game I always had around 30 or 40 towns, not after taking the others towns. The unit upgrading adds a nice touch so you can customize your units to a play style. There are also a lot more civilizations to choose from, some with 2 different leaders, to which you also gain specific bonuses from the things they start off with (like building a barracks 50% faster). The graphics are great and you can customize the game settings in many different ways, although I do wish the maps were a bit larger and you could choose how many people you wanted to fight at once. Unit selection and moving is great. Being able to move more than one guy at a time is amazing (I don't remember if you could do this in 3 as my brother played it more than I did so I never found a way to). The different Wonders are interesting. Having "Great People" be able to help with research or culture is nice and you are always wondering "I wonder who will pop up next". Overall I think this game is great fun and I personally have not had any problems with it so I am not responsible if you read my review, buy the game, and then your computer explodes for whatever stupid reason.

The differences between CIV 3 and CIV 4 are small except for the 3d graphics. My PC has 2gHz processor, 512 DDR memory, and a 128 meg NVIDA graphics card. CIV 4 runs terribly slow and often freezes my PC. One of the attractions of CIV 3 was the ability to customize the game by producing your own units, building, technologies, ect.. That is impossible for all but the most advanced users in 3d. So don't expect many mods.
The other new game features are great. The expanded importance of culture and religion are welcomed additions to the CIV franchise. One disappointing factor is that the battles are just as lame as before, one unit battles one unit at a time making for unnecessarily long game play and unrealistic results.

First, I will say that I haven't had any problems at all with the game being too slow or crashing. I'm using a Pentium Core 2 Duo with an upgraded graphics card. This game probably didn't run very well when it first came out because of its buggy initial release and the slower hardware that people had 2 years ago. But it runs great now.

At first the game didn't seem that exciting, after all I played the previous Civs. But after playing it awhile it became addictive. Much more so than Civ3 which was the weakest Civ. I finally conclude that this is the best and definitive version of Civilization. If you liked the earlier versions, you will love this (assuming your computer was purchased within the last two years).

Why is this so much better? The special resources, religions, and culture are all elements that weren't in the original Civs. You have to be much more careful about WHERE you found your cities. You have to choose between having your workers build farms or cottages. Keeping forests instead of chopping them down is also a viable option. There just seem to be more things going on that you have to think about. I have a very difficult time winning at Prince level which is just one level up from the level where you and the computer players are on equal footing.

Diplomacy is essentially the same as earlier versions, but you now get a detailed display of WHY leaders like you or don't like you. Instead of seeming random, it now feels like you have control over which leaders like you and which ones don't.

The map generating feature gives you more control and works better than ever. The AI is a much better naval strategist--it used to be that it was too easy to win on an island map because the AI didn't know how to use navies. Now island maps are fun, and you have three different kinds of island maps to choose from.

I can't believe this game only gets an average of 3 stars. It is one of the most complex, thoughtful, detailed, deep and addictive games ever released on the PC. I can't believe these people. Oh, boo hoo. It's turn-based. Deal with it!

I really enjoy this game and like other have lost track of time. I enjoy the multiplayer aspect and the graphics are great as well. This is a time consuming game and takes thinking and planning - for some it may be slow going since it is turn bases. There are multiple ways to win and many different play styles can be use, which I enjoy. Lot to check out and involved in the game - can be slightly over welheming of some one new to the Civ series, but worth the time.

I have played the Civilization series since Civ 1. (Believe it or not, my grandfather introduced me to the game - he must have played it since it first came out, but I started about 10 years ago) I have enjoyed every version of the game, but once I started playing Civ 4, I realized that I could never go back. Civilization 4 is my favorite of the Civilization series for several reasons.

1. The developers have by all appearances worked very hard to both "remove unfun elements", as they called it, and to keep to the standard Civilization style. I think they have done both well.

2. Careful balancing of the game allows one to play a Quick game or a Marathon game, as well as two speeds in between. The Quick games can be played through in one to several hours, but the Marathon games can last 20+ hours. The speed setting allows me to fit the game to the time I have to play it (though I'm starting to prefer Marathon to the Normal speed I was playing).

3. Perhaps the most valuable thing the developers of Civ 4 did is make the game easily moddable. If you don't like Civ 4 the way it is now or wish some feature were included, odds are you can find a mod to meet your desire. Whoever made the decision to make Civ 4 easily moddable should get a raise - Civilization 4 could literally be the turn-based game to end all turn-based games, because whenever you get tired of playing a certain way, you just have to download a mod to get a new experience. In certain cases, the game can be turned into something else completely.


Also, consider buying the expansions for Civ 4. I have Warlords and will buy Beyond the Sword after I play my money's worth out of Warlords. Both expansion packs (but especially Beyond the Sword) will entertain you for hours and hours, late into the night. FYI, I've gotten 6 or less hours of sleep the last two weeks for that very reason.


Enjoy!

I've been playing Civilization for over a decade, all the way back to Civ I. I excitedly buy each installment of the series hoping "this-time" they'll get it right. But each time so much energy is put into graphics and bells and so little is changed to make the game more than a mind-numbing waste of time (this from a guy who has spent hundreds maybe thousands of hours playing the games). I loose interest because all the wonderful subtlety constantly goes out the window with the inevitable surprise attack from a 3rd rate civ from the other side of the world. Each game becomes just another race to get the techs that lead to the best guns.

The diplomacy is only marginally better than Civ 2. Trade and trade routes (the most significant motivator in human history) is, and always has been, pathetic. It's still handed like spoiled kids trading snacks at lunchtime. "I'll give you my Twinkie for your coal." Religion is an interesting addition but it's used in such a benign way it does little to change the game. The great-leaders seem exciting at first but it quickly becomes apparent they are little more than anonymous "bonus cards" that show up occasionally. While the graphics are at first impressive, the game really dissolves into endless tedious hours pushing little animated soldiers around the screen.

There is still no storyline. No random events to keep it interesting. Still nothing to distinguish unique cultures beyond graphics and special units. The AI leaders act predictably hostile and uncooperative. There is no romance in the game. I don't mean royal arranged marriages, I mean the thrill you get watching that online ad narrated by Martin Sheen. There is no epic sweep that could so easily be there if the authors spent less time animating little sprites you ignore by the third game, and more time adding true personality. It needs heroes and revolutionaries, pirates and brigands, disasters and surprises. Add real trade routes and the need to provision ships and caravans. That would make the map actually strategic instead of just a pixel battlefield.
How about colonies and revolutions? New civs that appear over time? How `bout leaders that change over time? It's so stupid to be negotiating with FDR in 3000 BC. There are so many things that could be added to make the game more interseting and dynamic not just pretty to look at.
But sadly even in Civ 4, Each game is very like the last, only the map really ever changes--from game to game or version to version.

Like the three versions before, Civ IV is over by end of the bronze age. If you aren't the undisputed top dog by 1AD you might as well cash in your chips. Except for war, there is no real unpredictability in the game. War wouldn't be so bad except it's so tediously long. On this game's calendar Ike would have landed in Normandy in 1999, only a few years after Napoleon finally got back from Moscow. And frigates are still able to sink battleships, and your tanks still burst into flames attacking Knights.

I'm always so hopeful loading in the newest version of Civilization. But yet again I am disappointed. After all these years, it's still little more than a cross between Sim City and Risk.

I've been playing Civilization all the way from the beginning. The fourth installment has incredible detail, wonderful graphics, lots to do, and a great replay value. With the addition of religion, leader traits, and a whole new technology tree, Civilization 4 is my absolute favorite next to Simcity 4000. Religion needs some polishing because it seems to be non-important later in the game and seems like its not even there. The only bug is the fact that a archer sometimes can defeat a gunpowder unit which is odd. It reminds me of the Phalanx unit in the previous Civilization where it somehow holds out against a tank.

Basically you are in charge of a civilization (there are many to choose from) and you lead them from the stone age to the space age. You have to create cities, spend your gold pieces wisely on research and happiness, and possibly building projects. These projects outside of buildings such as granaries and barracks are called World of Wonder or a Natonial Wonder. There are loads of wonders between the 2 of them so be careful, you only can build a certain amount of each within each of your cities. The addition of Great Leaders adds a value to the game that sometimes in other games waters it down and gives you an idea as to who will win. This is not the case. For instance, the Great General can bind your units together and give them expierence points where you can upgrade them. These upgrades can be: strength, extra defense, healing, extra strike, and many others. A Great Artist can give any of your cities a culture boost or give a city a "shot in the arm," which means you can get extra prodiction and/or culture.

With the addidtion of 2 expansions this game went from outstanding to amazing just like that.Some minor bugs have been fixed with the exception of early units defeating more advanced units as I stated above. Anyone complaining about it not being polished and horrible are dead wrong. When this game was released it was incredibly strong and hardly buggy. It's a lot better than most games that are released! I preordered it and recieved it when it was released. I was able to get the box that contained the tech tree and extras that included a Sid Meier interview. Not bad but if you get this edition or the one with no extras, there is no difference in price and its not jaw dropping material.

Playing it immediatly, I was astonished and very satisfied. Yes I am guilty of the "just one more turn" thinking. This is an absolute for empire-building fans, people who like to explore, war, diplomacy, work the land and recources, and strategy fans.

`Civilization IV', inspired by the original design of Sid Meier and implemented by his latest company, `Firaxis Games', is the great granddaddy of the 4-Ex (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) style of turn-based strategy game, and by all accounts of the awards it continues to win, it is still the best. To that general opinion, I add my belief that it is, in fact, the undisputed leader of the genre, and its latest incarnation will only enhance that standing.
`Civilization III' was so engrossing that it was literally the only PC game I have played for the last three years, and until some company comes out with a worthy successor to the old X-Com franchise, `Civilization IV' may be the only PC based game I will play until Sid and company come out with `Civilization V'.
The very best thing about `Civilization IV' is that it is clear it was rebuilt from scratch, recreating from whole cloth a game which embodied all of Sid Meier's original concepts (from the credits, it appears that the only contribution Sid actually made to the game design and implementation was the inspiration behind the earlier versions). I actually started both `Civilization III' and `Civilization IV' on two different computers, with displays placed side by side, and was immediately struck by the difference in look and feel of the new version. In fact, my first impression was that the earlier map really looked far more like a genuine landscape, so the new look took just a bit of getting used to. But then, I accidently discovered the new map's zoom in and zoom out ability controlled by the mouse wheel. The new interface immediately jumped in interest. One can seamlessly zoom from what is practically a street level view, with all the individual buildings visible to a distant synchronously orbiting satellite view, where you can take in whole continents on the screen. One thing this means is that the separate city view of `Civ III' becomes totally integrated into the main map view. I will certainly not miss this, as this eyewash was largely useless in terms of game functions.
The government and religious aspects of the `Civ IV' game are both virtually an order of magnitude more complicate and more interesting than in `Civ III'. Where before, you only had two religious buildings (Temple and Cathedral) and a few religious `wonders' (The Oracle, The Temple of Artemis, the Sistine Chapel and J. S. Bach's Cathedral), you now have seven different religions, up to three building types per religion, a religious unit for each religion, and a wonder for each religion. And, even better, converting your neighbors to your state religion allows you to see into their converted cities. Where in `Civ III' you had only eight different governments, plus the `Universal Suffrage' wonder, `Civ IV' gives you the ability to base your government on almost fifty different policies, and each different policy has different costs and benefits.
The fourth difference with a major impact on game play is the fact that the workers' activities have become far more interesting and diverse. Where before, the only things they could do is build roads, mines, irrigation, forests, fortresses, and railroads, they have at least three times as many different functions, as well as the addition of a marine worker which can develop fishing beds. This notion comes directly from an inspiration by Herr Doktor Meier, who says that the late game boredom is not due so much to the worker micromanagement required, but the fact that those tasks to be managed are so uninteresting.
One thing which changed very, very little is the combat system. It is still based almost exclusively on single unit versus unit combat, with only the most rudimentary `combined arms' effects (as when an archery or artillery unit can damage an attacker before combat with primary defender begins. Based on my experience, there is also virtually nothing done to eliminate the absurdity of a spearman unit's killing a WW II era Sherman tank! I have seen it happen! There have been some interesting additions. The most useful is the fact that there are far more improvements available over the simple `Civ III' experience level. You can make various units simply stronger or specialists in traversing forest or mountain terrain, more adept at withdrawing from combat, or capable of `blitzkrieg' multiple attacks.
Another very nice benefit derived from the general interface and the ability to zoom down to the detail level is that the animated combat `movies' are far more interesting, and I will keep them around a lot longer than I did with `Civ III'. It's a real hoot watching mounted elephants assaulting armored infantry.
The diplomatic aspects of `Civ IV' are not too different from `Civ III', but here I suspect they held back something for their first expansion release. The ability to have choice between Napoleon or Louis IVX or between Lincoln or Washington is not terribly interesting, except that the animations are different and the civilization characteristics vary a bit.
Speaking of animations, the animations for building the wonders are something of a wonder in themselves. It will be some time before I turn them off.
My least favorite aspect of all the Civ games, the levels of difficulty, where AI opponents essentially cheat at higher levels, is unchanged. As I have played `Civ III' and the third lowest level of difficulty for the last three years shows that this really doesn't cramp one's play too much.
This is a truly great successor to a truly great series of games.

Don't listen to a number of negative ratings here some of which are claiming to be programmers, game developers etc. If they are so, then I am Bill Gates.

Civilization is if not the best, one of the best strategy games ever made. And the only game ever that has gone better with every new version.

WHY? Because It's original maker has stayed with development, design and programming since it was first released as Civilization, in 1991. This genius, Sid Meier is not only an intellectual and has deep understanding of history of nations, but is also a gifted game developer.

The game has a somewhat steep learning curve and was buggy on first release, but after patches and expansions, anyone that can take the time and has the brains to really learn the game, will really love the game.

Multiplayer is a blast, and online rooms provide an abundant environment to find any kind of game, including ladder and tournament games.

The game is fun, but it has periods when it is very annoying. I hate the expense for every city "feature". I am a great conquerer, but charging me for cities usually loses me the game as all my units go on strike and then I get attacked simultaneously by three plus civilizations. Always happens just before I wipe out another civilization.

I've been playing the Sierra city building games since they first came out and I own them all and I love them all. I was really excited about Civ4. I just purchased it and am disappointed in just about every aspect of the game. They completely changed the graphics and the camera and I don't like it. The graphics of the game are almost worse than the original Caesar. The people are still and move like a board game pieces. The buildings are ugly. The maps are poorly done. And I really, really hate that they went to a different camera, like the one in Warcraft where you can zoom in and out, spin around, etc with your mouse. It difficult for me to control and doesn't fit with this type of game. I used to love the graphics and the animations of their games. I think this is the last city building series game I buy from them since this is the route they chose to go. I played this game for a couple of hours the day I bought it and I boxed it back up and threw it on the shelf. I'm going to go back to the old games.

Like previous Civilization games, Civ 4 is a turn based strategy game that gives you control over the development of your civilization. Without going into all the features, I will point out the strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths:
While some will complain about this, the overall game has been redesigned. Unlike previous games which encouraged the building of as many cities as you could in the early part of the game, Civ 4 goes to a more strategic approach, but also gives you something to do each turn(instead of setting production and waiting several turns for what you want to build to finish). The game now eliminates the "corruption" system of previous games, and goes to a system where there is an expense that the city places on your government. So, you start with one city, and you need to build a bit slower, at least in the early game.

The graphics engine is now 3D, and with a decently powerful video card, you can see all your city improvements from the main map. You can zoom in and out as well.

Cultural boundaries are based on the culture output of your cities, and you can use culture as a way to expand your borders and capture border cities.

Religion is a system that allows the founder(s) of the different religions certain extras. If you are the founder of a religion, and you accept that religion as your "state religion", you can see all the cities that contain that religion. Religion can spread on it's own, or you can help it by sending out missionaries.

The game is open for mods, and there are many out there that you can download to tweak the game in different ways.

Replay value is high due to multi-player, as well as the random factor in map generation. There are some static maps, but there are also a number of random maps that can be adjusted based on your preferred play style. If you prefer there being only one continent, or higher or lower ocean levels, or a larger or smaller map, you can start the game with the settings YOU prefer.

There are also different game "speeds", which decide how long each game will take. A marathon game on a huge map can take over six hours, but you don't need to play on marathon.

Each of the AI civ leaders have their own personalities, with some being more warlike than others.

With the Warlords expansion, you have both unique units for each civilization, as well as unique buildings. These unique buildings and units replace a "standard" building or unit.

There are many more positives, but no game is without it's negatives, even though I don't really consider many of these to be real flaws.

If your video card does not support directX 9 in hardware, the game won't look as good, and you will need to turn off certain graphics options. That is due to the video card not being able to handle certain graphics features. Even with DirectX 9, if you have a low end video card, including integrated video in most laptops, you may encounter some graphics issues. Intel video tends to be the source of many problems, but older laptops with DirectX 8.1 or earlier graphics chips tend to be the source of many display problems.

Even with a reasonably fast machine, video, CPU, etc, if you play on a huge world with 17 computer controlled civilizations, you will find that you need to wait a bit between turns(as the AI civs get their turn). This can make it a little annoying, but again, the choice of playing on a huge world with an older/slower computer is yours.

The AI at times can be a bit...slow. This is why multi-player is a good thing, because you can play against other humans. There are some mods out there that help with this. The next expansion(Beyond the Sword) has improved AI as a feature.

If you prefer a game that lets you win or lose based on thinking, and less on reflexes, then Civ 4 should be seen as a great game. If reflexes and fast gameplay are what you look for, then Civ 4 is NOT for you. Warlords and the second expansion(due out in July of 2007) add(and will add) to the base game. There are also a lot of elements in Civ 4 that will appeal to those interested in history, since there are references in the game to real life leaders, cultures, and world wonders.

I didnt know this game was a turn based game but its still fun. Some people like this kind of game.

This is a typical turn-based game. It took me some time to figure out how to play and think like the game.The little details are very interesting, such as, the UN and Leonard Nimoy's lending his voice to the game.

I suggest getting the upgrade "Warlords." Make sure you update the upgrade though!

I really don't know what to say anymore.

And yet again we run out and pay $40+ dollars for the newest version of our games/software just to find out that the newest version is less impressive than the prior version. Apparently the designers of CIV4 have fallen into the trap of graphics and audio being more important than playability and the "fun" factor. The qualities that made CIV3 one of the best PC games of all times seem to have been ignored by the designers of CIV4 in a weak attempt to make it "the best ever". The quality of the game is devolving back to unimpressiveness such as Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars versus Episodes 4-6. No lesson learned?
The civilopedia reminds me of playing a Sesame Street game full of icons instead of a list of units, etc. The city screen also is juvenile with icons instead of a list of units, buildings, etc... It is frustrating having to search through a screen of icons instead of being able to choose something off a list or to see a list of buildings in your city. The military adviser screen has gone from excellent in CIV3 to a joke in CIV4. Instead of being able to choose units and upgrade or delete those units with your right mouse button you are now given a map of the world and have to click on the unit type, the city, and then choose the Sesame Street icon to upgrade or delete the unit. In CIV3 the entire list of possible buildings or units to build in a city came up on one menu. Now in CIV4 you have scroll through a list since it only shows the first ten or so improvements. The quick start function also has disappeared. When starting the game and given a less than desirable starting point you have to go through the entire menu of options sometimes I find 15 to 20 times before I can get a starting point not in a jungle or desert. From someone who remembers the Civilization board game (giving away my age!) and who has played every version of CIV on computer I have to say that CIV4 is the worst version. I have uninstalled CIV4 and put CIV3 back on my computer. The volcanoes and pollution of CIV3 is more tolerable than the entire CIV4.

My first experience playing this game was on a computer that didn't have the graphics card required to play it. I would play it and the characters would be floating eyeballs with hats, feathers or wigs dangling precariously in thin air. Still, I found myself staying at the computer for HOURS playing this highly addictive fourth installment of the CIVILIZATION series!

Once I had the proper graphics card??? FUHGEDDABOUDIT! I missed MEALS to play this game. I lost so much sleep in the first few days that when I finally DID stop playing I crashed almost before I could make it to the bed!

The story is nothing new. The overall "plot" or "point" of the game hasn't changed since Civ 1, but that's why people are drawn to it. It's familiar but updated.

The one modification I would like to see is having to change your ruler's name periodically. The game runs for 5,000 years!!! No one ruler is going to live for 5,000 years! You should play it as a dynasty. Montezuma XVI or George Washington CIX should be in charge by the time the game ends. Imagine Napoleon's GGGGGGGGGGGG Grandson on the throne of France.

I would like to see them borrow the "family" aspect of a game like ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS in future civ games...that'll tweak it JUST Perfectly in my opinion.

Start playing and before you know it the kids will be asleep on the couch, the pizza in the oven is burned, the dog has pooped on the carpet, and your wife is leaving you notes about needing to talk about "your relationship". Make sure you set aside 6 hours for Epic play because you wont want to stop once you start.