Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Platform	Windows XP
List Price	$29.99
	$26.99 (Save 10%)

Published by	2K Games
Release date
ASIN	B000BC38K6
Availability	Usually ships in 24 hours

Civilization IV is recognized as one of the greatest PC game franchises of all-time. Now the fun and incredibly addictive strategy game reaches new heights by adding new ways to play and win -- along with new tools to manage and expand your civilization. Civilization comes to life like never before in a beautifully detailed, living 3D world -- with all-new easy to use mod capabilities and intense multiplayer modes and options. It's a must-have for gamers around the world! Flexible Tech Tree allows players more strategic choices for developing their civilizations Team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading and shared territory Over 70 in-game movies and animated sequences advance the story

Customer Reviews - courtesy of Amazon.com

Addicting Frustration

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.

Better than Ever

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.

All the Problems Are Fixed

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.

One of the best games ever!

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.

The Addiction Is Back

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.