Civilization IV → Games - Strategy

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With over 6 million units sold and unprecedented critical acclaim from fans and press around the world, Sid Meier's Civilization game is recognized as one of the greatest PC game franchises of all-time.

Now, Sid Meier and Firaxis Games take this incredibly fun and addictive game to new heights by adding new ways to play and win, new tools to manage and expand your civilization, all-new easy to use mod capabilities and intense multiplayer modes and options.

Civilization 4 comes to life like never before in a beautifully detailed, living 3D world that elevates the gameplay experience to a whole new level.

Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.

After a few turns and clicking around to the various navigation and advisor buttons in the top right of the screen, you’ll discover that Civilization IV replaces some of the concepts from older versions of the game, such as the type of government you form. Civilization IV uses a more complex concept called “Civics”—over time, your civilization discovers various types of governments, religions, and systems of labor and allows you to mix and match as you will. For example, at one point in my game, my Civics settings simultaneously included Universal Sufferage, Nationhood, Emancipation, Free Market economy, and Theocracy (Judaism).

In addition, Civilization IV sports a new game engine with some three-dimensional elements to it. When you engage in combat with an enemy unit, the normal birds-eye game screen will zoom down to the action, where you can watch your larger-than-life units do betlle until one of you is defeated. While Civilization IV lacks actual combat along the lines of a game like Warcraft, it is a big improvement over previous editions. During combat, you’ll see the various motions associated with each military units—the longbowmen will draw their arrows. However, there is no actual contact between units, and there is no combat sound, as there was in Civilization III.

This increase in the 3-D graphics’ depth and complexity and the greater complexity of simulation in areas like Civics explain why Civilization IV’s system requirements are considerably higher than its predecessor. Some Mac gamers have fumed over the greater requirements, but, at later stages of the game when empires are particularly large, the game can slow down unless you’re on a machine that matches or exceeds the game’s hefty system requirements. (A G5 or better is mandatory, according to Aspyr.)

Once your units have waged battle once, new buttons let you upgrade your units as the game progresses to give them more experience points and other advantages. Another great new addition to the game is an auto-save feature that saves your game at periodic points during gameplay. If you want to make sure the latest victories are recorded, you probably should save the game on every few minutes, just to be on the safe side.

There are also some new concepts introduced to Civilization IV, including Great Engineers and Artists, who after building wonders of the world, can be used to increase your civilization’s science output or cultural achievements.

Civilization IV is a complex game that has many different types of single-player and multiplayer options, including support for LAN, Internet and Play-By-Email (PBEM) multiplayer capabilities. These options are cross-platform, meaning you can take on your PC-using friends in a prolonged battle to the death. In addition, Civilization IV also has scenarios (such as various World War II simulations) that can you can tackle should you want to try something a bit different from regular gameplay.

Civilization IV will take you dozens of hours before you’ve explored all the possible facets to this incredible game.

System Requirements

1.2 GHz Processor , 256 MB RAM , 64 MB video card Hardware T&L , sound card , 1.7 GB HDD

Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

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