Civ IV is wonderful. Everything is crisper, cleaner, and better. "Just one more turn" still applies!
For those who are new to the Civ franchise, here’s a run-down of the game’s premise: you start out in the dawn of mankind with a settler. If you’re lucky, you might have a warrior or an explorer, too. Or not. That depends on the Civilization you choose to play. So, there you are with your settler. You build a city, and you’re off! The game unfolds turn by turn, with each turn consisting of you moving units and troops, overseeing your cities, and guiding your civilization to be the best it can be.
The thing that’s so wonderful about the Civ games is that they’re so open-ended. There’s more than one way to win, and there’s definitely more than one way to play. Regardless of your style, though, one turn seamlessly melts into the next and you will find yourself staying up way past your bedtime.
The fourth game in the series makes some very nice improvements. A handful of the things that have impressed me are:
* Culture. Civ III introduced the concept of culture, and this installment has refined it, even adding the concept of opened and closed borders.
* Terrain improvements. The range of choices is now much more diverse and includes windmills, waterwheels, cottages, plantations, oil wells and more.
* Cities. The world map is now much more alive. Cities are nebulous, growing things and truly grand cities look it.
* Battles. Units still fight the way they always have – one moves onto the others tile and they duke it out. The animations are now very charming, though.
* Upgradeable units. You can now choose how you want to promote your units, with such bonuses as flanking, city defense, etc.
Finally, I’d like to address a few specific complaints that I’ve seen in other reviews and do NOT agree with:
1) “The game doesn’t have a manual.”
This is UNTRUE. I got the regular edition game and it included a reference poster and a meaty manual that is over 200 pages.
2) "The civilopedia sucks."
This is also untrue. Yes, the civilopedia is much more graphics based, but there is also text. My only complaint is that there isn’t a section devoted just to the wonders, and that listings of resources don’t specify what (if anything) obsoletes them.
3) "It plays too fast."
I’ve been playing my first game on the easiest setting for about 4 days now. I chose a fairly large world map, and set the pacing to “epic” and it feels just like the old Civ games did.
4) "Technical problems."
I’ve seen everything from people saying there’s no sound during the game, to jumpy movies, to blacked out faces, etc. I’m not saying they are lying or anything – but just that my own experience has happily been problem free, so far. Knock on wood :-)
For the record, my own system is not a new one. I’ve got an AMD 2.2 ghz processor, 728 megs of RAM, an on-board sound card and a Radeon video card with 256 megs of on-board memory and I run Windows 2000. Not a top-of-the-line system.
In conclusion – if you’re a Civ fan, or enjoy turn-based strategy, you will love Civilization IV. It’s a wonderful game, and a worthy successor in the series. It’s stayed true to its roots while still improving those aspects that we all know and love.