Customer Reviews

Civilization IV

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Wow, don't go by the recommended requirements at all on the box with this. I have a 2.1ghz Imac with a gig of ram, and I have to run the game on the lowest graphic setting. The music is very choppy, but even on the lowest setting, the graphics are gorgeous. Gameplay is typical Civilization style. It's crashed on me numerous times, mostly when windowed, fullscreen made the game drag to a crawl (but no crashes), and I was wishing for a 'Civ3 view' under the options. I wouldn't recommend playing this on anything other than one of the newer machines with a ton of ram, or a quad style machine. If and when Aspyr updates with a patch that hopefully removes much of the resource hogging, I can easily give this 4 stars, but in it's current condition, I can only give it a 3, but I really feel it's more of a 2 right now.

***UPDATE*** (10/31/2006)
After applying the beta patch, I can easily give Civ 4 the 4 stars it deserves. Great game and Aspyr really shows how to make games on the Mac work.

I'm a huge fan of the various incarnations of Civilization. The other reviewers are correct -- ignore the system requirements at your peril and get as much RAM as you can! Speed is fine on a brand new Core Duo iMac. I experienced my first Mac OS X crash since Mac OS X Beta years ago when I increased the graphics settings. I backed them down a bit and things have been fine since.

Other than that one (serious) glitch, the game is great and I am losing whole blocks of time to Civ IV the way I did to previous versions of the game.

UPDATE: The new patch (1.62a) seems to have addressed the crash problem, although I have noticed minor problems with some graphics and audio. It is an improvement, but there are still some things that need to be addressed.

Some games are just fun to play, regardless of whether they have the "bleeding edge" graphics that strain almost every PC or Mac. In short: Civilization IV is a fantastic turn-based strategy game.

In a traditional game, you begin as a fledgling civilization just abandoning your nomadic ways and eventually go from a small colony to a world power. Are you going to be a despot wielding a huge military power? Will you be the cultural center of your world? Will you rush to develop new technologies faster than your competitors? Will you become an economic powerhouse or will you forge alliances with the various other tribes and come to a place of prominence in international politics? It's your choice in Civ IV.

Regardless of the path you choose, Civ. IV requires you to use your wits to ensure that your foothold in the new world is secure. In additional to the traditional game, you have a wide variety of options. Want to start in the space age with modern technology and weaponry? You can do that. Want to play through some historical campaigns? There are a number of preloaded scenarios. Can you take over the helm of the American revolution and beat back the British? Why not give it a shot, you budding Washington you.

True quality stands the test of time. Yes, the graphics are from the mid 2000's, but what does that matter if the game is fun to play? I appreciate the new games with their incredible graphics and sound, but my point is you won't notice that the graphics aren't bleeding edge in games with quality gameplay and replay-ability. That's what Civ. IV is. It's well-worth the price.

Ignore the system requirements at your own risk, because this thing runs like a fat sow on any machine more than a few months old. On my iMac G5 bought just a year ago, it's effectively unplayable at even the lowest graphics settings -- and that's at only 2000 BC! I won't even attempt to see what it's like with a full, modern world. Very disappointing.

UPDATE: Performance is massively improved by the 1.61 patch (released on 31 July 2006), but it still slows down quite a bit after a few thousand years. As before, ignore the system requirements at your own risk.

This *is* the best civilization game to date, Fraxis did a good job in making it both more realistic and playable. It's a great deal of fun!

However, Aspyr did a very *poor* port of the game. While the windows version runs on machines 2+ years old, the mac version only runs on the *latest* hardware. Performance is slow and painful on an iMac G5 and worse on G4 machines. Aspyr needs to release a patch soon to fix this game.

Updated 7/21/06

Seems that there has been an update to version beta 1.61 Rev A. This does fix a lot of the speed issues on powerpc. Could be faster, but still appreciated since now the game is playable. However, there still are quite a few bugs in this release, and seeing that this is a beta release, Aspyr still has a way to go.

In late 2002, I took a second job at a major electronics retailer and decided to use my employee discount on what looked like a cool game: Civilization III. That game changed my life... in the gaming sense. It was everything I ever thought a computer game should be: turn-based strategy with multiple avenues to test my ego and self-promoted genius. Above all features of Civ3, however, my most favorite was the customization of the game through the map editor and the wonderful online resources of the Civ community. (I've downloaded more Civ3 files than MP3s.) This allowed me to express my self-proclaimed genius with new rules, technologies, and units (and all the accompanying chronologies and requisites) at my discretion. Nothing could get any better, I had thought.

When Civ4 was being talked about, however, I couldn't imagine on what grounds they could improve - except perhaps making the game even more customizable and thorough. Well, you've already read about the differing features of the game: less micro-management, more diplomatic and trade features, new technology trees, enhancing popular mechanics found in previous Civ titles, and of course, going 3D with it all.

When playing Civilization IV, you sense an overwhelming POTENTIAL to be a really great game. In my mind, that potential has not been fulfilled, and I hereby advise you to purchase Civ3 Complete instead and forego Civ4 if you haven't chosen so already. If you have already purchased Civ4, let's send a message to Firaxis Games that they need to do better - let's stop purchasing Civ products until they are actually without so many bugs, that aren't rushed to be released for the holidays, and that don't insult our intelligence by requiring expensive "expansion packs" which merely add content that should already have been included in the original release.

Here is a list of comparative reasons to only own Civ3 and not Civ4 and boycott future Civ titles until something changes for the better:

1. There is no map editor in Civ4. Instead, they included a "World Builder" which is so awkward and strange. It is not like Civ3's map editor where you can set starting positions, resources, civilizations, and terrain BEFORE you play the map. The "World Builder" of Civ4 only allows you to alter scenarios from the installation or randomly generated maps. You cannot create maps from scratch - you can only change what has already been created within predefined parameters.

2. Who needs 3D graphics for a turn-based strategy game? Civ4 is not fully 3D; it merely allows a tilting view from ground level to overhead. That can be cool, but consider the offset: it is unnecessary for this genre, it diverts computer resources from other cool and more thorough features, and it makes the game extremely difficult to modify. For Civ3, there are well over 1,000 things you can either download or make yourself and put right into the game. You don't have to know XTML or Python programming languages as you would in Civ4. Civ4 requires advanced education (like a graphics design or computer science degree) to simply alter things like governments, units, buildings, and game rules. Waiting for others to design them (like the amateur online community or the professional expansion packs) isn't so fun anymore.

3. Expanding content for more money? This was a problem with Civ3, as well - its first expansion pack was a total waste of money because everything was later put on the second expansion pack. People bought the first expansion pack because they loved Civ3 so much and didn't know it was a waste. (Many video game makers are taking advantage of gamers in this way, not just the Civilization makers.) My point here is to fight back. We already know what they are going to pull: Civ4 has an expansion pack out there titled Warlords. It basically includes elements intentionally left out so as to somehow formulate a "new" product. In the base version of Civ4, you have the Great People: artists, scientists, merchants, and prophets. Hmmm... now we get the warlords, eh? Oh, and a few other civilizations and buildings left out from before. Nice try... Boycott this type of marketing out of sheer principle. Play Civ3 Complete until Civ5 comes out if you have to. Maybe Civ will be less of a cheap shot then.

4. The last reason why you should be content with Civilization III and completely forget that Civilization IV was ever made is the most simple. Purchasing Civ3 Complete right now (1) will cost you less than half of Civ4; (2) is fully expanded while Civ4 is still looking to make more money off of us; and (3) Civ3 has the very same level of addictive game play as any other Civilization title. If you have already dropped the cash for Civ4, simply do not support Civ4 any longer. In fact, uninstall it and put it in your drawer as a sad chapter of shameless marketing. Yes, Civ4 is fun, but it is does not live up to its potential in most ways. Playing Civ3 will take up your time quite nicely until they release a REAL title that doesn't take advantage of us so blatantly.

To conclude, my overall point to stick with Civ3 and forego Civ4 is this: without an easy, efficient, and overwhelmingly powerful customizing interface (like an awesome map editor that allows FULL customization), we are simply asking for "re-tread" products. The fact that Firaxis did not include a kick-butt map editor proves in my mind that they expect us to wait for their "expansions" to come out and spend at least $150 each before they move onto Civ5. Hold out with Civ3 Complete and wait until Civ4 goes away.

Im going to start by saying that the Mac port compared to the windows version is ok at best. What I am truly frustrated by is the lack of support Aspyr is placing in its software. I bought this game with the intention of playing multiplayer with my friends, all of which own PC's and were able to buy the gold edition for half what I payed. Regardless, I put up the absorbent amount of money for this three year old game and attempted to play multiplayer with my friends. To my dismay I discovered that Mac users were not allowed to play multiplayer with PC users because Aspyr has not released a patch compatible with the windows patch 2.13. To make matters worse I also discovered that gamespy is no longer supporting the internet play of the Mac version. So even when the patch is finally released I will only be able to play direct IP connect. After learning this crucial information I called Aspyr support to find out if they plan on releasing a patch soon so I could make my $80 investment worth while. But to no avail, the tech support told me that the incompetent Aspyr "is working on it" but have no definite date for release. The final nail of the metaphoric coffin was the fact that Mac users could also not get the latest Expansion beyond the sword. What makes it even more offensive is the fact that Aspyr has no plans of releasing this half year old expansion pack in the future. Please heed my advise and do not buy this game until Aspyr gets their act together!!!

People familiar with turn-based games have probably heard of Sid Meir's Civilization series. These games have been popular since their inception. Having played the first and third versions of the game, the great thing about this fourth installment of the game is that the main premise has not changed. Of course the bad thing about this fourth installment is that the main premise had not changed. As you can see, having made a fourth generation of the same game is a double edged sword.

Installing the game - and installing games on a Mac in general for that matter - is not much trouble. It only took a few minutes and with registration done, I was ready to go. Now, I have played other Civ games before, but I thought it would be to my advantage to go through the tutorial. This is the first oddity I found. Upon selecting the Tutorial, the game had to restart itself completely, which I found it a bit odd. Through the tutorial, Sid Meir (a rendition of him) walks you through the basics of the game, though it seemed choppy and was not all inclusive. So even being familiar with the previous games, there was a bit of a learning curve.

The game play itself is much like the previous generations of the game. Each nation has their turn to build, place units and move their nations to greatness (at least that is what is hoped). The face of the game - graphics, icons and such - has improved greatly and having Leonard Nimoy as the narrator is a very nice touch.

I have found the greatest enjoyment of the game is at the start, when your nation is in its infancy, struggling to survive and progress, knowing you are in a race because one day you will meet someone who will want to rid the world of your culture. As your country grows, keeping tabs of your cities does become some of a hassle, but your advisors give you advice on what to build, taking the thinking out of it.

Sometimes I can't get enough of the game, but there are some issues that bother me. For one, it did freeze a few times (albeit after several hours straight of playing) and some graphic glitches showed up every once in a while. Unit combat is also irqusome. I like how you can give your unit upgrades, but the combat system seemed too simplistic for me. For example, if you have a stack of units, they cannot attack all at once. Second, old units (longbowmen for example) sometimes beat rifle units. Third, why can't a naval unit (battleship, cruiser, etc.) fire against land units? Issues of this nature make combat for me, too simple and unrealistic. Civ can be frustrating if you prefer the tactical deatail in games like Hearts of Iron.

Even with these annoyances, the game is very enjoyable. There were times I could not put the game down, yet I would feel a lack of satisfaction when I finished. Even though it is almost identical to previous versions in game play, the graphics and short list of added features make it a game I'll continue to play for a long time.
In the end, Civ IV is a solid game for anyone who enjoys its brand of grand strategy. If you already have Civ III it's not worth the upgrade, but if you're looking for a first grand strategy game for OS X, Civilization IV is a good buy.

I like others here, love the civilization franchise. However, I feel that although the game is amazing, aspyr really messed this one up. I am on an insane mac supercomputer and it still lags, haven't had any crash's yet. It lagged mostly when I played with 18 players though on a huge map. I have only played multi play so far as well so I will soon find out if single player plays any smoother.

Lots of bugs, LOTS of bugs. Need a patch soon. Love the game though.

Been a Civ fan since the original.. Best civ yet. I've been playing for 3 months straight now. Almost didn't get the game based on the reviews of it being slow.

Not a problem!

I have one of the new Intel Dual Core IMacs with the standard RAM and the game runs smooth all the way to the end. I downloaded the patch before starting the game and have very few problems. If I play for a long time (as we all do as civ addicts), the map (lower left) starts to degrade. Easily solved by closing and reopening.. Not an issue for me after playing 6 hours straight...