Customer Reviews

Sid Meier's Civilization IV Special Edition

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

If you have never played a "Civ" type game:

Civilization 4 is a turn-based strategy game - the action freezes while you decide what to do (compared to Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) games where things keep happening). Turn-based games typically offer much more depth than most RTS games, whose complexity is limited by the frantic pace of the game, and the 1-2 hour target duration of the RTS game.

People who love the Civ type games typically share two qualities. First, they are good at seeing the "big picture" - this game is more sophisticated than a game of chess, as the cause and effect of game decisions are often subtle, and not clear cut until much later. Second, the best players make a lot of good decisions, similar to an air traffic controller. You have a limited number of resources to do more things than is possible (do I build combat units to fight a war, economic structures to support me, or pursue a religious strategy at the risk of weakening my military?). The program allows you to automate a lot of decisions, but you can usually coordinate things better to your grand strategy if you do them manually (especially production decisions).

While the graphics and sound are excellent, these are not the focus of the game - instead, the entire gameplay experience is. Civ4 is extremely addictive due to the many decisions you make, and the way your decisions affect you nation (hopefully in positive ways). Civ4 is a game that is fun to start and restart over and over looking for an "optimal strategy", although this strategy will change based on who you are (different nations have different strengths; i.e. the Mongols are better at combat, while the Egyptians are better at religious development).

If you buy one game this year, get Civ4.

For FOLLOWERS of the CIV series:

Civ4 is the best. There are a lot of changes to the game that enhance play, but don't make it more difficult to play. First, many of the things that used to waste your time are gone or reduced. For instance a city with too many unhappy people no longer goes into revolt, but just slows down. Allowing any unit to automatically explore makes life easier as well. Your tax rate is slightly automated, defaulting at 100% science. If you are spending money on other things, the science rate automatically goes down as needed, rather than dismantling improvements.

Civ4's developmnent of religion revolutionizes the game as much as culture did to Civ3. Religion allows cities to use specialists, which are the main way to generate leaders. These leaders can still accelerate research or wonder production, but they can also improve a city's production (production, culture and commerce). There are 7 religions, and the founder of a religion (the first to research the tech for that) gains advantages: spies in all cities with the same religion, and income from all cities with the same religion.

You no longer have settlers running through your territory towards open spaces unless you agree to "open borders". Opening your borders increases your trade, and allows you to spread religion (and vice versa). Religion provides a lot of ways to make your people happy, but it is better to use your own religion, than join someone else's.

The government changes are much more discreet - instead of 6 or 7 types of government, you have 5 areas of civics, with up to 5 selections each (which become available as you research different techs). Changing one attribute of your government requires only one turn of anarchy. If you have the techs, you can fine-tune your government: do you want to maintain more military units, or produce more culture? Would you rather trade openly with all, or refuse trade (mercantilism) and develop more specialists? The possibilities along with their development curve allow a multitude of different grand-strategies.

Combat... attacking cities can be dangerous. As a unit wins combats, it gains experience, and can gain "levels". With each level, a unit gains abilities; from +10% combat strength, to bonuses in different situations (i.e. +25% defense in a city). The effect of this makes it difficult to take more than 2-3 cities in a flurry, unless your empire is huge.

Technology advancements are more flexible. To advance, you need any one prerequisite, instead of all prerequisites. This means it is easier to focus a research strategy to an endpoint, and also easier to find an unnused tech to trade.

The diplomatic trade interface is more flexible and useful. Things the other side won't ever trade are in red, so you know not to bother. Additionally, the game tells you why your relations are at a certain point (it lists modifiers based on religion, open/closed borders, current trade agreements, any many other events). If a nation is hostile towards you, you'll know exactly why.

The one drawback of the game is the new interface. Civ3 took me about 15 minutes to feel comfortable and forget the old. Civ4 took about 2 hours (after I used the zoom-out 4 times, turned units onto solo figure, and turned on the health-bar). The payback is worth it though - the strategic component and the addiction factor are much higher than Civ3 once you get used to it.

If you enjoyed civ3, Civ4 is a mandatory purchase.

If you’ve never played Sid Meier’s Civilization and are thinking about buying for the first time, I recommend you read some of the reviews from the previous version Civilization III to get a glimpse of how exciting and breath-taking this game, its concept, and artificial intelligence truly are. If you’re a veteran at Civ, THEN LISTEN UP!!!

I ripped open this package as soon as I got it, told my friends & family not to talk to me until Thanksgiving, and basically put my life on hold.

Right from the opening, you are blown away by the higher-grade graphics, details, sounds, and more lively persona of the game. Although many game elements have changed, you will not need to read the manual (who does?) to play. Right away you’ll figure out the new console and controls. Starting off, you choose map style, map size, climate, sea level, and the civ – just like Civ III. These are the civs you can play for now (I’m sure there’ll be expansion packs later):

Americans
Arabians
Aztecs
Chinese
Egyptians
English
French
Germans
Greeks
Incans
Indians
Japanese
Malinese
Mongolians
Persians
Romans
Russians
Spanish

Unlike Civ III, most of these civs have two leaders that you can choose, which allow another dimension of play. The movements and landscape are incredibly better with 3-D effects that are more colorful. Even down to the borders of the countries, the lines are more creatively contoured.

It’s harder to over-expand or quickly expand your cities. In Civ III if you were Chinese, you could beat everyone virtually by getting your population to the point of overwhelming others in production capacity, units, and wealth. Therefore, you have to be more judicious with each city’s focus, research, and commitments.

There no longer is a government angle like democracy, fascism, or monarchy. You achieve the governments as part of your research toward civic choices. Similarly, you research pacifism to get towards one of the religions. The religions seem to play a much more incorporated component to the game, but a subtle. The religions are: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism. So, for example (and I apologize that this isn’t politically correct), if Christian Napoleon fights the Persians with Islam, there seems to be a slight difference than Christian Napoleon fights the Taoist Persians, to the extent that religion plays a role. I've tried that combo a few times and continue to get similar statistically significant results. However, certainly for those civs that are keen on religion, you’d better go for it asap!

New military units are all over the place. I played Americans my last time and I noticed the Navy SEAL. That was pretty cool. Also units can now be promoted so their attack rate or defense can be incrementally improved over time. Figure a swordsman beating a Navy SEAL? Also, there are less worries about micromanaging the Workers.

Overall, the game speed is about 2X faster. In other words, what took me 6hrs to achieve in Civ III takes around 3hrs. That makes it more intense playing. You’d better keep you eye on everything.

In short, Fireaxis has done an incredible job. Hands down, the best game ever (ever). Sid Meier, if you’re reading this, you are absolutely a master game developer and please NEVER retire!

Civilization 3 was devastating for me personally, professionally and academically. Every game was a 24 hour commitment and it was borderline impossible to save and stop mid-game. I would go days without sleep, skip classes, nod off at work. I missed a midterm. I was a zombie, and all I could think about was getting home to finish off the French.

Apparently Sid et al. recognized that their game was ruining lives and worked hard to make the game more time managable. Unfortunately, this is by far the biggest change in gameplay between Civs 3 and 4.

Whereas a game of Civ 3 rarely clocked in at under 20 hours, I completed a NORMAL length timed victory of Civ 4 in just under 6 hours! I couldn't believe it. The gameplay has been severely shortened - and with disastrous consequences. For starters, to accomplish this, the maps have been greatly reduced in size. A massive part of the strategy is now "choking" enemy civs by putting up cities with impassable borders in narrow stetches of territory to stop your enemies from expanding. As such, border-negotiations are now an insanely crucial aspect of the game.

Furthermore, it now often takes hundreds of years to wage a war (or to capture one city even) making military conflict ridiculous. I often found that, between attacks, my entire army had become outdated and required replacement. The unit building to tech development ratio is incredibly off (by the time my army of Aztec Jaguars were mobilized and en route to France, I had already developed the tech for cavalry). As such, the fundamental military aspects of the game have been utterly marginalized. Culture and religion are now much more reliable ways of colonizing other civs - which, though cool-sounding, is in fact... well, boring. Twice now Ive just stopped playing because I was bored of grinding it out by building wonders and buildings for culture without any conflict for millenia. I had to wipe my hard drive to stop playing Civ 3...

There is simply too little time during each era of the game. They've essentially taken the entire structure of Civ 3, added civics and religions and crammed it all into 1/3 to 1/4 of the play time. There's no spare time to empire-build, wage war or conduct diplomacy anymore.

This may seem like a petty detail to some, but it has honestly made the game much less fun (atleast for me). The added features (which are basically: better graphics, civics and religion) are in fact all fairly insignificant, superficial tweaks that do not offset the duller, faster gameplay.

I have always loved the Civ games, right from its very earliest incarnation. This is a fitting follow-up and does almost everything right. I like a really swift game so I found I had to wind down a few of the bells and whistles on the larger maps so I am not waiting too long for all the AI players to take their turns.

But here's the caveat emptor: Do not even THINK about buying this game if your PC is on the bare minimum specs. Even with 1GB of Ram, (and absolutely no other apps running), a spiffy quality 256Mb video card, and the latest monster patch from the company, I repeatedly was maxing out my video memory when playing the "Huge" map, towards the end of the game when everyone had heaps of cities and units. The game would just shut down with an insufficient video memory error message, mid turn, no chance to save, nothing. Splat.

So I have learned from this: either go get more than 1Gb of RAM or don't even bother playing a large map during gameplay (which is a pity, as it can be a load of fun). For this reason alone I am lopping off another star from my mark.
I am not saying don't buy the game -- do -- but be warned, you may be disappointed if you don't have a high-end machine to experience it in all its glory. You have been warned.

Since writing the above I have found out the game has a "memory leak" according to Civ forums, explaining why you can start out with a hefty chunk of RAM free and end up with so little by the end of a long, bloated game -- ultimately crashing due to lack of video memory. Some enterprising technically minded gamers are even posting patches for it. Doubtlessly Firaxis et al will follow too. So it's not your machine that's lacking the specs -- it's them, sucking them all up!

As I mentioned in my review for Civ3, I've been playing civilization in one form or another since the original game came out. Every new edition has something about it that is enjoyable, and something that you miss from previous versions.

On the whole, Civ 4 has many new and enjoyable features. Animations are nice, game play is balanced, and the AI is very good when compared to previous versions. In-game movies are back when you build a wonder, there are many options for simplifying or complicating game play based on your personal preference, and Leonard Nemoy does many of the voices on the game. New civics model lets you customize your government more than in past ones (want a government filled with god-fearing Christian communists? You can do it!), and the introduction of religion allows for some interesting subtleties...a fleet of missionaries can be as powerful, in the long run, as a fleet of battleships. When the game plays, it is a pure joy.

However, like many other reviews have noted, playing the game is an exercise in frustration. While some folks seem to have no problems, other folks have nothing but problems. My experience has been to load it on three separate machines, one with NVIDA video card, one with ATI, and one with Intel. Intel didn't work at all, really, but it should be noted that the machine barely met minimum specs. The other two machines did very well, although they were well above minimum specs with 128MB video cards, 1Gig RAM, and dual 3.2GHz and 3.0GHz processors respectfully. Also, OS was Win XP SP2 and Win XP media respectfully. Both machines had late game crashes to desktop that got worse as game complexity increased (increased number of cities, increased land improvements, increased visible map, etc), to where crashes were reliably (occurring on maps greater than standard size) every turn. Smaller maps improved performance (up to 4-5 turns before crashes) but still crashed.

All of which brings us to the take home point. Gone are the days of solid testing before a release. Understandably, games are more complex, and home computer systems provide a nearly infinite range of configurations, so a perfect game on release will probably never happen, especially when one throws in business concerns. The sin here is not that the game is full of bugs -- as noted, this is really to be expected anymore. The unforgivable sin here is the total lack of customer support (or failing that just a bit of empathy...heck, I'd settle for just a bit of respect to their customers) by 2K games. Again, as noted in this review and on many web sites, this aspect is totally lacking. Given the aforementioned conclusion that any game should be expected to ship with bugs, the expectation is that the customer service and support folks would be there for the people that spent their hard earned money on their yet-to-be fixed game.

Bottom line, save your money until the patch is out for this and all future 2K games. You can't trust the company to do right by you. However, once the patch is out, by all means buy this game!

I understand that support received over 5000 calls the first day that this game was release. I can well believe it from the chatter in the support forums. Even with top of the range PC's and Graphic cards, this game may not work and/or be sluggish. A fix was released (1.0.9) late in November that at least resolved some of the black screen issues.

My overall issue with the game is the extremely heavy reliance on graphics. This is a turn based game. There really is no need for all the enhanced graphics. I have set all my graphics options on low and it is still graphic heavy. I mean, do we really need to see the white rapids of the small rivers in a game like Civilization?

As others have stated, it is extremely buggy and was obviously rushed into the stores for the Christmas season. Download the demo and make sure it works on the intended PC before you buy it.. and certainly do not purchase as a gift unless you first have access to the intended PC.

Update: A major update has been released (12/21). The main focus of the update is for computers that are close to the min spec of the game requirements and also to address memory and speed issues. So far, it looks like a major improvement..

I have a 2.6GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and an nVidia GEforce 5500 FX video card. The game was initially a huge disappointment due to the agonizing lag time. 2K games really dropped a bomb by releasing such a buggy product.
That said, they have now released a patch (v1.09). By installing the patch, updating my video driver, and reducing the graphics to 'medium' I finally have this game playing at a decent speed. The patch still hasn't worked for a lot of people, though, judging by the messages on Civ fansites.
Civ 4 has a lot going for it, and I am having fun with all the new features now that it is working on my machine. Check that your system meets the RECOMMENDED specifications (not minimum), and give the game a try. You can always send it back.

Someone mentioned the words "class action suit" in reference to this abominably bug-infested pupae of a game, and while I'd attest that that's going perhaps too far, I can second the sentiment, and assert myself that a "recall" might be in order.

Imagine, if you will, waiting for your dream vehicle, and while driving it home, it conks out. You call the dealer, and get no word of support or repair being forthcoming, and then are given (through secondary sources on the web) some arcanely detailed directions as to how repair your vehicle using spit and chickenwire. It is only when it conks out yet again that you realize the thing is a lemon.

The gameplay -- in between hard crashes, reboots, and meltdowns on my slightly above spec computer -- is brillant and addictive as ever. However, this product is defective, and the technical problems will drive you to frustration. I actually got it to work and have played two whole games --- maybe a total of 9 hours --- since getting it two weeks ago. The rest has been spent in repairing what it has done to my computer's memory or fiddling with reboots to get it to work. Ther ehas benn almost zeronsupport or acknowledgement of all these problems from the producers. Supposedly there will be a patch and all will be better? For now, it inevitably crashes and creates much woe. I avoided all the video card problems other users are having, but trust me they are many.

I hear it works perfectly for some. Lucky them. Will you be one???

For those who are new to the world of Sid Meier's Civilization video games, then you are in for treat. The game concept is fairly simple: you select a nationality (from American to German to Japanese to Aztec) and slowly build up a civilization through the course of history- braving wars, pioneering technology, expanding your territory through settlers, and eventually attempting to establish the world's dominant power culturally, militarily, scientifically or all three. However, the pursuit of this goal offers a large variety of options: which government to chose, which technologies to focus on, what do your military units specialize in, how many cities to found and where, what national economic policy? And the list could go on. For the first time user, these choices will seem very complex and the first game should probably be the tutorial version, which will quickly educate you in the basics of the game play. Once you've mastered the simple concepts, I highly recommend giving a full game on one of the lower difficulty settings a try. The most entertaining part of this game is experimenting with your own strategies and finding what works the best for you (there are several ways to `win' the game; military conquest, cultural preeminence, a space race, a diplomatic victory or the highest score at the final turn).

When engineering your society the nationality you choose dictates your choice of leaders, and the names of your cities. The leaders affect your society based on the attributes they inspire your people to achieve; and these attributes in turn affect how well your people work with science, economy, civics, religion, military.... For instance: Both Napoleon and F.D.R. inspire their people to build world wonders in a shorter time; Napoleon however, also excels at inspiring the military, whereas F.D.R. inspires the economy. So a French civilization under Napoleon vs. an American civilization under F.D.R. have fundamental similarities and differences that affect the game play.

Now, this choice is only the first you must make: your people demand many more. You will be deciding the degree of freedom; from serfdom to emancipation. The type of economy: mercantilism to free market to environmentalism is a choice as are the choices of political participation: free speech or fascism? Each of these choices determine the final product of your government, in stead of the old technique of choosing only "democracy" or "monarchy". This enables the player to have a range of democracy, or a range of communism (America today or Europe today? China today or the Soviet Union of yesterday?). I don't mean to focus on only democracy or communism, but they are two good examples.

Eventually you will also found religions (unrelated to the actual history of religion and its cultural geography). Again, different religions confer different benefits: each has a series of religious buildings to construct that help your society, although different religious have different prerequisites. For instance, Christianity requires more churches to build a monastery, than Hinduism to build their version of a monastery. Conquering a civilization of a different predominant religion is more difficult to maintain order in; and if you can evangelize your religion it can serve as a source of revenue and espionage- not merely the cultural and `happiness' value.

Both the elements of governance and religion depend on the level of technological advance. You won't have Islam until after Judaism and Christianity have been founded, most likely- and a true democratic government is not available until later in the game.

There are a slew of natural resources available to exploit: strategic, luxury and health. Some resources are required to build certain military units (iron, coal and steel); others are required to build wonders (ivory, marble, stone) and/or greatly speed production of certain city improvements. If you have several cities in flood plains, or other areas that confer a health penalty, the health resources become much more essential to your culture to prevent the spread of plague and disease. Once your population expands, you'll need luxury goods (wine, silk, gold) to appease your burgeoning metropolises. Again, technology will expand and contract the list of available resources: ivory and whale oil will become obsolete eventually, and wine is not available until the requisite tech is researched. Some resources, modern media, are not available until world wonders are constructed, and if you do not build the wonders first you'll end up having to barter for the "hit songs" or "movies" of your rivals.

Now, if that description doesn't perk your interest in Civ4, then it may be that you won't like this game. However, if you're starting to think how you would rule your Roman Empire, or how you'd take the Sioux to outer space first, then buy this game now. I'm fairly confident that my review thus far has provided a reasonable expectation of what the game is about. But if it is the complexity that scares you, don't worry- after a few games you'll be hooked, and even an experienced player will learn new things later on- after many, many hours of fun.

For those who've played all the game editions since the early nineteen nineties, Civ4 is a success that adds to the legacy. It continues to round out some of the nuisances of before (removing civil disorder riots and pollution squares altogether), while adding new angles and perspectives to experiment with. Unfortunately the diplomatic options have a tendency to lean toward: You versus the World; especially later in the game. I think this stems from the programming that makes the computer chose one of the various options for victory and then pursue that end relentlessly. In the real world civilizations will play to win, but there is no "end of history" that we can achieve. In the game, the computer knows that if it lands on Alpha Centauri first, the game is over- and once you hit the space race you'll not have much luck trading techs with an opponent bent on that victory path.

One critique that I'll add is this: for the first time, the newest version of the "Civ" series requires a fairly medium-high end computer. I purchased the game and play it on my one year old laptop: Centrino 1.4 GHz, 512MB Ram, no extra video acceleration. But it is a very slow process of loading the game up, and in the later turns when the world is vastly populated with units, the time between my turn and the computer's is agonizing. I've adjusted the graphics and sound accordingly, and the slowness persists. Maybe I'm just not a computer wiz enough to get the program to max efficiency- in any case, make sure you understand that the game is very graphics intense. This provides a beautiful game display at the cost of some slow turns. Now, if you have a brand new computer or one that is high end on game play stats, then don't worry.

There is an expansion coming out this summer that looks very interesting: I've read that it will add the possibility of creating `vassal states' as opposed to just conquering completely. Could add a lot to the game, since there are times when I realize that even if I sign a treaty I'll only delay the inevitable conquest of my aggressive and annoying neighbors. There will also be added nationalities and some other interesting options. So- you'll soon be afforded the opportunity to purchase more Civ. It might be better to bite the bullet, wait and get a `packaged deal' with both the original and expansion if you're playing on a budget.

In any case, Civ4 is a game you can play again and again, and you'll find yourself to start considering rationing your time on the game- so that work, school, and social life are not neglected. Well worth the money. Enjoy.

(*****) Great Graphics
(*****) Great Sound/Music esp. Leonard Nimoy narration
(****) Good Interface
(n/a) Story is up to you- the course of human history at your fingertips
(******)Excellent Replay value

First, I've had the crash to desktop experiences that others are talking about, and my system is a P4 2.4Ghz w/512 MB RAM, and a GeForce4 Ti4200 card. The game is unplayable on larger maps after some period of time.

I'm sending NewEgg $2600 to build a newer computer, although I was able to play Doom3 (barely) and Half Life 2 (well) with my existing one. Seems silly that a Civilization game caused me to upgrade!

The game: I like the game itself. Religion is interesting, though limited. I like the ability to see other cities that share my religion. That's a feature that people haven't mentioned much. The epic and accelerated time scales are very nice - I can play fast or slow, depending on my mood and available time. Cool.

My biggest gripe? I have constant issues with the play disc being recognized. It tells me to insert my CD, when it already is. This happens whether it is in my DVD-ROM, my DVD-RW, my CD-RW, or a virtual drive. And yes, I know about the mislabeled Play disc.

It turns out that the SafeDisc garbage that they use for copy protection is "blacklisting" me for running Alcohol 120%, and preventing me from running the program. Removing Alcohol isn't an option, since I use the virtual drive features daily for work. It's interesting that it blacklists me when I have the disc loaded in a physical drive! It was a real pain to get it installed. I almost sent it back, but on the 6th try, it finally installed.

If you run into this issue, just use something like SafeDisc4 Hider, and then you can play your legally purchased game. Search for sd4hide.exe. Good luck. I really hate being treated like a criminal when I've purchased every version of the Civilization series since Civ I.

Once I get my rockin' new computer, I'll see if the crash to desktop issues on large maps get better. Until then, I highly recommend finding the option in the Ini file to make the game autosave every turn. That was a real difference maker for me.

*** Edit
After getting an updated computer, and waiting for a couple of patches, this game is now awesome. I change my rating to 5 stars across the board. The DRM foobar with safedisc is easy enough to get rid of with a simple No-CD patch. Yeehah! Nirvana. Also, the Warlords and Beyond the Sword expansions are great!