Civilization IV (PC) > Reviews > The game will cause a divorce, The best Civ

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	A good game - playable and enjoyable
Graphics	Good
Sound	Good - relevant music & effects
Difficulty & Complexity	A difficult game - needs a lot of patience

Advantages:	Long sweeping gameplay, addiction, No 2 games the same
Disadvantages:	This game will eat you time

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Latest and the best Civ title. Civ 4 continues the great series of games by Sid Meiers this instalment offers much more depth than the other's combat has improved greatly, religion now works in its own unique way and culture effects how quickly the boarders of your civilisation grow.

Civ takes you from 4000 BC to 2050 AD game lengths vary as to if you select quick, normal, epic or marathon. The number of turns in a game increases with each level. But be warned a marathon game will be around 5 times longer than a normal game don't make any other plans cos you'll be hooked.

You are offered a wide range of different civilisations to play each has its own unique units and buildings, ontop of this each nation has its own leader some have more. The leaders also offer unique abilities to your nation faster worker production or faster wonder production for example.

The game starts as aways with you in charge of a settler a unit used to form a city, once you have decided where to start (beginning new good resources are ideal as you can only use those inside your own boarders) you can plant you first city. From now own you most tell your scientist's which technology's to research, as you discover new ones more become available for research. You will also have to make chooses on what you would like the city to build depending on the technologies you have discovered you can build a wide variaty of things as the game progresses.
Improvements to provide bonuses to you city (Walls to improve defence, a market place to improve trade, a forge to increase production the list goes on throughout the game)
Units to defend your nation or make war on others ( Again at the start your only unit will be the humble warrior but as the game progresses and you nation advances new units become available from archers to stealth fighters)
Wonders these can offer bonuses that effect your nation as a whole, allow you to choose any government type, increase great people production and many more.( Everything is here the Pyramids, the Great wall, The Statue of Liberty and many more )

There are many features that have improved the series. Great People are famous people that appear in you cities throughout the game they can be used for special feats such as discovering a new technology quickly, instantly completing a wonder, creating works of art the rapidly increase a city's cultural rating and many others.

Along with you are several other nations all competing for the same land and resources. You can react to all of them as you meet them arrange open boarders, defensive pacts, trade technologies and resources. Each leader regards the other based on previous experiences with that nation positive experiences such as fair trade agreements, years of peace and help offered during a military struggle all provide a positive bonus when you deal with that nation in the future. Likewise refusing to offer help, trading with a nations enemy or even following a different religion can all results in negative bonuses. With all this going on there will always be wars throughout your game and the option to talk other nations into back stabbing your enemy's and trade embargoes all add to the fun to make Civ 4's diplomacy side a fun feature of the game.

As i mentioned before religion now has a different impact in the game from previous versions of Civ. Now religions are form in cities by the first Nation to discover certain technology's throughout the game. Was the religion has started in a city it will slowing spread throughout the world vis trade roots, this can be speeded up by producing missionaries and sending them to city's without that religion. Once you have a religion in you nation you can switch you make in your nations primary religion and all city's that have the religion will receive a bonus. Of course this now effects how other nations view you if the have a different state religion and can result in a race to try and spread you religion first. Holy city's ( The starting city for a religion) now offer the option of building a special wonder using a great prophet the city will become the centre for that religion and you will receive gold for each city throughout the world where the religion has spread. Another feature that has been added to give greater depth to the game.

unlike previous Civ's government is not fixed on one aspect but is split into civics there are 5 categories: Government, Legal, labour, Economy, and Religion. There are five options in each category. Players are free to choose any combination of civics allowing for interesting combinations each offering different bonuses depending on how you want to take you nation forward. Unless your leader has the Spiritual bonus for your nation, each time you change a civic, there will be a short period of anarchy where research and production in your city's is halted but this will resume in a couple of turns.

The graphic in the game have improved with the series and this Civ is no different. You get the full effect of looking down on the world as you zoom out complete with moving realistic clouds zooming in you pick up the sounds on nearby things by it the taping at a forge in a nearby city or later the sound of car horns. Though I don't know what they would look like on a minimum spec machine I found the graphics outstanding.

All the multi player options are here online play, Play by E-Mail and even the hotseat option using one PC. I've had some experience of online play and again this provides you with even more unique gameplay though you can find yourself waiting a long time for other players to take their turn especially if there are a few wars going on. The timer function can element this a little and speed things along.

I have never regretted buying this game though i think my wife has... it is very addictive and if you not careful you'll be wondering where you days gone.

Minimum System requirements as per the box are:
Operating System: Windows 2000/XP
Processor: 1.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
Memory: 256 MB RAM (Windows 2000) / 512 MB RAM (Windows XP)
Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB Free uncompressed space
CD-ROM Drive: 4X Speed CD/DVD Drive
Video: DirectX 9.0c-compatible 64 MB video card with Hardware T&L support
GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better required
Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX: DirectX version 9.0c (included) or higher

A note for Vista user's I've had no problems running this game.