In regards to the complexity of the game, I think this is the best of the series in minimizing the micromanagement required to run a successful civilization. Workers all do what they need to do intelligently, the computer generally recommends smart production choices for the a city, and the civilians within each city seem to maximize the city’s strength well on their own (I haven’t once had to shift which tile a city is drawing from in this one, whereas I was doing it constantly in Civilization II). The interface in the game flows well, necessary information is provided effectively, and controls are generally well laid out. About the only thing that took some getting used to was remembering how the production queue works. You can’t queue up buildings or units simply by left clicking them, instead you have to hold shift while clicking. A single left click overrides the previous production and starts whatever was just clicked instead (however progress made on the previous item remains, so when you switch back, all the progress made previously will still be there).
Subscribe Today
A final area worth mentioning is the multiplayer. I still haven’t gotten it working with the built in Gamespy service, but a direct IP game ran fairly well. The new option for simultaneous turns speeds things along in a multiplayer game. You and the other players are taking care of things at the same time so you’re not sitting around bored waiting for the slow guy on the other end to finish his turn. You can at least spend some time micromanaging your forces while you wait for him to finish (or he waits for you to finish if you happen to be the slow type).
These are, of course, just a few of the changes and features in the gameplay, but I could probably write a 500-page book in the time it takes to explain them all. The development team really seemed to start from scratch on this one, they kept the basics the same, but approached this game from a new angle in a lot of ways. The fundamentals remain the same, but the details are all new. An experienced player of the series can easily jump into a first game and enjoy the action – picking up the new things along the way without any trouble.
 |
 |
| ‘Looks like this should be an easy conquest, they’ve only got bows and arrows and we have Panzers…’ |
-This example of ‘Famous Last Words’ brought to you by Civilization IV. |
Graphics/Sound:
When talking about a Civilization game, this tends to be the least interesting section. However, the graphics are much better than any predecessor – actually taking a step into 3D graphics. The maps are interesting, cities and tile improvements grow on the map and really show the progress your civilization is making. There are unit animations for combat, although they aren’t anything to get too excited about, unless you happen to be watching that spearman poke your tank and make it blow up. I suppose that could be considered exciting.
The sounds are much the same as they were in previous games. Your tanks making rolling noises, your soldiers march, when you enter a city you hear the background noise of a city. Each building has a sound it produces when it is completed (although that can get annoying when you build the same temple in ten cities and they all complete in a row, letting you enjoy the same slightly annoying sound ten times in quick succession). On the other hand, one nice sound feature is that your units speak in the appropriate language. Germans say phrases in German, Russians in Russian, and so on and so forth. Nothing revolutionary, but it does help get you immersed in your civilization.
Installation / Technical:
In the multiple games I’ve played of it so far, I haven’t run into any significant problems. One minor bug where I loaded a game and ended up as a country different from the one I was playing as in the game, but otherwise it’s been smooth sailing. Unfortunately, it seems it hasn’t been that way for everyone. There were a lot of intial problems with the game, mainly with ATI cards, but Firaxis quickly released a fix. However, that hasn’t been the extent of problems – a rather large number of players complain about memory leaks where the game becomes altogether unplayable towards the end. Supposedly a patch is coming soon (I’ve heard rumors of it within a week or two), and the game can be fully enjoyed by everyone.
Documentation:
Civilization IV comes with a fine example of a manual for other games to follow. The preorder/Collector’s edition received a spiral bound manual and a number of other goodies, but the regular release still includes some useful documentation. The manual is a hefty 224 pages and there’s a small poster sized sheet with the tech tree, unit upgrade tree, and a number of other useful reference guides on it.
Conclusion:
For both new gamers looking to find out what all the hype is about this series, and the long time fans, Civilization IV delivers plenty of fun. This version provides loads of new features and extensive overhauls of existing features so that it stands on its own in the series. With the ease of modding in Civilization IV, players can already modify many aspects of this title, and when the SDK is released (hopefully Spring 2006 at the latest) almost every facet of the game will be moddable. This means there will be plenty of reasons to keep bringing you back to Civilization IV, and plenty of reasons to plunk down your cash on this one. Sure, you played the last three versions, and you might be thinking, "I’ve conquered the world so many times, do I really need to do it another 30 times?" Unfortunately (for many marriages at least) I think we all know the answer is: "Yes." Because really, does world domination ever get old?
Armchair General Score: 92%
39/40 — Gameplay
14/15 — Graphics
08/10 — Sound
13/15 — Interface
03/05 — Installation and Technical
05/05 — Documentation
10/10 — General’s Rating
Discuss Civilization IV on our forums.
