Civilization IV

Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Developer(s)	Firaxis Games
Publisher(s)	2K Games
Designer(s)	Soren Johnson
Engine	Gamebryo
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac
Release	NA October 25 2005 DE & CH October 26, 2005 PAL November 4, 2005 Mac version: June 30 2006
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy game
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Civilization IV or Civ4) is a turn-based strategy computer game released in 2005 and developed by lead designer Soren Johnson under the direction of Sid Meier and Meier's studio Firaxis Games. It is the latest installment of the acclaimed Civilization series. Civilization IV was released between October 25 and November 4, 2005 in North America, Europe, and Australia. The game's first expansion, Warlords, was released on July 24, 2006 in the United States and July 28, 2006 in the European Union. A second expansion, Beyond the Sword, was released worldwide between July 18 and July 30 2007.

Civilization IV is a turn-based game in which the player builds an empire from scratch. All standard full-length games begin in 4000 BC with a settler that builds a single city. From there, the player expands an empire while contending with rival nations, utilizing the geography, developing infrastructure, and encouraging scientific and cultural progress. By default, players can win the game by accomplishing one of five goals: conquering all other civilizations, controlling the majority of the world's land and population, being the first to construct a space ship capable of colonizing Alpha Centauri, increasing the Culture ratings of three different cities to "legendary" levels, and by being declared "World Leader" after first becoming Secretary-General of the United Nations. If the game's clock runs out (by default in the year 2050 AD) with none of these goals fulfilled by any nation, the nation with the highest score is declared the winner.

Civilization IV was released in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Polish. Fans have also made Russian, Finnish and Czech translations.

Gameplay

Diplomacy

Diplomacy in Civilization generally involves the trading of goods. Specific technologies are required to trade different commodities (for instance, one must know the secret of paper to trade world maps). Players may trade technologies, resources (including luxuries such as wine), maps (to reveal information about the rest of the world) and gold. Advanced diplomacy options include the creation of trade embargoes, the promise of military aid, and the adoption of particular civics and/or a religion. Finally, the United Nations wonder allows the passing of global resolutions (e.g. the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in addition to granting access to the diplomatic victory. Unlike real-world resolutions, Civilization IV resolutions are binding.

The reasoning behind diplomacy is more transparent when compared to Civilization III (Civ3): the Diplomacy window now not only displays the other leader's disposition towards the player (from friendly to furious), but why they feel that way (e.g "-2: You refused to stop trading with our worst enemies!"). When a leader is sympathetic towards another civilization, they are more likely to accept deals without unfair bargaining.

Combat

Instead of receiving generic increases in rank as in Civ3, the player is allowed to "promote" Civilization IV units with specific upgrades that provide bonuses in certain situations (+10% city defense, +1 movement over forests, etc). There are 41 different types of combat promotions. It is also now possible for players to examine "combat odds" before attacking, giving the player an idea as to whether a given attack will succeed or not.

Units no longer have separate attack and defense values; instead, its health points are also its attack value. Prior to the 1.52 patch, a damaged unit had its combat strength likewise reduced; after the patch, flat base strength was used, allowing damaged units to still fight at full strength. After the 1.61 patch, damaged units fight with the average of their current and full strengths.

Production and trade

The game features 32 types of resources which require a terrain improvement (such as a farm or an oil well) to be utilized or traded. Resources enable construction (a knight unit cannot be built without horses and iron), double the speed of construction (the Pyramids are built twice as fast with stone available) or simply add production, happiness and/or gold to the city's output. To trade goods or to send them to other cities within one's border, they must have some form of connection between the goods and the city. In the later game, this connection can be through ocean tiles, but in the early game, it is limited to roads and rivers. Cities on the same river or same coastline (with the sailing technology) are automatically connected for trading purposes. Unlike in Civ3, the player is no longer able to transfer all production from one project to another, but all production on an already-begun project will remain. For example, if the player is building a temple but decides to switch to a harbor, production on the harbor will start from scratch, but the temple will stay in the building queue and retain all previous progress, aside from some decay over time. As an ancillary rule, if one culture is building a World Wonder but another empire completes it first, the losing culture is compensated with gold proportional to the amount of production points lost in the failed attempt to build the wonder.

Trade can be conducted with any civilization that the player has made contact with. AI Civ leaders tend to view resources in two groups. There are key resources such as stone, iron, uranium, and the like that assist in weapon and building production. The AI will typically not trade these resources away unless another key resource is being given. Thus all key resources are considered of equal value to the computer. Similarly all other resources that do not affect units and building are considered equal as well. This can lead to exploitation by using a less valuable Key resource to obtain a high demand one. For instance ivory (elephants) can be traded equally for uranium and the AI will gladly oblige if they are on fair terms with the player. Trading for a resource gives you all the benefits of it. However dependency on key resources can be hazardous for if they are cut off any units needing those resources (for instance iron to make a swordsman) will not be able to be made.

= Scenarios

The scenarios are: 1. "Desert War" in which you fight in Norht Africa as either Germany, England, the Allied Nations, Free France, Vichy France, or the Kingdom of Italy. 2. "American Revolution" In which you control either the British Empire or the Colonists. Unplayable civs: Spain, France. 3. "Greek World" in which you control one of the three largest nations in the Classical Mediterranean: Macedonia, Rome, or Persia. There are many unplayable civs in this mission. Earth: 1,000 A.D.: A mission in the Medieval Era.

Religion

The concept of actual religions is new to Civilization IV, where in previous games players built generic temples and cathedrals to contribute to happiness and culture. There are now seven distinct religions in the game: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Taoism. Each religion is associated with a specific technology on the tech tree; the first civilization that gains the technology founds the religion. The four later religions (Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, and Taoism) begin with a free Missionary unit for reasons of game balance; missionaries can later be trained at a city that has constructed an associated monastery. Other than this, there are no special traits or bonuses associated with any particular religion in order to avoid controversy.

Religion factors into a number of existing game mechanics. Civilizations that share a common state religion will find themselves more agreeable in their diplomatic dealings; conversely, civilizations with differing state religions will not be as close diplomatically. The religion's founder receives an economic benefit: if that civilization expends a Great Prophet at their religion's holy (founding) city, they will receive that religion's most sacred building, which generates 1 gold for every city that hosts said religion. Finally, if a civilization has a state religion and owns that religion's holy city, they will receive line-of-sight in every city hosting said religion.

The new civics model of government also has a strong effect on religion. Players can found a state religion, declare religious freedom, or take other actions that have profound impacts on the religious lives of their subjects. These civics can provide a great incentive to spread a state religion throughout one's empire, as the best bonuses will only be applied to cities in which the religion is present.

Civilizations and leaders

Eight of the eighteen civilizations have two leaders. Each leader offers bonuses based on what conditions were exceptional during the historical reign of that leader, and each leader acts as differently as if they were a separate civilization and have distinct personalities. Several historic figures not used in previous Civilization games are AI leaders in Civilization IV, including: Asoka, Cyrus II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, Kublai Khan, Peter the Great, Qin Shi Huang, Saladin (though Saladin was a hidden leader in Civilization II), and Queen Victoria. Some art assets existed in the game files for a Sumerian Civilization led by Gilgamesh. The modding community was able to introduce the Sumerians back into the game using this unfinished art. Other unfinished art included leaderhead artwork for Pericles, Augustus, and Menes. Gilgamesh, Pericles and Augustus were later added officially in the expansion packs.[1]

All civilizations have some element of uniqueness and all leaders have certain traits based on their achievements in life. All civilizations also have a unique unit, which replaces a standard unit (such as Persian Immortals replacing Chariots). Below is a summary of the unique features of each civilization.

Short Description	Civilization	Starting Advances	Unique Unit	Leaders	Leader Traits	Favorite Civic	First City
America	American Empire	Fishing, Agriculture	Navy SEAL (replaces Marine)	George Washington	Financial, Organized	Universal Suffrage	Washington
				Roosevelt	Industrious, Organized
Arabia (Arab World)	Arabian Empire	Mysticism, The Wheel	Camel Archer (replaces Knight)	Saladin	Philosophical, Spiritual	Theocracy	Mecca
Aztec	Aztec Empire	Mysticism, Hunting	Jaguar (replaces Swordsman)	Montezuma	Aggressive, Spiritual	Police State	Tenochtitlan
China	Chinese Empire	Agriculture, Mining	Cho-Ko-Nu (replaces Crossbow)	Mao Zedong	Philosophical, Organized	State Property	Beijing
				Qin Shi Huang	Industrious, Financial	Police State
Egypt	Egyptian Empire	Agriculture, The Wheel	War Chariot (replaces Chariot)	Hatshepsut	Spiritual, Creative	Hereditary Rule	Thebes
England	English Empire	Fishing, Mining	Redcoat (replaces Rifleman)	Victoria	Expansive, Financial	Representation	London
				Elizabeth	Philosophical, Financial	Free Religion
France	French Empire	Agriculture, The Wheel	Musketeer (replaces Musketman)	Louis XIV	Creative, Industrious	Hereditary Rule	Paris
				Napoleon	Aggressive, Industrious	Representation
Germany	German Empire	Hunting, Mining	Panzer (replaces Tank)	Frederick	Creative, Philosophical	Universal Suffrage	Berlin
				Bismarck	Expansive, Industrious	Representation
Greece	Greek Empire	Fishing, Hunting	Phalanx (replaces Spearman)	Alexander	Aggressive, Philosophical	Hereditary Rule	Athens
Inca	Incan Empire	Agriculture, Mysticism	Quechua (replaces Warrior)	Huayna Capac	Aggressive, Financial	Hereditary Rule	Cuzco
India	Indian Empire	Mysticism, Mining	Fast Worker (replaces Worker)	Gandhi	Industrious, Spiritual	Universal Suffrage	Delhi
				Asoka	Organized, Spiritual
Japan	Japanese Empire	Fishing, The Wheel	Samurai (replaces Maceman)	Tokugawa	Aggressive, Organized	Mercantilism	Kyoto
Mali	Malinese Empire	Mining, The Wheel	Skirmisher (replaces Archer)	Mansa Musa	Financial, Spiritual	Free Market	Timbuktu
Mongolia (Mongol Empire)	Mongolian Empire	Hunting, The Wheel	Keshik (replaces Horse Archer)	Genghis Khan	Aggressive, Expansive	Police State	Karakorum
				Kublai Khan	Aggressive, Creative	Hereditary Rule
Persia	Persian Empire	Agriculture, Hunting	Immortals (replaces Chariot)	Cyrus	Expansive, Creative	Representation	Persepolis
Rome	Roman Empire	Fishing, Mining	Praetorian (replaces Swordsman)	Julius Caesar	Organized, Expansive	Representation	Rome
Russia	Russian Empire	Hunting, Mining	Cossack (replaces Cavalry)	Catherine	Creative, Financial	Hereditary Rule	Moscow
				Peter	Expansive, Philosophical	Police State
Spain	Spanish Empire	Fishing, Mysticism	Conquistador (replaces Knight)	Isabella	Expansive, Spiritual	Police State	Madrid

Technologies

File:Civilization4-Tech tree.jpg

Tech tree of Civilization IV

As in prior versions of Civilization, there are technologies for the civilizations to discover. There are a total of 85 technologies in the game, up from 80 in Civilization III. Technologies have many uses; they can be used for trade, for the construction of new units, buildings and wonders, for the founding of new religions, or for the development of new forms of government. To discover a new technology, it is first necessary to discover the technologies that lead up to it (for example, democracy can only be discovered after the printing press). However, for some new technologies, not all technologies leading up to it need to be discovered (for example, to discover gunpowder either guilds or education must be discovered first, but not necessarily both). See List of technologies in Civilization IV for complete list.

Technology development is flexible: certain technologies can be discovered by following more than just one path (skipping optional technologies - see gunpowder example above), and others (all six starting technologies, for example hunting) are not linked to by any technology and must be found from scratch. The game's tech tree displays all the techs in the game and their relation with one another, and allows the player to queue any number of techs for research. If multiple paths lead to the target tech, the AI will pick the shortest. The final tech in the game, as in previous versions, is called "Future Tech", followed by a number; each iteration of it imparts a happiness and health bonus to that nation's cities.

The discovery of each tech is announced by the game's narrator, Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame. In the single-player game, he reads off a famous quotation pertaining to the technology; the sources of the quotes range from the Buddha, Charles Darwin and the Bible to Lonnie Donegan, Steve Wozniak, Dan Quayle, and a monotonic "Beep. Beep. Beep." attributed to the Sputnik space probe. In multi-player games, Nimoy simply declares, "You have discovered [Name of Technology]."

Scoring System

In Civilization IV the leadership skills of players are compared to a subjective list of twenty of the best or worst leaders in history, similar to the list in the first Civilization game. The score is based on a number of factors, including military growth and success, technological advancement, turns taken to win, construction of wonders and economic growth.

The released version of the game abandoned Civilization III's graded scale. In Civ3, a spectacular victory on the easiest difficulty would provide the player with only a middling score, and the best titles were only awarded to players attempting the hardest difficulties. The original Civilization IV, on the other hand, allows the player to obtain any score on any difficulty level. As of the v1.61 patch, the grading system has returned to the curved-by-difficulty scale.

Multiplayer

A multiplayer game of Civilization IV tends to play very differently to a singleplayer game. The relatively predictable reactions and diplomatic relationships with AI controlled civilizations can no longer be relied upon. This has many ramifications for the success potential of various strategies employed in the game. Most notably, the game tends to become very focused on quick-hit warmongering tactics. Multiplayer games of Civilization IV almost never reach the modern era.

Generally, multiplayer games of Civ are set up with a turn timer, which limits the time players can spend conducting their turns, and in simultaneous mode, which means that all players' turns are taken at the same time.

New features

Gameplay

Many aspects of Civilization IV are new to the series. These include:

• Great People that fall into five categories: artists, merchants, prophets, engineers and scientists. Great People can be used to create several different effects: they can join the city as a Specialist; provide a one-time bonus or unique building; contribute to the discovery of a new technology; or be used, two or more at a time, to trigger a Golden Age. Great People include Aristotle, Plato, Moses, Homer, William Shakespeare, Ramakrishna, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Zoroaster, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Coco Chanel, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. They can be born to any culture. (See List of historical figures in Civilization IV for a full list of people and cultures used in Civilization IV.)
• The founding and spreading of religions and the adoption of a state religion (see above).
• Instead of subtracting from a city's population upon completion, Settler and Worker units cause the city to suspend its population growth, with Food being converted into Production for the duration. Furthermore, both units are expensive; a Settler (for instance), costs 100 hammers, more than a Musketman unit. This encourages players to develop their cities before expanding.
• The concept of city maintenance replaces corruption (an unpopular feature of Civilization III), which has been removed. Civilizations with a large number of small or ineffective cities will find their empire too expensive to maintain.

A screenshot of Civics option menu in Civilization 4'.

• Governments have been replaced with a more flexible civics model with five different categories — Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion — and five separate civic options within each category. For example, the Labor category includes the civics tribalism, slavery, serfdom, caste system and emancipation. This appears to be adapted from the Social Engineering section of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
• Civilizations no longer act as if they start the game knowing what the map looks like. Instead, they make full use of all options and exhibit better long-term planning.
• Barbarians now form cities, often named after their tribe or culture (Hun, Visigoth, etc). These cities act and react like any other city: they send out worker units to improve terrain, can be captured or razed by military force, can be culture-flipped, and so on. However, they cannot be contacted via diplomacy.
• The United Nations can pass resolutions, which appears to be adapted from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
• Units now gain different promotions when they gain experience, enabling the player to specialize their units more.
• Military units no longer have an attack/defense-rating, but instead a strength-rating. However, this single rating is now complemented by different inherent specialties for each unit, for example archers gain bonuses when they are defending cities or hills. These bonuses can be further improved by the promotions mentioned above.

Interface changes

• Pollution, size restrictions, and similar aspects from earlier games are combined into one "City Health" system. Resources and improvements — such as wheat and hospitals — add health points, while population growth and industry decrease them. A negative total causes a food production penalty for the city. Fallout continues to exist in the case of a nuclear attack or meltdown.
• Similarly, cities no longer fall into disorder. For each unhappiness point over the amount of happiness points, one population point refuses to work, reducing the productivity of the city.
• Some streamlining elements have been introduced, such as the ability to select and issue orders to multiple units at the same time. When population grows, a new technology is discovered, or a new unit/improvement is built, any excess food, research, or production is carried over rather than wasted (truncated).
• Greater emphasis has been placed on the overall map-view mode. Where, in previous Civilization games, a player was often forced to access the City Management screen, almost all of its functions have been integrated into (or made accessible via) the standard map view, as have many abilities (diplomacy, research topic selection, tax rate, etc) that were formerly the domain of the Advisor screens. New players often play without leaving the map view, only as players gain the ability and need to micromanage are the specialized screens utilized.

Audio-visual

See also: Music in Civilization IV

• More emphasis has also been put on the game's soundtrack, which features compositions of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Minimalist origin, and self-composed pieces (mainly by Jeff Briggs). The name of the title song played at the start of the game is "Baba Yetu". The title means "Our Father" in Swahili, and the song itself is a rendition of the Christian Lord's Prayer. It is performed by Stanford University's Talisman A Cappella and was composed by Christopher Tin. (lyrics and more information, sample)
• Each leader has a unique piece of music played during diplomacy (with the exception of Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan who share music). Many of the pieces are popular and familiar; for example, Roosevelt's music is the "Marines' Hymn", and Napoleon's is a variant on "La Marseillaise". Some are renditions of famous pieces of classical music, such as Frederick's piece, which is a paraphrase of the fourth of the Goldberg Variations, or Bismarck's, which is the opening theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. Others, such as Mao Zedong and Alexander the Great have music that has been modified from earlier games, such as Civilization III. Still others have entirely original scores.
• Narrative voice acting, previously heard in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri but never used in a game with Civilization in its title, is provided by Leonard Nimoy, who reads a quotation related to a technology when it is discovered. Land-based units also offer short phrases in their culture's native language when selected. If the player's view is near a city, they will hear sounds related to the nation which owns that city.
• Sound effects are played when certain buildings or improvements are built, such as coins jingling when a bank is completed. Ambient sounds can also be heard near different terrains when zoomed in. For example, near the ocean or on its shore, waves splashing and breaking up can be heard.
• Civilization 4 uses the same 3D engine (Gamebryo) used in Sid Meier's Pirates!, which allows players to zoom smoothly from world map levels down to features in individual cities.
• Wonder movies have returned after being absent in Civilization III.

Customization

Civilization IV is much more open to modification than its predecessors. Game data and rules are stored in XML files, and a Software Development Kit was released in April 2006 to allow AI customization. Major parts of the interface, map generation, and scripted events are written entirely in Python and can be customized.

World Builder

The World Builder allows a player to create a map from scratch or to use an in-game situation as a starting point for a new scenario. The terrain can be altered, and resources, military units and cities on the map can be added, removed or modified. Additionally, each civilization's technological progress as well as its diplomatic and military ties to other civilizations can be edited. The World Builder for Civilization IV is in-game, in contrast to previous Civilization games where the Map Editor was an external application.

XML

More game attributes are stored in XML files, which must be edited with an external text editor or application. Barry Caudill, a senior producer at Firaxis Games, said [2] in September:

Editing these files will allow players to tweak simple game rules and change or add content. For instance, they can add new unit or building types, change the cost of wonders, or add new civilizations. Players can also change the sounds played at certain times or edit the play list for your soundtrack.

At the current time the XML processing in Windows is more permissive of minor errors than in Mac OS X. As a result, some XML files which will work on the Windows version of the game need some slight tweaking before they function on the Macintosh version.

Python

The game uses boost.python to allow the Python programming language access to many parts of the game (including the style and content of all interface screens). Python can also be used to modify random map generation and to add complex scripted events.

The version of Python present in the Windows version of the game differs from the version in Mac OS X up to and including version 10.4.7, and as a result, while most Python files for the Windows version will work on the Macintosh version, not all will.

Software Development Kit

The Civilization IV Software Development Kit was released on April 13 2006 to coincide with the release of the v1.61 patch. The kit allows players to view, modify, or completely re-write the game's DLL source code, enabling the modification of the game's AI and other integral parts of the game. [3]

As of the first official patch for the Macintosh version (v1.61 Revision A), there is no SDK for the Macintosh version of the game. In fact the Macintosh version lacks the separate library of game related code which the PC version uses, but instead includes the code compiled into the main executable. There is as of yet no indication of whether this will change in a future patch.

Criticism

Launch problems

The release of Civilization IV included some technical, production and shipping problems.

• As originally shipped, the game functioned poorly on minimum-specification machines, and suffered from performance problems. It also conflicted with certain mainstream graphics cards. A user created a utility program to fix the memory usage problems. Version 1.52 patched these problems.
• The most common packaging errors have been French and German technology charts in English-language boxes [4] and the erroneous packing of two of the same CD-ROM, rendering the game unusable.[5]. 2K games replaced such shipments. Other copies have mislabeled disks; since this does not affect gameplay, users are asked to just use the right CD-ROM when applicable [6]. There have also been some cases in which the game manual has pages placed in the wrong spot (e.g. page one is the very last page of the manual). There are also many typographical errors in the Dutch manual.
• Civilization IV uses SafeDisc 4, which refuses to acknowledge legitimate game copies if certain CD burning or "virtual drive" packages are installed. Unofficial workarounds to SafeDisc, like Daemon Tools, exist.

Patches

• The v1.09 patch for Civilization IV was released on 23 November 2005. While it fixed some memory leak issues, the patch seemed to focus more on tweaks to buildings and units, while also creating some problems of its own.
• The v1.52 patch, released on 22 December 2005, was a major update that fixed several of the major performance headaches relating to numerous memory leaks and usage. v1.52 also added several new scenarios and maps, in addition to tweaking.
• On 13 April 2006, the v1.61 patch was released. Also a major update, it fixed several performance issues remaining from v1.09 and v1.52, including the stuttering Wonder movie problem. Several new additions were made to the game, including two new map scripts, new game options and new scenarios. Many gameplay tweaks were also made. Although the patch was considered a success for some users, others have reported various problems, including a loss of text and sound. These problems seem to be related to the incompatibility of certain mods downloaded by users.
• The v1.74 patch was released on 19 July 2007. It contains couple of bug fixes and some game play tweaks. After the patch several people reported problems in discussion forums. The reason for the problems was that patch requires most recent version of DirectX 9.0c and that must be installed separately.

Platforms

Civilization IV is available for two different platforms currently, Windows (PC) and Mac OS X. It can also be played on Linux through the Cedega Windows Emulation system.

The Mac OS X version is published by Aspyr and was released in June 2006. Though it lacks some of the customization features which were added to the PC version in v1.61, it is otherwise identical to v.1.61 of the PC version. The game was released as a Universal binary, running natively on both x86- and PPC-based Macintoshes. Mac OS X users may also, in addition to the cross-platform GameSpy service (although Revision B is required for GameSpy), use GameRanger to play multiplayer games.

Multiplayer games involving both game platforms work, but require the use of one of the multiplayer options other than "Internet Play" due to the incompatible formats employed.

Changes from previous versions

• The Three Gorges Dam has replaced the Hoover Dam, which was the Wonder used in previous versions.
• Spaceship journeys to Alpha Centauri are always successful in games lacking the second expansion, Beyond the Sword. In Beyond the Sword, the chance of success once again varies depending on how complete the spacecraft is-it is possible, by fully constructing the craft, to guarantee success.

Reception

Critics' scores

• IGN 9.4/10 Editors' Choice Award [7]
• GameSpot 9.4/10 Editors' Choice Award, Nominee for 2005 Game of the Year[8]
• Eurogamer 9/10 [9]
• GameSpy 5/5 [10]
• Game-Revolution A- [11]
• Computer Gaming World 90/100 (5 November 2005) [12]
• ActionTrip 93/100 (5 November 2005) [13]
• The Bovine Conspiracy 10/10 (3 November 2005) [14]
• Newspaper: The Times 5/5 stars [15]
• Newspaper: Chicago Tribune 4/4 stars [16]
• Magazine: PC Gamer 92%
• Magazine: Game Informer 9.5/10
• Magazine: PC Gamer (USA) 94%
• Magazine: PC Powerplay (German): 91%
• Magazine: PC ZONE (UK): 92%
• Magazine: Giochi per il mio Computer (Italian): 9/10
• Magazine: SuperPlay (Swedish) 10/10
• Magazine: PC Powerplay (Australian): 10/10
• Magazine: Pelit (Finnish): 97/100
• Magazine: Hyper (Australian): 96%
• Magazine: Atomic MPC (Australian): 10/10
• Magazine: Quantaz (Canadian): 99%
• Magazine: CD-Action (Polish): 9/10
• Magazine: PC Guru (Hungarian): 94%
• Magazine: GameStar (Hungarian): 92%
• Television: X-Play 5/5

Awards

• IGN:

• PC Game of the Year 2005
• Best Strategy Game 2005
• Best Online Game 2005
• 2nd PC Game Of All Time

• GameSpy:

• PC Game of the Year 2005
• Best Turn-Based Strategy Game 2005
• Game of the Year 2005

• GameSpot:

• Best Strategy Game 2005
• Best PC Game 2005

• Time: Top Pick (E3 2005)
• Scripps Howard News Service: Game of the Year 2005 (PC)
• For other awards click here.

See also

• 4X
• Turn-based strategy game
• Music in Civilization IV

References

• Civilization IV Official Strategy Guide. BradyGames. 2005-10-25. ISBN 0-7440-0580-9. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• PC Zone Staff (2006-07-06). "Looking Back... Civilization IV". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. Retrieved 2007-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Torsen, Tor (2006-12-01). "Q&A: Sid Meier chronicles Civilization". GameSpot. Retrieved 2007-02-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Sid Meier's Civilization IV manual (German). 2K Games/Firaxis. 2005. pp. p. 69. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

Official sites

• Official site
• Developer's site
• Civilization IV Comparisons
• Civilization IV Macintosh site
• A promotional website for a fictional group called "Civilization Anonymous" (a parody of Alcoholics Anonymous) was put on the internet and advertised in gaming magazines prior to the game's release.

Third-party sites

• CivFanatics
• Apolyton
• Civilization at 1BC
• CivUnited fansite
• Civilopedia
• Civilization series at wikia
• Civilized Online Gaming Community