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Civilization IV

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Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Developer(s)Firaxis Games
Publisher(s)Take Two Interactive
Designer(s)Soren Johnson
EngineGamebryo
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseUS & Canada: October 25, 2005

Germany/Switzerland: October 26, 2005

Europe: November 4, 2005
Genre(s)Turn-based strategy game
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

Sid Meier's Civilization IV is a turn-based strategy computer game. It is the latest installment of the acclaimed Civilization series started by Sid Meier. It was developed by lead designer Soren Johnson under the direction of Meier and his studio Firaxis Games. Civilization 4 was released on October 25, 2005 in Canada and the United States. Swiss and German copies were released on October 26. It was released between October 28 and November 4 in the rest of Europe, varying by country. The United Kingdom release date was meant to have been October 28, but was changed to November 4. A Macintosh version is expected in early 2006.

New features

There are many completely new aspects of the game when compared to Civilization III, which include:

  • There are Great People that fall into five categories: artists, merchants, prophets, engineers and scientists. Each of these grants several bonus abilities. Among the Great People included are Xi Ling-Shi, Plato, William Shakespeare, Ramakrishna, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Zoroaster, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Coco Chanel, and Albert Einstein.
  • Rapid expansion in the early game as was seen in previous versions is made more difficult. The more cities the player has, the more maintenance they must pay on their cities. So excessively large empires in the early game robs the player of money. However, courthouses reduce this maintenance cost, instead of reducing corruption.
  • One civilization's units cannot cross another civilization's territory unless the civilizations are at war or have agreed to open borders.
  • More flexible technology development. Certain technologies can be discovered in more than just one way, and the technology tree is no longer divided into ages. There are a total of 85 technologies in the game.
  • Governments have been replaced with a more flexible civics model, where the player can set the amount of freedom the citizens have (slavery, freedom of speech, etc.). There are five different categories to define the player's government and five separate options within each category.
  • AI civilizations no longer have knowledge of the entire map; they are now equal with players.
  • Diplomacy is improved and the options have been expanded. Some of the options now include influencing other civilizations to stop warring or trading with other civilizations and the ability to trade individual units. However, each separate item to trade must be unlocked with a certain technology.

Combat

Units no longer have separate attack and defense values. Instead, they have a base strength that is increased or decreased depending on the situation. The unit's strength also impacts how much damage it can do. Instead of generic increases in rank, individual units gain specific types of combat experience, such as bonuses against specific types of enemies or abilities like faster movement in forests. In total, there are 41 different types of combat promotions. It is also now possible for players to request "combat odds" before attacking.

Production and trade

  • The game features 31 types of resources, all of which are tradeable. All resources must have some sort of terrain improvement over them to be utilized, some are required for certain units, buildings, or wonders, some may double the production speed of a certain wonder, and some act as luxuries in Civ III, providing happiness to all cities connected to it. There are also three types of culture goods provides by wonders (rather than resources) that can be traded.
  • Cities on the same river or on the coast (with no intervening ocean) are automatically connected for the purposes of trade.
  • The player is no longer able to transfer all production from one project to another, but all production on a certain project will remain. For example, if the player is building a temple but decides to switch to a harbor, production on the new construction will have to start from the beginning. However, if the player switches back to the temple, all previous construction on that temple will remain, aside from some decay over time.
  • Progress of a wonder is converted to gold when another civilization completes the wonder first.

Interface improvements

  • Pollution, city rioting, and similar tedious aspects from earlier games are combined into a "City Health" system. However, fallout, similar to pollution, continues to exist in the case of a nuclear attack or meltdown. Certain resources and improvements, such as wheat and hospitals, improve health, while excessive industry and overpopulation decrease health. 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 resources are carried over rather than wasted.
  • Building settlers and workers no longer takes a population from the city in which they are built. Instead, population growth is halted as these units are being constructed.

Audiovisual

File:Hatshepsut in Civ4.jpg
One of the AI leaders is Hatshepsut, who leads Egypt.
  • More emphasis has also been put on the soundtrack; a great use of Baroque (Bach), Renaissance (Desprez, da Palestrina, etc.), Classical (e.g. by Brahms and Beethoven), Minimalism (John Adams), and self-composed (mainly by Jeff Briggs) music has been made. The scale of music used in the game surpasses that of all its predecessors. Each leader – except for Kublai Khan – now has their own diplomacy music.
  • Voice acting, new to the Civilization series, is provided by Leonard Nimoy.
  • 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.

Religion

The concept of separate religions is new to Civ4. In previous games, players could build "temples" or "cathedrals", but the religion was just a generic feature of happiness and culture. There are now seven distinct religions in the game -- Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism and Confucianism. There are no bonuses or traits specific to any religion, except that each religion is tied to a specific technological advance: if a player is the first to discover a certain religion on the tech tree, they can "found" the new religion and establish a holy city.

As the game progresses, both the players' and the AI's religions will slowly spread by themselves, especially to cities that do not yet have formal religions. Players and the AI can also greatly accelerate the process through missionaries, monasteries, shrines, other buildings and units, and acts of diplomacy such as asking another nation to convert to one's religion. If a player controls the holy city of a religion, they are able to have line of sight in cities that share that religion, and can also build holy structures that inspire foreign citizens to send gold to that player's coffers. Two civs with the same religion (ie. the player and an AI civ) will be more friendly to one another in trade and diplomacy; those with different religions will display varying degrees of hostility.

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.

Civilizations and leaders

  • Thirteen 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 seperate civilization and will have distinct personalities.
  • Several historic figures not used in previous Civ games are AI leaders in Civ4, including: Asoka, Cyrus II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hatshepsut, Kublai Khan, Qin Shi Huang, Saladin, and Queen Victoria.
Civilization IV
Civilization Starting Advances Unique Unit Leader One Leader Two Capital
America Fishing, Agriculture Navy SEAL (replaces marine) George Washington (Financial and Organized, favors Universal Suffrage) Franklin D. Roosevelt (Industrious and Organized, favors Universal Suffrage) Washington
Arabia Mysticism, The Wheel Camel Archer (replaces knight) Saladin (Philosophical and Spiritual, favors Theocracy) None Mecca
Aztecs Mysticism, Hunting Jaguar Warrior (replaces swordsman) Montezuma II (Aggressive and Spiritual, favors Police State) None Tenochtitlan
China Agriculture, Mining Cho-Ko-Nu (replaces crossbow) Mao Zedong (Philosophical and Organized, favors State Property) Qin Shi Huang (Industrious and Financial, favors Police State) Beijing
Egypt Agriculture, The Wheel War Chariot (replaces chariot) Hatshepsut (Spiritual and Creative, favors Hereditary Rule) None Thebes
England Fishing, Mining Redcoat (replaces rifleman) Victoria (Expansive and Financial, favors Representation) Elizabeth I (Philosophical and Financial, favors Free Religion) London
France Agriculture, The Wheel Musketeer (replaces musketman) Louis XIV (Creative and Organized, favors Hereditary Rule) Napoleon Bonaparte (Aggressive and Industrious, favors Representation) Paris
Germany Hunting, Mining Panzer (replaces tank) Frederick II the Great (Creative and Philosophical, favors Universal Suffrage) Otto von Bismarck (Expansive and Industrious, favors Representation) Berlin
Greece Fishing, Hunting Phalanx (replaces spearman) Alexander III the Great (Aggressive and Philosophical, favors Hereditary Rule) None Athens
Incans Agriculture, Mysticism Quechua Warrior (replaces warrior) Huayna Capac (Aggressive and Financial, favors Hereditary Rule) None Cuzco
India Mysticism, Mining Fast Worker (replaces worker) Mohandas Gandhi (Industrious and Spiritual, favors Universal Suffrage) Ashoka (Organized and Spiritual, favors Universal Suffrage) Delhi
Japan Fishing, The Wheel Samurai (replaces maceman) Tokugawa Ieyasu (Aggressive and Organized, favors Mercantilism) None Tokyo
Mali Mining, The Wheel Skirmisher (replaces archer) Kankan Musa I (Financial and Spiritual, favors Free Markets) None Timbuktu
Mongolia Hunting, The Wheel Keshik (replaces horse archer) Genghis Khan (Aggressive and Expansive, favors Police State) Kublai Khan (Aggressive and Creative, favors Hereditary Rule) Karakorum
Persia Agriculture, Hunting Immortals (replaces chariot) Cyrus II (Expansive and Organized, favors Representation) None Persepolis
Rome Fishing, Mining Praetorian (replaces swordsman) Julius Caesar (Creative and Expansive, favors Representation) None Rome
Russia Hunting, Mining Cossack (replaces cavalry) Catherine II the Great (Creative and Financial, favors Hereditary Rule) Peter I the Great (Expansive and Philosophical, favors Police State) Moscow
Spain Fishing, Mysticism Conquistador (replaces knight) Isabella I (Expansive and Spiritual, favors Police State) None Madrid

Customization

Civilization 4 is much more open to modification than its already mod-friendly prequels. Game data and rules are stored in XML files, a custom scripting language will be released in early 2006, and the AI is written entirely in Python. A Software Development Kit for the game will also be released near the beginning of 2006.

Four levels of modification are possible:

Map Editor

The map editor, called World Builder, is accessible within the main GUI. It allows a player to create a map from scratch or to take any in-game situation as a jumping-off point for a new scenario. Terrain can be modified; resources, improvements, and military units added or removed; and cities built, erased, or altered. A bitmap importer allows the use of satellite data, and of other real-world (and imaginary) terrain maps.

The player can also choose what technologies are being researched, and the status of diplomatic and military ties.

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 [1] 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. NOTE: You can have custom soundtracks simply by adding music to the custom folder. You only need to edit the XML in order to assign certain pieces to specific eras or remove certain pieces.

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.

Software Development Kit

A comprehensive Software Development Kit will be released in early 2006. At this point, most parts of the game will be open to modification, including the AI.

Launch problems

Many players have experienced various problems with the game since it has come out.

Some of the problems relate to shipping or production malfunctions. The most common were technology charts in the wrong language[2] and the erroneous packing of two of the same CD-ROM such that the 2-disc installation cannot finish[3]. Firaxis has been replacing such improper shipments for free. Another packaging problem has been the mislabeling of some CD-ROMs, meaning that the “Install” disk is needed to play the game instead of the more appropriately titled “Play” disk; since this does not affect gameplay, Firaxis asks users to simply use the other CD-ROM [4].

The game requires 3D hardware T&L graphics hardware to run at all, and runs very slowly (especially on larger maps) on machines that barely meet the "minimum requirements." As a result, less advanced computers cannot run the game properly, a problem more commonly associated with action games than strategy games.

The Civilization IV game scans the hard drive for devices which may be associated with unauthorized copying (such as Daemon tools and/or Nero burning software). This is part of SafeDisc 4 technology and even refuses to acknowledge legitimate game copies otherwise. A solution to this problem is to remove all these programs or run an application in the background which hides the programs from detection.

The most severe problem affects a substantial portion of players with ATI video cards and occasionally users of nVidia video cards as well. The symptom is that the game displays the error message "Failed to Initialize Renderer - ...", then refuses to start. Within 2 days of the game's official release, Firaxis has posted a workaround for this problem [5]. This workaround fails for users who decline the installation program's offer to install DirectX.

Finally, while overall gameplay has been widely hailed, many small details have been criticized as either poorly thought-out or not working as promised. In addition, a number of coding errors can lead to late-game crashes.

On November 16, 2005, Firaxis announced the imminent release of a patch, stating, "Some of the highlights include multiple AI improvements and tweaks, worker behavior tweaks, MANY game play improvements (ex Animal Husbandry reveals horses), promotion tweaks, a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people), fixed diplomatic exploits (gold for gold, peace treaty exploit), multiplayer tweaks (Hot seat, Lobby, etc.), memory, caching and performance improvements, etc., [as well as] a number of video card specific fixes."[6]

Scores by the Critics

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