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It's not overstated: THIS GAME CAN'T RUN IN IT'S CURENT VERSION.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: November 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This isn't bad, this is scandalous!

Whoever had the power to decide that this game was ready for release ought to be fired immediately. There are no excuses.

The producers state that minimum requirements are 1.2 Ghz, 256 Mb RAM and 64 Mb Graphics card, which was basically what I had on my computer, so I expected to have a go on my computer, even though I excepted that I might have to cut down on graphics quality. Boy, was I to be surprised.

I tried to run the game, and immediately discorved my first problem: When I start the game, the entire map is black - and remains so even though I discover the terrain! I only have the overview map to be guided by. However, after 50-100 turns of gameplay the map slowly starts to be revealed, so this problem can actually be overcome.

Second and worse: The save problem. When I save a game for later replay, most of the time the computer can't reopen the game, but the program simply crashes and, worse, windows is closed and restarted which is a pain in the *** because I'll have to wait for it to scan through my hard drive for errors.

When the game actually IS loaded, everything runs smoothly - until I press for next turn! Then I have to wait for at least 10 minutes - sometimes as long as half an hour or more! Basically, this meens that I load the game (with luck), press next turn, and then go eat dinner, go bathing, or something else. After the first turn things go slightly better, usually I'll have a new turn in about 10 minutes (no, I'm not kidding) - so a book is handy while your playing! This sounds like a joke, but it's not! After some 10-20 turns, however, the speed suddenly increases.

To the above problem, a note should be added: The problem is clearly an internal programming error in the game, and not my computer capacity. It takes some 10 seconds to calculate the in-game action (like scientific increase, unit actions, buildings completed and so forth) - and then hard disc activity just stops, but nothing happens until some 10 or more minutes have passed!

Once the game is in play, I've "only" experienced crashes a couple of times, so when everything else is horrible, I guess you'll take joy in the things that are only bad!

Well - about the game, I won't give a proper review here. I've only played like 85 % of one game, but so far, I'd rate it at 95 % I think. It's brilliant - or would be, if it worked! A quick overview of pros and cons:

PROS:

+ Graphic is stunning.
+ Gameplay is dramatically improved: No petty revolutions and so on.
+ Whole concept of resources has received a great brush up. Loads of new features added for more variability.
+ Great additions to culture concept. Closed boarders are brilliant in early game.
+ Many new worker actions and improvements.
+ More balanced tech tree: Improvements from CIV3 with loads of 'empty' techs in industrial era.
+ Much more transparent game: Nearly all game values are revealed, I especially like the revealed cultural influence on boarders.
+ Religion adds new aspects to game.
+ Lots of options with new great persons.
+ New civics system adds more dynamics in government options.

CONS:

- Bad programming - *lol* - bus asides from that ...
- Lack of balance in leader specializations: To me, 'Industrious' (+50 % wonder prod) and 'Artistic' (+2 culture in all cities from day one) is such a powerful combination that I'm unlikely to ever play anything but the French Louis XIV. 'Philosophical' is also good, but others are not comparable.
- Production from tiles in city is very hard to see: Food is visible, but 'ore' and 'trade' can't be seen easily!
- It's a bit cumbersome activating units from cities.
- Wondermovies are nice - but do make them for all wonders, not only some of them. Or make some better presentations for the others at least, just an animated picture if not an entire movie.
- Game is EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE! - *lol*

This is just an overview of a few points, but overall I'd say that this is 100 % improvement from Civ 3 to Civ 4 - and that's a VERY rare thing when you update a succesfull game.

Overall rating: Game 10 / 10, but doesn't work!!

I love this boringly slow game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: November 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is outstanding --graphics, strategy, everything. I have owned all the prior Civilization games and love this one immensely.

But the Development manager who built this should be fired. Obviously their testing was a joke. They ran it on hot souped up PCs and it worked. They obviously did very little or poor testing on "normal" PCs that most people have. Like all vendors, they give misleading "minimum" PC requirements on the box, but my machine is much better than that and it does not operate well. About 30-60% of the game play time is spent just waiting, waiting, waiting for the game to come back to life.

At 2Ghz and 768MB of memory on a Dell Dimension, the game runs painfully slow. Some turns can take 1-2 minutes or longer just waiting for the "AI" (the game brain) to come back with a response. I typed this entire thing waiting for the AI to give me control of my computer again. In prior games, you never had to wait for the computer. Now I can mow my lawn between turns.

I don't have a cheap Dell computer and I know its time to upgrade. But I have plenty of compute power for any other game on the market. So here is some simple advice -- don't buy this product. Wait 3-6 months and talk to people to find out if 2GHz is working better after they patch all their mistakes. If not, well, Firaxis & Sid are just saying tough for anyone who doesn't have the latest fastest computer. In other words, go away or suffer.

Bad performance. Bad performance.
Bad performance. Bad performance.
Bad performance. Bad performance.

Every good thing about the game you have heard is true. But anyone with less than 2GHZ will be miserable and should take the game back for a refund. Me, I'm probably going to buy Microsoft's latest game and play it until Firaxis fixes all the problems. I am not going to buy a $1500 PC to play a $50 game.
I love this game. Guess I hate it now too.

Amazing Upgrade -- Get the Patch!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: January 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'll try to keep this one short. I was a bit afraid of getting this after the bad reviews....guess what? the bad reviews are right.

I installed this game and it was unplayable - it crashed allot but I went to the Firaxis website and downloaded an available patch. After the installation of the patch, the game played great. It wasn't a small patch so make sure you have a fast internet connection. It would be great for people who don't enjoy broadband if the folks at Firaxis released a point release in a package and label it as such so we know what the "good" release is. The patch I got updated me to Civ 1.09 and the latest I hear is 1.52 (40meg). After application of the patch -- my game ran smooth.

And let me tell you, they made all the right upgrades -- it seems that with every release this game becomes more sophisticated in subtle ways that really add to the enjoyment of the game. Example: no longer just get to pick Monarchy as a form of government, You can have a Monarchy with Freedom of Speech. Subtle changes like that abound throughout the game.

On looks, the game is gorgeous. You can zoom in and out from Cityview all the way to orbit and play that way. You pick how close or how far you want to be from the map.

Religions no longer obey political borders. You can spread Judaism / Christianity / Buddism / Islam to a far away land of your opponents if you have open borders. etc.

I haven't played multiplayer but I hear you can play against other human beings....that sounds cool.

For programers, the game is very flexible, you can modify the units, terrain etc. Firaxis is promising us a kit to tweak the AI later this year. Wow that should be great for some of us.

If you're not a programmer, you can play the great scenarios included right out of the box. Love it at this point. I highly recommend this game.

Needs a patch like a smoker trying to quit.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 20
Date: November 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I installed this on two computers. On one, the graphics completely don't work. While there are ways to fix this, they basically involve cheating and revealing the whole map. No no no.

On the other computer, the game runs at a snails pace. I have to wait 3 minutes between ACTIONS. ACTIONS, not TURNS. It took me 7 hours to advance 20 turns. This is NOT an acceptable rate.

Yuck. Don't buy it until there's a patch.

Cant even Install it!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 20
Date: November 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Beware! Buy this from a retail store in case you need to return it! I have spent FIVE HOURS trying to get this to install without any luck. Buyer beware! I'm shipping this one back to Amazon!

Might be nice if it worked

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: February 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is buggier than a maggot infested corpse. I tried loading it onto three separate computers all of which exceeded the reccomended requirements. It would not install at all on one. On the other two it loaded but had serious graphics problems, which basically made the game unplayable.
2K (the game makers) have issued a patch, but this has only fixed about half of the problems. The game still has serious problems showing movies, and I suspect there is a memory leak which makes it virtually impossible to play on larger maps.

I wish game makers would think a little before releasing games that won't run on anyone's computer.

Wait until they fix it

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: November 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was released too early. It has graphics problems, crashes to the desktop, and renders computers to a slow crawl. Don't buy until 2K games produces a patch to fix this game. There are complaints all over the internet. I am a long time fan of civilization games and I am sorry I bought this one.

Useless Tech Support

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: January 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the reviewer who said this game was not ready for prime time. On our well-maintained XP system, the game would not run at all. It displays a message that "Your movies are not installed correctly." When we contacted tech support, their only advice was "Update your drivers." That is utterly useless. There are hundreds of "drivers" in a modern PC. Merry Christmas, son. Your $40 game is a dud, and the tech support department is staffed by idiots.

Once every few years, you get a game like this...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: January 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

...when you put in the CD, start experimenting, and the next thing you know the sun has come up. I wish I'd found this game sooner. Loved Civ, Civ II, hated Civ III, and was finally induced to try IV.

The aspect that appeals to me the most is that like Alpha Centauri, there are non-combative paths to victory that are actually kind of fun (I hate protracted, slow wars). Religion was well-executed, and not at all overly PC. It's possible to try odd combinations like a Buddhist fundamentalist state with aggressive mercenaries.

After updating the the latest version, the game has been more-or-less crash-free. Recommended strongly.

Combines the best aspects of Civ 2 and Civ 3 into something sublimely playable and addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: April 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ah, finally, Civilization 4 has arrived to turn us all into the walking dead. Seriously, I have been having real trouble fitting sleep into my schedule anymore. This game is that good.

I've been playing Civilization ever since the first one came out all those years ago, and I've enjoyed each one in turn. I must say, however, that Civ 3 was something of a disappointment to me. Yes, it added some great concepts like culture, but the massively truncated tech tree, and the obnoxious expansion of competing civilizations, among other things (anyone else get tired of looking at Sid Meier's face?) ultimately made it a lot less fun then it could've been. I found myself going back to Civ 2 and playing it, enjoying it more despite its age, and longing for more, almost pining. Well, there's no more doubt about which one to play. Civ 4 has come to save the day.

All of the neat innovations from Civ 3 are still here, such as culture, but a lot of annoying issues that lingered through the first three games are gone. No longer will you be scurrying from city to city, putting down bouts of anarchy. Instead, angry population just doesn't work, but allows the rest of the city to function normally. Caps on population in cities has been changed, so you don't HAVE to build that aqueduct, but it makes things alot easier. It's small changes like that which add immense pleasure to an already amazing game. The annoying micromanagement has also been minimized quite a bit, although you'll still be bouncing all over the map as cities complete projects.

Wonders have been beefed up significantly, with a slew of new ones that may be produced by all civilizations. These National Wonders, while neat, are nowhere near as powerful as the World Wonders. Still, they add a little more flavor and depth to the game, and make sure you have more build options throughout the ages.

The combat system is much nicer, with a single number rating both offensive and defensive strength keeping things neat and tidy. This single number can be heavily modified by terrain, fortifications, and combat experience, but overall things run smoothly, and combat is a lot more fun t handle.

One other major addition is religion, which can heavily influence your relationships with other civilizations. You'll find it much easier to ally yourself with civs that have the same state religion, as other civs will constantly be annoying by your unwillingness to convert. This can make for some fun conflicts, and sending waves of missionaries to influence other cultures can be entertaining. Luckily, you can also eliminate state religion late in the game to get rid of those troublesome religious arguments with other heads of states.

Everything that was great about the older games is still great in this version. The addictive "one more turn" aspect is still there, as is all the classic fun of watching your tiny town blossom into a continent spanning empire.

The graphics are really quite phenomenal, with exceeding intricate details of each town on display in the world map. Yes, it's no Doom 3, but for Civ fans, it will be quite a treat to see tiny little aqueducts running out of towns towards water supplies. The battle animations are fun to watch as well.

Things sound great, which lots of great chimes and such for tech advancements and the like, and fun combat effects, and even though the music isn't always perfect or totally compelling, it's never too intrusive either. It's mostly forgettable stuff, although the intro song and the main menu tune are both fantastic.

Civilization is already almost infinitely replayable, considering how many different leaders you can choose, with different specialities and bonuses, and the amazing variety of map styles and sizes you can pick, but now, with the ability to create mods and true online play included, the possibilities are almost literally endless. You could easily be playing this game in 2010.

Civilization holds a special place in my heart. Few other games have kept me up so many late nights. The concept itself is so brilliant, and the execution is masterful, with Civ 3 being the only hiccup in the series. All of the issues in previous games have been addressed, and Civ 4 really is the best one yet. It's complete and total gaming satisfaction, and I can't think of any reason not to recommend this game to everyone.

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