User Reviews (121 - 131 of 271)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

I don't understand all the negativity...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 15
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love this game. I really can't understand the negative reviews based on game performance. I have an AMD Athlon XP 2200 with 1gig of ram and an ATI Radeon 9700 All-in-Wonder (128mb). This machine wasn't even cutting edge when I put it together three years ago. The game runs fast and smooth at 1600x1200 with 4xAA. Turns take maybe two or three seconds, and the map scrolls very smoothly.

Complaints about the quality of the graphics are based on ignorance. At first, not knowing any better, I ran the game at 1024x768. It's the default setting. In that mode, the graphics are ok. As an experiment I changed it to 1280x1024. I discovered that the graphics become vastly more detailed and, quite frankly, very pretty. It's a world of difference. After I upped it to 1600x1200 with 4xAA it was downright beautiful.

All that aside, the game is a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anyone who is willing to give a turn based strategy game a try. This is my first experience in the Civilization series. I'm constantly amazed by the enormous depth of this game. There's a lot there but it's very engrossing and the tutorial is excellent. I will recommend that you're very careful that your machine meets the minimum system requirements if not the recommended requirements. Enjoy.

Catastrophic Failure

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 15
Date: February 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Similar to other purchasers, I cannot install the game due to a corrupt disk 2. I wish I'd paid more attention to the reviews before making my purchase.

I've loved the previous versions of Civ, but in all fairness, I was able to PLAY those versions. I guess it's fair to say that I'm biased in favor of games that will install correctly.

I recommend that you DON'T BUY this game. I wish I hadn't.

Best one since the original

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: December 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For many gamers who got hooked on the original Sid Meier's Civilization back in the 1990's, Civilization III proved to be a bit of a letdown. So lead designer Soren Johnson took a long, hard look at Civilization, and the net result is a brilliant update on the series. Civ4 has once again captured that "just one more turn" vibe of the original (and of Civili-zation II), but has managed to substantially reduce end-game micromanagement.

For those who have never encountered Civilization, it's about playing God on a world somewhat modeled on Earth's history, but with lots of variations in maps and how you go about building your civilization. It's all about "interesting choices", as Sid Meier once put it. Do you build up a big army and pursue aggressive campaigns of conquest? Do you try to live in peace, keeping your people happy and growing culturally?

The new Civ now adds religion and Great People. While named after historical religions (Buddhism for example), religions from your godly (small "g") point of view just add to the decision matrix. Great People model the impact that famous and creative individuals have had on historical developments, and fall into categories such as artists, scientists, en-gineers, merchants and prophets.

Instead of a simple linear progression of government styles, you can now build your gov-ernment from a matrix of choices, so your style of rule has a little more flavor to it. This all sounds complex, but the game manages to hide its complexity under a fairly stream-lined and well-designed interface.

Perhaps the major issue, though, are graphics related, particularly with users of later gen-eration (X800 series or later) graphics cards. If you have an ATI card, and the game asks you to install DirectX, just say yes. You may think you have DirectX 9.0c, but the game actually installs a fairly recent build with some newer files that are needed for the 3D en-gine to work properly.

Overall, it's the best Civilization since the original. And the game has been built from the ground up for multiplayer, and to be moddable. We're looking forward to long, sleepless nights. Just... one... more... turn.

great game, learn a lot, definately a lot of strategy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

WHen i played this game i was amazed. The graphics to this game are literally outstanding and i thought the whole gameplay just was mindblowing. This definately is a very hard game to play. You'll understand it more if you know a good amount on history. A lot strategy if definately involved too. Build your own city, make your own religion (cannot convert people) and you learn about taxes, budgets, money, trading, economics, and you get to fight and conquer other towns, civilizations. I thought this was a little hard to understand, but i got the hang of it in a couple of months. This game is not for everyone 10 and up. Most 10 years olds will not understand this game at all. Too hard, have to know A LOT about history/trading/strategy. I recommened this game for people who liked to get challenged in a game. Grown ups will love this game (even if you never played a videogames before in your whole life). Fun for mature smart people. Bad for kids 11 and under.
Thank u. Definately buy this game.
I would wait until the price lowers though.

For some it will take a lot of work to install this game but it is worth it!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: December 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This review is only to help others who purchased this game to run on their notebook computers with a ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 video driver. Other's who are having problems installing this game may find this useful also.

1) First install the game from the cd rom

2) Try to run the game. If you can view the intro movies and see the main screen index you are lucky. If this is your case, choose 'advanced' and then choose 'check for updates'. Your game will be updated and your ready to play (ignore the rest).

3) If you could not see the movies or the main screen index (you should be able to hear the music though) you need to manually update the game by downloading the official patch found on Civ Fanatics Web site. Download patch and it run it.

4) The game still probably will not run for you due to your video card driver being out of date. Try to go to your notebook's manufacture's Web site and updating your video card driver. But most manufacture's do not have updated video card drivers and you are out of luck (because you can not download an update anywhere else, do not waste your time trying). Luckily though there is a genius out there that writes his own video drivers (beyond me how he does it but he does and they are good drivers!) Do a Web search for Omega drivers and download the appropriate one for you. After you install the Omega driver the game should work.

I know only civ veterans are going to go through this much trouble to install this game but it is worth it; great new rules and additions!

How I rated this game...

+5 stars for fun, it is amazing how much fun a turn based game can be

-1 star because the all the early bug issues
-1 star because of the dumb mistakes 2K made during the release
-2 stars because a turn based game shouldn't drain a computer

Wow - A deeply moving game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: February 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Truly a soul-touching experience, this is the kind of heady feel-good gaming that will keep you playing for a full day until the wee hours of the morning. Granted that the lifespan of Civ4 is incredibly short-lived, the experience of playing it once is worth the price of the game alone and possibly a PC upgrade (that most will need). Yes it does push even high spec machines, your hardware will want to be in good order to run it and certainly you should at least be using the v1.52 patch (you must download it from the internet) to have a bug free gaming experience (that still has some minor bugs) the fact is that the game is so vast and so big, these minor glitches are easily overlooked once you get into the swing of things.

Spanning some 3000 years between 1000 BC and 2000 AD you go through every civilization from the dawn of early man to the creation of a space station, with Spock (Leonard Nimoy) narrating, you can build worlds that will eventually compete in military campaigns with one another, the volume of historical information, famous quotes and important pieces of history all mash together to the point of having a modern tank squad up against Roman horseback spearmen, it puts the world we live in today into such clear perspective that this is one of the best family friendly games, not to mention game, of all time. Civ4 is truly an astonishingly experience in every sense of the word. You will get a history lesson, see the world in whole new way and have some of the best fun ever. It doesn't get much better than Civ4!

Pros:
- Leonard Nimoy's narration!
- Intellectual Gaming.
- Fantastic world development.
- The best TBS.

Cons:
- Needs patching.
- Requires high system spec.
- Speed freaks lack the patients needed to play the game.

*Note* And yes those reviewing trying to trash the game because of bad discs etc are all just the competition trying to bash on this game. It is one of the best games ever made. Trust me. Civ 4 will renew your faith in feel-good gaming.

Don't know what you guys are talking about

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: January 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is an amazing game, ran smoothly on my nvidia(256) and 512 mb of ram. I noticed some people were having problems with their computers, which were actually quite good: I saw some with over 1 gb of ram. In general, if your computer can't run this game, you should get a better videocard, especially with all the the new HDR games coming out.
Probably one of the best things in this game is the music, since I have a taste for renaissance and baroque works. Of course, you have to have an appreciation for earlier music, but overall, I'm glad they put some of the more antique works into the game. Although, I loathe going into the modern age, because I have to listen to all that modern crap.
Graphics-wise, It's a major improvement over Civ3 (although I'm still mourning the loss of the Zulu). I like the new combat system, and it provides for some nice eye candy. But, I love the more "earth-like" gameplay (if you play the terra map). There's always a race to the resource plentiful "New World", for example.
The best aspect of the game is that small empires are absolutely fine, and usually do better than larger ones, due to gigantic maintenance fees. You can "culture-flip" your way to victory more easily, in other words.
5 stars.

Best of Civ

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First, I will say that I haven't had any problems at all with the game being too slow or crashing. I'm using a Pentium Core 2 Duo with an upgraded graphics card. This game probably didn't run very well when it first came out because of its buggy initial release and the slower hardware that people had 2 years ago. But it runs great now.

At first the game didn't seem that exciting, after all I played the previous Civs. But after playing it awhile it became addictive. Much more so than Civ3 which was the weakest Civ. I finally conclude that this is the best and definitive version of Civilization. If you liked the earlier versions, you will love this (assuming your computer was purchased within the last two years).

Why is this so much better? The special resources, religions, and culture are all elements that weren't in the original Civs. You have to be much more careful about WHERE you found your cities. You have to choose between having your workers build farms or cottages. Keeping forests instead of chopping them down is also a viable option. There just seem to be more things going on that you have to think about. I have a very difficult time winning at Prince level which is just one level up from the level where you and the computer players are on equal footing.

Diplomacy is essentially the same as earlier versions, but you now get a detailed display of WHY leaders like you or don't like you. Instead of seeming random, it now feels like you have control over which leaders like you and which ones don't.

The map generating feature gives you more control and works better than ever. The AI is a much better naval strategist--it used to be that it was too easy to win on an island map because the AI didn't know how to use navies. Now island maps are fun, and you have three different kinds of island maps to choose from.

Civilization 4:

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played the Civilization series since Civ 1. (Believe it or not, my grandfather introduced me to the game - he must have played it since it first came out, but I started about 10 years ago) I have enjoyed every version of the game, but once I started playing Civ 4, I realized that I could never go back. Civilization 4 is my favorite of the Civilization series for several reasons.

1. The developers have by all appearances worked very hard to both "remove unfun elements", as they called it, and to keep to the standard Civilization style. I think they have done both well.

2. Careful balancing of the game allows one to play a Quick game or a Marathon game, as well as two speeds in between. The Quick games can be played through in one to several hours, but the Marathon games can last 20+ hours. The speed setting allows me to fit the game to the time I have to play it (though I'm starting to prefer Marathon to the Normal speed I was playing).

3. Perhaps the most valuable thing the developers of Civ 4 did is make the game easily moddable. If you don't like Civ 4 the way it is now or wish some feature were included, odds are you can find a mod to meet your desire. Whoever made the decision to make Civ 4 easily moddable should get a raise - Civilization 4 could literally be the turn-based game to end all turn-based games, because whenever you get tired of playing a certain way, you just have to download a mod to get a new experience. In certain cases, the game can be turned into something else completely.


Also, consider buying the expansions for Civ 4. I have Warlords and will buy Beyond the Sword after I play my money's worth out of Warlords. Both expansion packs (but especially Beyond the Sword) will entertain you for hours and hours, late into the night. FYI, I've gotten 6 or less hours of sleep the last two weeks for that very reason.


Enjoy!

A beloved friend just got even better. Buy it now.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

`Civilization IV', inspired by the original design of Sid Meier and implemented by his latest company, `Firaxis Games', is the great granddaddy of the 4-Ex (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) style of turn-based strategy game, and by all accounts of the awards it continues to win, it is still the best. To that general opinion, I add my belief that it is, in fact, the undisputed leader of the genre, and its latest incarnation will only enhance that standing.
`Civilization III' was so engrossing that it was literally the only PC game I have played for the last three years, and until some company comes out with a worthy successor to the old X-Com franchise, `Civilization IV' may be the only PC based game I will play until Sid and company come out with `Civilization V'.
The very best thing about `Civilization IV' is that it is clear it was rebuilt from scratch, recreating from whole cloth a game which embodied all of Sid Meier's original concepts (from the credits, it appears that the only contribution Sid actually made to the game design and implementation was the inspiration behind the earlier versions). I actually started both `Civilization III' and `Civilization IV' on two different computers, with displays placed side by side, and was immediately struck by the difference in look and feel of the new version. In fact, my first impression was that the earlier map really looked far more like a genuine landscape, so the new look took just a bit of getting used to. But then, I accidently discovered the new map's zoom in and zoom out ability controlled by the mouse wheel. The new interface immediately jumped in interest. One can seamlessly zoom from what is practically a street level view, with all the individual buildings visible to a distant synchronously orbiting satellite view, where you can take in whole continents on the screen. One thing this means is that the separate city view of `Civ III' becomes totally integrated into the main map view. I will certainly not miss this, as this eyewash was largely useless in terms of game functions.
The government and religious aspects of the `Civ IV' game are both virtually an order of magnitude more complicate and more interesting than in `Civ III'. Where before, you only had two religious buildings (Temple and Cathedral) and a few religious `wonders' (The Oracle, The Temple of Artemis, the Sistine Chapel and J. S. Bach's Cathedral), you now have seven different religions, up to three building types per religion, a religious unit for each religion, and a wonder for each religion. And, even better, converting your neighbors to your state religion allows you to see into their converted cities. Where in `Civ III' you had only eight different governments, plus the `Universal Suffrage' wonder, `Civ IV' gives you the ability to base your government on almost fifty different policies, and each different policy has different costs and benefits.
The fourth difference with a major impact on game play is the fact that the workers' activities have become far more interesting and diverse. Where before, the only things they could do is build roads, mines, irrigation, forests, fortresses, and railroads, they have at least three times as many different functions, as well as the addition of a marine worker which can develop fishing beds. This notion comes directly from an inspiration by Herr Doktor Meier, who says that the late game boredom is not due so much to the worker micromanagement required, but the fact that those tasks to be managed are so uninteresting.
One thing which changed very, very little is the combat system. It is still based almost exclusively on single unit versus unit combat, with only the most rudimentary `combined arms' effects (as when an archery or artillery unit can damage an attacker before combat with primary defender begins. Based on my experience, there is also virtually nothing done to eliminate the absurdity of a spearman unit's killing a WW II era Sherman tank! I have seen it happen! There have been some interesting additions. The most useful is the fact that there are far more improvements available over the simple `Civ III' experience level. You can make various units simply stronger or specialists in traversing forest or mountain terrain, more adept at withdrawing from combat, or capable of `blitzkrieg' multiple attacks.
Another very nice benefit derived from the general interface and the ability to zoom down to the detail level is that the animated combat `movies' are far more interesting, and I will keep them around a lot longer than I did with `Civ III'. It's a real hoot watching mounted elephants assaulting armored infantry.
The diplomatic aspects of `Civ IV' are not too different from `Civ III', but here I suspect they held back something for their first expansion release. The ability to have choice between Napoleon or Louis IVX or between Lincoln or Washington is not terribly interesting, except that the animations are different and the civilization characteristics vary a bit.
Speaking of animations, the animations for building the wonders are something of a wonder in themselves. It will be some time before I turn them off.
My least favorite aspect of all the Civ games, the levels of difficulty, where AI opponents essentially cheat at higher levels, is unchanged. As I have played `Civ III' and the third lowest level of difficulty for the last three years shows that this really doesn't cramp one's play too much.
This is a truly great successor to a truly great series of games.

Review Page: Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next 

Actions