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AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 542 / 604
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you’ve never played Sid Meier’s Civilization and are thinking about buying for the first time, I recommend you read some of the reviews from the previous version Civilization III to get a glimpse of how exciting and breath-taking this game, its concept, and artificial intelligence truly are. If you’re a veteran at Civ, THEN LISTEN UP!!!

I ripped open this package as soon as I got it, told my friends & family not to talk to me until Thanksgiving, and basically put my life on hold.

Right from the opening, you are blown away by the higher-grade graphics, details, sounds, and more lively persona of the game. Although many game elements have changed, you will not need to read the manual (who does?) to play. Right away you’ll figure out the new console and controls. Starting off, you choose map style, map size, climate, sea level, and the civ – just like Civ III. These are the civs you can play for now (I’m sure there’ll be expansion packs later):

Americans
Arabians
Aztecs
Chinese
Egyptians
English
French
Germans
Greeks
Incans
Indians
Japanese
Malinese
Mongolians
Persians
Romans
Russians
Spanish

Unlike Civ III, most of these civs have two leaders that you can choose, which allow another dimension of play. The movements and landscape are incredibly better with 3-D effects that are more colorful. Even down to the borders of the countries, the lines are more creatively contoured.

It’s harder to over-expand or quickly expand your cities. In Civ III if you were Chinese, you could beat everyone virtually by getting your population to the point of overwhelming others in production capacity, units, and wealth. Therefore, you have to be more judicious with each city’s focus, research, and commitments.

There no longer is a government angle like democracy, fascism, or monarchy. You achieve the governments as part of your research toward civic choices. Similarly, you research pacifism to get towards one of the religions. The religions seem to play a much more incorporated component to the game, but a subtle. The religions are: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism. So, for example (and I apologize that this isn’t politically correct), if Christian Napoleon fights the Persians with Islam, there seems to be a slight difference than Christian Napoleon fights the Taoist Persians, to the extent that religion plays a role. I've tried that combo a few times and continue to get similar statistically significant results. However, certainly for those civs that are keen on religion, you’d better go for it asap!

New military units are all over the place. I played Americans my last time and I noticed the Navy SEAL. That was pretty cool. Also units can now be promoted so their attack rate or defense can be incrementally improved over time. Figure a swordsman beating a Navy SEAL? Also, there are less worries about micromanaging the Workers.

Overall, the game speed is about 2X faster. In other words, what took me 6hrs to achieve in Civ III takes around 3hrs. That makes it more intense playing. You’d better keep you eye on everything.

In short, Fireaxis has done an incredible job. Hands down, the best game ever (ever). Sid Meier, if you’re reading this, you are absolutely a master game developer and please NEVER retire!

Best turn-based strategy game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 338 / 375
Date: October 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you have never played a "Civ" type game:

Civilization 4 is a turn-based strategy game - the action freezes while you decide what to do (compared to Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) games where things keep happening). Turn-based games typically offer much more depth than most RTS games, whose complexity is limited by the frantic pace of the game, and the 1-2 hour target duration of the RTS game.

People who love the Civ type games typically share two qualities. First, they are good at seeing the "big picture" - this game is more sophisticated than a game of chess, as the cause and effect of game decisions are often subtle, and not clear cut until much later. Second, the best players make a lot of good decisions, similar to an air traffic controller. You have a limited number of resources to do more things than is possible (do I build combat units to fight a war, economic structures to support me, or pursue a religious strategy at the risk of weakening my military?). The program allows you to automate a lot of decisions, but you can usually coordinate things better to your grand strategy if you do them manually (especially production decisions).

While the graphics and sound are excellent, these are not the focus of the game - instead, the entire gameplay experience is. Civ4 is extremely addictive due to the many decisions you make, and the way your decisions affect you nation (hopefully in positive ways). Civ4 is a game that is fun to start and restart over and over looking for an "optimal strategy", although this strategy will change based on who you are (different nations have different strengths; i.e. the Mongols are better at combat, while the Egyptians are better at religious development).

If you buy one game this year, get Civ4.

For FOLLOWERS of the CIV series:

Civ4 is the best. There are a lot of changes to the game that enhance play, but don't make it more difficult to play. First, many of the things that used to waste your time are gone or reduced. For instance a city with too many unhappy people no longer goes into revolt, but just slows down. Allowing any unit to automatically explore makes life easier as well. Your tax rate is slightly automated, defaulting at 100% science. If you are spending money on other things, the science rate automatically goes down as needed, rather than dismantling improvements.

Civ4's developmnent of religion revolutionizes the game as much as culture did to Civ3. Religion allows cities to use specialists, which are the main way to generate leaders. These leaders can still accelerate research or wonder production, but they can also improve a city's production (production, culture and commerce). There are 7 religions, and the founder of a religion (the first to research the tech for that) gains advantages: spies in all cities with the same religion, and income from all cities with the same religion.

You no longer have settlers running through your territory towards open spaces unless you agree to "open borders". Opening your borders increases your trade, and allows you to spread religion (and vice versa). Religion provides a lot of ways to make your people happy, but it is better to use your own religion, than join someone else's.

The government changes are much more discreet - instead of 6 or 7 types of government, you have 5 areas of civics, with up to 5 selections each (which become available as you research different techs). Changing one attribute of your government requires only one turn of anarchy. If you have the techs, you can fine-tune your government: do you want to maintain more military units, or produce more culture? Would you rather trade openly with all, or refuse trade (mercantilism) and develop more specialists? The possibilities along with their development curve allow a multitude of different grand-strategies.

Combat... attacking cities can be dangerous. As a unit wins combats, it gains experience, and can gain "levels". With each level, a unit gains abilities; from +10% combat strength, to bonuses in different situations (i.e. +25% defense in a city). The effect of this makes it difficult to take more than 2-3 cities in a flurry, unless your empire is huge.

Technology advancements are more flexible. To advance, you need any one prerequisite, instead of all prerequisites. This means it is easier to focus a research strategy to an endpoint, and also easier to find an unnused tech to trade.

The diplomatic trade interface is more flexible and useful. Things the other side won't ever trade are in red, so you know not to bother. Additionally, the game tells you why your relations are at a certain point (it lists modifiers based on religion, open/closed borders, current trade agreements, any many other events). If a nation is hostile towards you, you'll know exactly why.

The one drawback of the game is the new interface. Civ3 took me about 15 minutes to feel comfortable and forget the old. Civ4 took about 2 hours (after I used the zoom-out 4 times, turned units onto solo figure, and turned on the health-bar). The payback is worth it though - the strategic component and the addiction factor are much higher than Civ3 once you get used to it.

If you enjoyed civ3, Civ4 is a mandatory purchase.

Absolutely Awesome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 43 / 54
Date: October 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow. That's really the only word to describe Civ 4. The graphics are amazing and if you were lucky enough to get the collector's edition as I was with the soundtrack CD it's terrific. The game designers, with input from a number of fan-created websites, have made some major changes to the game and most are for the better. Here are some of the changes / additions:

First, if you loved the micromanaging of the first three you will be disappointed here. The monotonous game turns, especially with workers, late in your civilization are gone. Many units have much stronger automation capabilities allowing you to focus on whatever you personally enjoy about the game. Workers also have more things to do than just create farms, mine or cleanup.

Second, researching has been sped up and fragmented into smaller discoveries rather than having to wait hours for a big dicovery to move your civlization forward.

Third, the game has a great narration by Leonard Nimoy. I can see where that might get annoying two or three years from now, but his voice is a perfect addition to the game.

Fourth, the etched in stone government structures are gone and have been replaced by smaller changes you can make in how your civilization is run. You can pick your nation's religion while remaining a representative state or have no religion in your depotism. The choice is now yours.

Fifth, an absolutely brilliant soundtrack. We're talking Grammy-worthy music throughout. Not only does each civlization have its own music, but most of the leaders have their own theme. The real find here, though, is Baba Yet, the African choral main menu theme.

Sixth, a much better battle system. That warrior isn't going to take down a tank anymore. The damage levels are calculated at a much more realistic rate.

My favorite change: for some civilizations you can now pick your leader! No longer are you bound by Abe Lincoln for the American empire, instead you are allowed to choose between Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Washington, with each cilivilzation's leader possessing different attributes that will benefit his or her nation. Picking your leader will impact how your nation grows and advances.

There are many more changes, but the best way to experience them is to play the game and get a feel for it. This is by far the best Civilization yet and well worth the money.

I would be remiss if I did not address a complaint many people have raised about the game: the system requirements. One big problem with system requirements is no one reads them and then blames the manufacturer for not telling them. You HAVE to have a good video card. This is not an option for Civ 4, it is a REQUIREMENT. If you don't, the game will crash on you because it needs a tremendous amount of video memory. If you don't have a 128 MB video card or a Direct 7.0 sound card wait until you do before getting the game.

The best Civ game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 35 / 173
Date: October 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the best Civilization game. It has a very good multiplayer component, as it was designed from the start as a multiplayer game.
It is much tougher this time to expand your civilization. It's the best civ game I've ever played. I would recommend it to anyone.

Next Edition of the Greatest Strategy Game Ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: May 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

For those who are new to the world of Sid Meier's Civilization video games, then you are in for treat. The game concept is fairly simple: you select a nationality (from American to German to Japanese to Aztec) and slowly build up a civilization through the course of history- braving wars, pioneering technology, expanding your territory through settlers, and eventually attempting to establish the world's dominant power culturally, militarily, scientifically or all three. However, the pursuit of this goal offers a large variety of options: which government to chose, which technologies to focus on, what do your military units specialize in, how many cities to found and where, what national economic policy? And the list could go on. For the first time user, these choices will seem very complex and the first game should probably be the tutorial version, which will quickly educate you in the basics of the game play. Once you've mastered the simple concepts, I highly recommend giving a full game on one of the lower difficulty settings a try. The most entertaining part of this game is experimenting with your own strategies and finding what works the best for you (there are several ways to `win' the game; military conquest, cultural preeminence, a space race, a diplomatic victory or the highest score at the final turn).

When engineering your society the nationality you choose dictates your choice of leaders, and the names of your cities. The leaders affect your society based on the attributes they inspire your people to achieve; and these attributes in turn affect how well your people work with science, economy, civics, religion, military.... For instance: Both Napoleon and F.D.R. inspire their people to build world wonders in a shorter time; Napoleon however, also excels at inspiring the military, whereas F.D.R. inspires the economy. So a French civilization under Napoleon vs. an American civilization under F.D.R. have fundamental similarities and differences that affect the game play.

Now, this choice is only the first you must make: your people demand many more. You will be deciding the degree of freedom; from serfdom to emancipation. The type of economy: mercantilism to free market to environmentalism is a choice as are the choices of political participation: free speech or fascism? Each of these choices determine the final product of your government, in stead of the old technique of choosing only "democracy" or "monarchy". This enables the player to have a range of democracy, or a range of communism (America today or Europe today? China today or the Soviet Union of yesterday?). I don't mean to focus on only democracy or communism, but they are two good examples.

Eventually you will also found religions (unrelated to the actual history of religion and its cultural geography). Again, different religions confer different benefits: each has a series of religious buildings to construct that help your society, although different religious have different prerequisites. For instance, Christianity requires more churches to build a monastery, than Hinduism to build their version of a monastery. Conquering a civilization of a different predominant religion is more difficult to maintain order in; and if you can evangelize your religion it can serve as a source of revenue and espionage- not merely the cultural and `happiness' value.

Both the elements of governance and religion depend on the level of technological advance. You won't have Islam until after Judaism and Christianity have been founded, most likely- and a true democratic government is not available until later in the game.

There are a slew of natural resources available to exploit: strategic, luxury and health. Some resources are required to build certain military units (iron, coal and steel); others are required to build wonders (ivory, marble, stone) and/or greatly speed production of certain city improvements. If you have several cities in flood plains, or other areas that confer a health penalty, the health resources become much more essential to your culture to prevent the spread of plague and disease. Once your population expands, you'll need luxury goods (wine, silk, gold) to appease your burgeoning metropolises. Again, technology will expand and contract the list of available resources: ivory and whale oil will become obsolete eventually, and wine is not available until the requisite tech is researched. Some resources, modern media, are not available until world wonders are constructed, and if you do not build the wonders first you'll end up having to barter for the "hit songs" or "movies" of your rivals.

Now, if that description doesn't perk your interest in Civ4, then it may be that you won't like this game. However, if you're starting to think how you would rule your Roman Empire, or how you'd take the Sioux to outer space first, then buy this game now. I'm fairly confident that my review thus far has provided a reasonable expectation of what the game is about. But if it is the complexity that scares you, don't worry- after a few games you'll be hooked, and even an experienced player will learn new things later on- after many, many hours of fun.

For those who've played all the game editions since the early nineteen nineties, Civ4 is a success that adds to the legacy. It continues to round out some of the nuisances of before (removing civil disorder riots and pollution squares altogether), while adding new angles and perspectives to experiment with. Unfortunately the diplomatic options have a tendency to lean toward: You versus the World; especially later in the game. I think this stems from the programming that makes the computer chose one of the various options for victory and then pursue that end relentlessly. In the real world civilizations will play to win, but there is no "end of history" that we can achieve. In the game, the computer knows that if it lands on Alpha Centauri first, the game is over- and once you hit the space race you'll not have much luck trading techs with an opponent bent on that victory path.

One critique that I'll add is this: for the first time, the newest version of the "Civ" series requires a fairly medium-high end computer. I purchased the game and play it on my one year old laptop: Centrino 1.4 GHz, 512MB Ram, no extra video acceleration. But it is a very slow process of loading the game up, and in the later turns when the world is vastly populated with units, the time between my turn and the computer's is agonizing. I've adjusted the graphics and sound accordingly, and the slowness persists. Maybe I'm just not a computer wiz enough to get the program to max efficiency- in any case, make sure you understand that the game is very graphics intense. This provides a beautiful game display at the cost of some slow turns. Now, if you have a brand new computer or one that is high end on game play stats, then don't worry.

There is an expansion coming out this summer that looks very interesting: I've read that it will add the possibility of creating `vassal states' as opposed to just conquering completely. Could add a lot to the game, since there are times when I realize that even if I sign a treaty I'll only delay the inevitable conquest of my aggressive and annoying neighbors. There will also be added nationalities and some other interesting options. So- you'll soon be afforded the opportunity to purchase more Civ. It might be better to bite the bullet, wait and get a `packaged deal' with both the original and expansion if you're playing on a budget.

In any case, Civ4 is a game you can play again and again, and you'll find yourself to start considering rationing your time on the game- so that work, school, and social life are not neglected. Well worth the money. Enjoy.

(*****) Great Graphics
(*****) Great Sound/Music esp. Leonard Nimoy narration
(****) Good Interface
(n/a) Story is up to you- the course of human history at your fingertips
(******)Excellent Replay value

Very addictive, a few major bugs, but avoidable

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 27
Date: November 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Like all of Sid's games, I have that "just one more turn please before I go to bed or work" feeling. This is both good and bad. I am very happy that Sid continues to produce such immersive games despite what the rest of the greedy industry is doing: making violent console games or shipping games on PC that are half finished.

Civ4 is superb. It is 99.88% there. Most of the sequels to games leave me wanting the old days (example is Empire Earth II).
But Civ4 makes me not want to go back to CIV3. It's super.

Now here is the only bug I had. Yes, I was a little upset to see how many reviewers were saying it makes there machine crash and how they were "shelving it until a patch comes out".

I ask them - is this the only game on your machine?

See, although this game at first glance seems to be a turn based strategy game, it really is doing quite a bit beyond the scenes. For example after you load a saved game it takes a minute for the the game to "settle". You will see this as soon as the AI (computer player) takes it first turn after the save game load.
After you see this you realize it is predictable.

I have a high end system of sorts: 1Gig of RAM, P4-3ghz, Geforce 4 (256MB). Runs every game out there even shooters. This game on my machine used half of the memory: 483MB. So I believe if you have only 512MB in your machine, which is what the publisher suggests, you should stay away from 'huge' maps and limit the AT to no more than 6.

Now on my machine I turn the graphics detail to medium. I notice no difference to my eye. I turned on the "solo" checkbox so I see just one warrior on the screen not 3. (why do they show a group of warriors when there is only one?)

And it runs like a champ. Ran it so far three six-hour sessions, not a problem save one.

And its not bad. Here it is:

When a Wonder is about to be completed, SAVE. When a wonder is done the game will try to show a cutscene that for some reason stutters and jerks and starts off all purple staggered lines for some reason. Well, this wonder-completion (the Pyramids, The Great Library) always makes a short animation play. This is when my game crashes to desktop. The way to avoid it is SAVE before the wonder is completed or just learn to expect until the patch is out. IT IS THE ONLY TIME IT CRASHES.

A little humor, once I had 3 wonders all completed in the same turn. I saw the first animation, the second was jerky and I was amazed it went so far. The third animation made my system reboot! (????).

So this game is 99.998% there.

If the game publishers (Sid and the gang) could just tell us how to turn off the Wonder-completion Animation I could live with that. I don't need the animation. (And by the way my system plays DVDs and all kinds of other DirectShow or DirectX media-to-screen content). I think it is because they are trying to do the animation in a popup instead of full screen.

Thanks, Sid. Keep them coming.

WOW - This game is deeply moving

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 20
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.

Possibly the best game ever made!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 39
Date: October 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been a Civ since the first release in 1991. Every version has taken the game to new hights and exceded my expectations. This newest release is no exception. To all you married arm chair emperors out there- You will be up all night much more than your emperess would like.

CIVILIZATION IV IS FULL OF COOL SURPRISES - BUY IT NOW!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: December 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Civilization IV is a tremendous PC game. Those new to the Civilization game and fans of Civilization will become addicted to it. There are so many cool upgrades to the graphics as well as important changes to the strategy of the game itself that you'll spend hours (or days) learning all of the details. Having said that, what does Civilization IV offer that previous versions did not have?

-- New Nation and Leader Features --

You have a choice of eighteen Civilizations and twenty-six different leaders within the game, making it one of the largest selections of playable nations in the series. I'm certain that when expansions are released, there will be even more. Each leader has two Leader traits that will give you a selection of bonuses, each one depending on the nature of the leader and Civilization he or she commands. Each Civilization also comes with at least one unique military or worker unit to add spice to the game. The list is impressive:

American
Unique Unit: Navy Seal
Leader: Washington (Financial and Organized)
Leader: Roosevelt (Industrious and Organized)

Arabians
Unique Unit: Camel Archer
Leader: Saladin (Philosophical and Spiritual)

Chinese
Unique Unit: Cho - ko -Nu
Leader: Quin Shi Huang (Industrious and Financial)
Leader: Mao Zedong (Philosophical and Organized)

Egyptians
Unique Unit: War Chariot
Leader: Hatshepsut (Spiritual and Creative)

English
Unique Unit: Redcoat
Leader: Elizabeth (Philosophical and Financial)
Leader: Victoria (Expansive and Financial)

French
Unique Unit: Musketeer
Leader: Louis XIV (Creative and Organized)
Leader: Napoleon (Aggressive and Industrious)

Germans
Unique Unit: Panzer Tank
Leader: Frederick (creative and philosophical)
Leader: Bismarck (expansive and industrious)

Greeks
Unique Unit: Phalanx
Leader: Alexander (aggressive and philosophical)

Incans
Unique Unit: Quechua
Leader: Huayna Capac (Aggressive and Financial)

Indian
Unique Unit: Fast Worker
Leader: Ghandi (industrious and spiritual)
Leader: Asoka (organized and spiritual)

Japanese
Unique Unit: Samurai
Leader: Tokugawa (aggressive and organized.)

Malinese
Unique Unit: Skirmisher
Leader: Mansa Musa (Financial and spiritual)

Mongolians
Unique Unit: Keshik
Leader: Genghis (Aggressive and Expansive)
Leader: Kublai (Aggressive and Creative)

Persians
Unique Unit: Immortal
Leader: Cyrus (Organized and Expansive)

Romans
Unique Unit: Praetorian
Leader: Julius Caesar (Creative and Expansive)

Russians
Unique Unit: Cossack
Leader: Peter (Philosophical and Expansive)
Leader: Catherine (Creative and Financial)

Spanish
Unique Unit: Conquistador
Leader: Isabella (Spiritual and Expansive)

-- New Religion Features --

Another new feature is Religion, giving it greater importance over the previous versions. As you progress through the ages you can unlock a total of seven religions. When unlocked, the religion will spread through your empire allowing you to influence your people to create great prophets, make more money and be happier in general. Each religion has a special unit, the Missionary. The Missionary has the ability to venture off to other nations to convert them to your religion. But beware -- enemy nations can and will try converting your people to their religion. One important note is that all religions are equal with each other and don't have bonuses, which is a good thing as this could upset some people. Overall the religion aspect is a very nice addition to the game and it gives those who like that extra milestone to conquer the opportunity to try converting everyone to your religion. Here's the list of religions:

Name: Buddhism
Discovered: Meditation
Wonder: Buddhist Temple

Name: Christianity
Discovered: Theology
Wonder: Christian Shrine

Name: Confucianism
Discovered: Code of Laws
Wonder: Confucian Shrine

Name: Hinduism
Discovered: Polytheism
Wonder: Hindu Shrine

Name: Islam
Discovered: Divine Right
Wonder: Islamic Shrine

Name: Judaism
Discovered: Monotheism
Wonder: Jewish Shrine

Name: Taoism
Discovered: Philosophy
Wonder: Taoist Shrine

-- New Wonder Features --

There are approximately twenty-eight Great Wonders of the World and around twelve Small Wonders. Wonder Movies make a return and fans of Civilization II will be happy to hear this after their conspicuous absence in Civilization III. The new Wonder movies have great detail and are fun to watch.

The Wonders include old favorites such as the Apollo Program, The Great Library and The Hanging Gardens, but will also include new wonders such as Broadway, Hollywood, The Kremlin, Notre Dame, The Spiral Minaret, Stonehenge, The Taj Mahal and Mt. Rushmore.

-- Leonard Nimoy --

I was thrilled to hear the one and only Leonard Nimoy narrating famous quotes about each new advancement that I successfully researched. It was a magnificent surprise! Who knew Mr. Nimoy was a Civilization fan!!

There is so much more in this game to talk about, but I'm sure Amazon has a limit to the length of these reviews.

BASICALLY, IT'S FANTASTIC SO BUY IT AND START PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW!

The Cadillac of Turn-based Strategy Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: November 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For fans of the genre, there is more of the same from the master; Sid has made Civ IV a worthy successor in his monumental series. The fundamentals of the game are still solid, however, there are enough new twists and turns in gameplay for it to feel really "new". Not to mention the new look, which hits you over the head immediately.

To the meat of the subject - the gameplay has been made more complex, for sure. New religion action will confuse at first; I am still on the fence over if this is an improvement. Developing the surrounding territory of your city involves more choice, though you can still just set the workers on auto if you want. But they somehow avoid everything looking like a post-apocalyptic railroad yard as the map usually did in the later stages of Civ III. The new unit promotions are interesting, and diplomacy has been nicely streamlined.

Best point - new Great People, really cool evolution from Civ III

Bonus - when I went to a site (Gamespy, I think), it told me I wouldn't be able to play the game because I had the wrong video card. Well, I have played for almost a week and no problems. I will definitely come back and revamp this review if I have crashes.

Enjoy building your worlds and I will enjoy crushing you on-line in multi-player!

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