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Great Game, Great additions, a little too expensive...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: June 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Civilization IV is an AMAZING game! So much variety in game play, so much replay value and fun, and no "game rules/bugs" that hurt the game in any way (at least that I have found). So when the Warlords expansion stated it made changes in game play, most notably the addition of the new warlord special person, new gameplay options like vassal states, new buildings, changed leader characteristics, I was a bit worried. However, these changes managed to make an already great game even better, if anything just to add something fresh to the mix and get you playing this amazing game again.

However, if money is tight it may be hard to swallow the $30 price tag. If thats the case, I highly recommend you wait until the next expansion pack "Beyond the sword" is released. It will contain the same gameplay updates as warlords. The only thing missing will be the warlord scenarios, which are good, in no way worth $30 on their own, especially when users create their own free scenarios that are just as fun! The scheduled release for BTS is late July on the PC, but who knows how long it will take to be ported to the mac. If you are willing to wait, you will be rewarded, as you will get a TON of content for $30. Had I know about this before I purchased, I probably would have held off.

However, that being said, I LOVE Civilization IV and the warlords expansion. Best game on the mac by FAR, and is one of those games (unlike massive online games, etc) that let you take as much time as you want for each turn, and more importantly BETWEEN turns. You can actually have a life outside of Civilization, and it will be ready for you when you get home. Great game!

An Absolute Joy to Play!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: March 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I purchased Civ IV for my nephew at Christmas and we had so much fun playing together and separate, when I can get him off of it, that I decided to go for the expansion. We still enjoy playing the hot seat together as well as separately conquering the game.

This new installment adds some more features and characters to it. Which equates to more fun. New leaders add another bit of that fun spice to the game. Graphics are awesome. We use an iMac and love the way the whole thing looks. We have watched all of the "wonders" videos and still find that we like to re-watch them every time we play.

For people who enjoy strategy games this is a must as far as expansion packs go. If you don't have Civ IV yet get it and enjoy it.

I gave this game 4 stars for the fact that there is always room to expand.

Terrible, until Aspry decides to support this game...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: January 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Im going to start by saying that the Mac port compared to the windows version is ok at best. What I am truly frustrated by is the lack of support Aspyr is placing in its software. I bought this game with the intention of playing multiplayer with my friends, all of which own PC's and were able to buy the gold edition for half what I payed. Regardless, I put up the absorbent amount of money for this three year old game and attempted to play multiplayer with my friends. To my dismay I discovered that Mac users were not allowed to play multiplayer with PC users because Aspyr has not released a patch compatible with the windows patch 2.13. To make matters worse I also discovered that gamespy is no longer supporting the internet play of the Mac version. So even when the patch is finally released I will only be able to play direct IP connect. After learning this crucial information I called Aspyr support to find out if they plan on releasing a patch soon so I could make my $80 investment worth while. But to no avail, the tech support told me that the incompetent Aspyr "is working on it" but have no definite date for release. The final nail of the metaphoric coffin was the fact that Mac users could also not get the latest Expansion beyond the sword. What makes it even more offensive is the fact that Aspyr has no plans of releasing this half year old expansion pack in the future. Please heed my advise and do not buy this game until Aspyr gets their act together!!!

Civ 4 compared to Civ 3

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: September 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have never been good at math, but I am good at following the numbers. Civ 1,2, and 3 were good in one regard, it was easy to follow and understand the relationship with production and income and stuff like this. However I find it hard to follow Civ 4. Maybe I haven't played it often enough to grasp it. Half of the time I bang out wonders for the sake of keeping them from the other players when I can. Most of the time I do not grasp what the wonder is doing exactly. For the most part I am reflecting on what it did in Civ two and three.

It is a good game overall. But the heavy changes to the game make it a little confusing at times. A few of the changes I do like, but over all I feel they changed too much from the others.

The things I do like are:
* When you put a unit on automatic it tends to accomplish what I wanted it to do a little better than older versions.
* I like that mountains block travel altogether so you can use it as an impassable wall when making a map.
* Combat is a little fairer; I remember times in Civ 3 when a barbarian will kill an army of 4 modern tanks with a club.

The things I do not like are:
* The city info screen does not provide as much useful info as it did in Civ 3.
* The change in the graphics are cool but a pain in the @$$ to get use to. It provides the game with a whole different feel.
* The game does quit out from time to time. I'm a Mac Tech on a new Intel 24" iMac and I haven't figured out why. (Note: in a 8 hour session I would expect it to unexpectedly quit at least one time but the auto save prevents me from louse the game.)
* After a wile of running I need to quit the game and reload because it slows down. After I reload the game it runs a lot smoother.

Great game but terrible programming

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Civ IV is a a lot of fun. Similar to old PC games like Master of Magic.
Unfortunately, the Mac version is moderately buggy. Let me count the ways:

1) Audio glitches. Occasionally an old sound will seemingly 'stay in the buffer' as an annoying buzz for several minutes.

2) Video. After playing for a few hours some of the terrain improvements turn completely black. Restarting the game works for this one.

3) Video. After a few hours it gets slow and the video glitches. The menus become partially unreadable. Restarting also works here and there is no noticeable corruption of the autosave files.

4) Complete Crash. Several times I have had my whole machine lock up when playing in full screen mode. Its interesting in that its not a complete freeze, but instead the mouse slows down to 1/100 of its normal speed. However, I am unable to exit the game at this point and am forced to Hold Down the Power Button !!! to hardware restart. This is atrocious and the only program I know of that actually crashes the OS.

I have a 2.4 GHz iMac Intel Duo with 2 GB of RAM and running Tiger.

Good but getting a little too ripe

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: July 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a classic game I have been playing for years. I recently switched to Mac so I had to buy it again. It's not quite as stable as the PC version and in any case the game is overdue for updating.

Love this game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

An improvement over the original.. Can't play online with the game... but i don't care..

A good addition

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: May 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game add interesting and elaborate scenarios plus new leaders and civilizations.
For lovers of Civi it's a must have.

Great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My sons have spent hours creating their civilizations. This game seems to be very entertaining.

Will not run and Amazon will not help

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I received this program and loaded it into my Mac Book. The software gives an error message when starting up and cannot use. I tried to contact Amazon but they do not answer and make it very difficult to find them. I had no option but to begin a dispute through American Express.

A waste of time and money.

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