Civilization IV Review

Rare is the game with a “IV” at the end of its name. There just aren’t that many game series with a design that stands the test of time and that can keep bringing players back for each new version. Well standing the test of time is something that is right up Civilization’s alley. What better game to do so than one that spans the entire history of mankind from the Stone Age to the Space Age and beyond? Now we find ourselves on the threshold of a new age with the dawn of Civilization IV. Will it join its predecessors in the annals of history as a new classic? The short answer is “yes”, for the long answer read on…

It’s entirely possible that you’ve never played a Civilization game before, so first I’ll take a few sentences to explain the basic concept of the game for those who are new to the series. Civilization IV is a turn-based strategy game that places you at the reins of one of history’s great civilizations. Starting with a band of nomadic settlers, you must found cities, research new technology, and expand your empire’s borders, economy, culture, and wealth. Of course you’re not alone in the world, and diplomacy is a large component of the game as you try to keep your rivals at bay … or under your heel. The scope of the game is all encompassing; at the start of the game you’ll have a single city and a few spearmen and, if you’re good enough to survive, you’ll build your way up to a continent-spanning empire armed with nuclear weapons. One of the great things about the game is that it gives you so much leeway in developing your civilization and choosing a path to pursue. You can become a conqueror, a peacemaker, an economic powerhouse, or pursue a combination of these paths or something entirely different. It is totally up to you. The gameplay is addicting and long stretches of time will fly by as you’re playing. You’ll always be working your way toward several short term goals and find yourself with an endless supply of reasons to play just one more turn before quitting. And that is Civilization in a nutshell, now let’s have a look at what’s new in Civilization IV.

On the whole Civilization IV is a lot slicker and faster playing than its predecessors. This is not to say that it is a shallower game – the opposite is probably true. Rather, the interface has been streamlined and the dead time spent waiting for the computer-controlled civilizations to make their moves has been reduced. The move to true 3D graphics has helped with empire management by making it possible to zoom in on your cities or pull the camera all the way back to view your empire from space – not even to mention how good everything looks on the colorful and animated world map. You can manage your cities’ production queues right from the world map, and icons on the map let you see the status of your cities at a glance. When an event occurs in one of your cities that is currently offscreen, an icon appears on the edge of the screen to let you where to quickly find the event if you need to respond to it. All of this means less time spent popping in and out of detail and graph screens and more time spent planning your strategies. The detail and graph screens are there if you need them, but you only have to visit them if you really want to do so.

The game’s combat system has been reworked to prevent the infamous “spearman defeats tank” scenario that could occur in earlier games in the series. In addition, as units win battles and gain experience they will receive upgrade awards. These upgrades give various bonuses to your unit such as greater strength while fighting in the mountains or the ability to heal other units away from your cities. Since you’ll be given a choice of upgrades when a unit levels up, you can customize them to fit your play style or suit your current needs. The battles themselves even look better in Civilization IV – the camera zooms in on the action and you can watch the animated fight as it is waged.

Civilization IV adds an entirely new dynamic to the gameplay by introducing religion. Certain technological advances trigger the founding of a great religion, and if your civilization makes the discovery then you have the option of adopting the religion. Adopting a religion allows you to build religion-specific temples which produce more culture and happiness in the cities in which they are located. Another benefit of adopting a religion is that the religion can spread to cities in neighboring civilizations, making them more susceptible to your influence. Also, it is easier to manage your diplomatic relations with civilizations of the same religion. The religion component of the game does not upset the balance of play and you can easily play a game without paying much attention to it – there is no religion-based victory option in the game. However, it does add an interesting aspect to the gameplay if you want to try and exploit it.

As in Civilization III, culture is important in the game as it drives the expansion of your borders and can even persuade foreign cities to join your empire without the need for you to sling an arrow or fire a shot. New in Civilization IV is the ability of civilizations with strong cultures to produce great people. These great people can emerge as artists, prophets, scientists, or military leaders that can be expended to produce a bonus for your civilization. For example, you can use the artist to create a masterpiece that dramatically increases the culture of the city in which it is created and as a result pushes your borders out farther.

Civilization IV has made your worker units even smarter. Not only can you specify starting and ending points for a road and leave them to connect all the squares in between, you can automate their actions to focus on a particular type of improvement such as fully exploiting the special resources that lie within your borders. There are plenty of new improvements from which to choose, including cottages that can grow into villages and towns and farms that can specialize in animal husbandry. If you liked building your empire before, you’re really going to love doing it now.

Civilization IV includes a multiplayer component that lets you put your civilization building skills to the test against other human opponents. Now games of Civilization can easily span multiple days and multiplayer games are no exception. To get around this kind of time commitment, multiplayer games have a persistent nature in which you can join and leave when you’d like. Computer players pick up for missing humans, or the entire game can be saved and picked up later when human opponents and friends are more readily available to play. Multiplayer can be fun, especially on small maps, but overall I still find the single player game to feel more epic.