ernietwerbel's Full Review: Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Gold Edition for Wind...
I am a die-hard Civilization fan since Civilization I. Naturally, I pre-ordered Civ IV in September 2005, and have been playing it ever since I got it.
CivIV is an "easy to learn, tough to master" type of game. Needless to say, it will keep you up at night playing well into the next morning if you let it. Self-control is a must, of which I have very little. I am now a (proud) slave to this game, and am loving every bit of it!
GRAPHICS
Most noticablly, of course is the shift from a pseudo-3D bitmap-based interface to a complete 3D game engine. The map is highly detailed and lifelike, with aminated units, animals, and other features. The realism of the oceans and shorelines is astounding!
One of my favorite features is the realism of the cities. Cities are no longer depicted as icons, but in fact become integrated as part of the game map. You can zoom in to the city and see the individual buildings. In other words, every improvment and wonder of the world that you build in a city appears as part of the world map itself!
GAMEPLAY
CivIV totally overhauls the traditional "build as much as possible and overwhelm your opponents" style of gameplay. There are many new concepts that will take some time in getting used to. One of the most noticable is the revampment of the corruption/waste system, which instead now imposes a maintainence fee on all cities. This fee increases with the number of cities and their distance from your capital, among other factors. Thus, it follows that expanding one's empire too quickly will result in running your economy into the ground, possibly beyond all hope of recovery.
Another major overhaul is in military units and combat. The old style of building a 100+ unit stack and swarming your opponents won't be the most effective strategy here. Not only will multiple units suffer "collateral damage" but having a monotonous army of similar units will not be effective in the long run. Victrious units can be given "promotions," which allow them special offensive and defenvive bonuses toward specific types of units. Thus, if you regularly use the same type of offensive strategy, your opponents will get wise to this rather quickly, and upgrade their armies accordingly. This has a cascading effect, which will in turn, diminish the return of the same unit types. That said, the most effective militaristic strategies will incorporate suprise and flexibility. To sum it up, don't put all of your eggs in one basket, as they say.
A totally new and important addition to the game is the implementation of religion. Once players found religions, they can contruct religious improvements (temples, cathedrals, etc.) to keep the populace happy. What's more, players can contruct monestaries, and in turn, produce "priest" units to spread their religion(s) to other cities throughout the world. This provides benefits in two major ways. First, spreading your religion throughout your own cities allows you to build religious improvments in those cities to maintain happiness. Second, spreading your religion to other civilizations' cities (provided you control the "holy city" where the religion is founded) gives you a "line-of-sight" in those cities, allowing you to keep an eye on what your opponents are up to.
The concept of "great people" has been taken from CivIII and tailored a bit. In CivIII, "grat leaders" would arise from military victories. In CivIV, wonders, certain improvements, and specialists in a city contribute "great people points." When enough point accumulate, the city produces a "great person" unit that may be used to provide either an instant or ongoing benefit to the player's civilization.
SOUND
The game designers truly went above and beyond in this category. First of all, the game features hours of beautifully-composed soundtracks, which never become tiring. My favorite is the music of the ancient era. Ths music is in MP3 format, which allows you to play the soundtrack even out-of-game in Windows Media Player.
Sound effects are incredible. If you crank up the volume through a sound system, it will sound like a war is going on right in your own living room! Also, ambient sound are very well-incorporated as well, from birds chirping when near forests, to ocean breezes, and dry, desert winds. The ambient sounds change depending on what terrain you are close to, providing a truly immersive experience!
MULTIPLAYER
One simply cannot get a truly fulfilling CivIV gaming experience without playing online. Multiplayer mode through the GameSpy server is a blast! You can meet people from all around the world, and the play is quite smooth even on a DSL connection. What's more, the game are hosted on the GameSpy server, so players may come and go without worrying about the game crashing, even if the "host" player leaves. There are occasional issues regarding dropoffs and people forgetting to push the "end turn" button, but all in all the multiplayer mode is a truly invigorating gam,ing experience that simply cannot be topped!
STABILITY
Overall, I find the game to be quite stable, although it occasionally will freeze when I zoom out all the way. Once in a blue moon the game may crash, but I find this only happens with large maps, late into the game. That said, I am currently on a Radeon 9000 64-MB video card, which is pretty bare minimum nowadays for gaming, so I would have to say the game holds up pretty well considering these circumstances.
ESRB Rating: E10 - Everyone 10+Genre: StrategyFeatures: Rule throughout time and create your own legacy as you guide your civilization from the dawn o...More at Newegg.com
Welcome to Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization®. Colonization is a game of discovery, conquest and revolution. It chronicles the European col...More at NVIDIA
Sid Meier's Civilization IV is the ultimate strategy game offering you the chance to lead your chosen nation from the dawn of man through the Space Ag...More at Microsoft Store
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2010 Shopping.com, Inc.