midwestrocker's Full Review: Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Gold Edition for Wind...
Civilization IV is magic. That's the only explanation I can come up with. It's not the biggest game ever, it's certainly not the most varied. The sound is alright and the graphics are okay. But somehow, this thing will steal your soul. Maybe it's the subject matter; maybe the desire of conquest is built into the human mind. Maybe it's the power rush that comes with being able to control an entire nation. Maybe subliminal messaging is involved. I don't really know how it happens, but you will become addicted to this game. That is a guarantee.
For The Newbies
This game is a turn-based strategy game. You are the supreme leader of a nation from the beginning to the... well, the game doesn't really have an end, but we'll discuss that later. You start the game with a settler, which you can use to build your first city. Once you choose where you want that city, your capital, the settler will plop itself down and become your city. Right away you'll see how many turns it will take for the city to grow and how many it will take to build the things that city is capable of building at this time. Here's where your choices begin... what would you like to build, my friend?
Now, for those of you who don't quite understand "turns," your turn is the period you get to make your decisions. It's when you can move your units (each has a set amount of tiles it can move per turn, but this varies when roads and railroads are involved), set what your cities will build, decide what technology you want to research, and deal with other countries. Your turn ends when you want it to, and then your rivals get their turns. They can do everything you can do. They can research things, make deals with other countries, and, most importantly, attack you. And that's when the real nail-biting, gut-wrenching fun begins.
You win the game in several ways. You can win the game by conquering the entire world, or by having more culture in your cities than every one else. You can win the game by being the first civilization to build a spaceship, or by being the leader of the United Nations. Finally, you can win by being the most dominant country or simply by having the highest score at the end of the year 2050. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Trust me, it is.
For The Veterans
There are a few notable changes to this game from Civilization III. The first that comes to mind is religion. there are six religions in the game, and you can found them by discovering the related technology. For instance, if you're the first civilization to discover "Meditation," you found Buddhism in one of your cities. This city becomes the "Holy City" of that religion. From there, you can spread your religion to all the other nations of the world and unite them under a common flag of peace. But that almost never happens. Usually other people found their own religions, and dislike you because you have a different one. A lot of early wars are fought because close civilizations have two different religions as the state religion. I know you're thinking "This sounds a bit too much like real life," but somehow you forget about all that.
And by "all that" I don't mean religious war. I mean "real life."
A second notable change is the new "Great Person." Depending on what "Great Wonders" you've built in you city and a couple other specifics I won't discuss here, you'll generate different Great People points. For instance, if you build the Oracle, you generate "Great Prophet" points. When you get enough of them your city generates a "Great Prophet," who can be used to contribute lots of research to a technology, or found the special wonder for your religion (which is a huge benefit in the game). Great People (particularly the Great Prophet) can have a huge effect, changing the whole tide of the game in some cases.
Those are the only really big changes in the game, but there are tons of tweaks and smaller changes that have really improved gameplay. The only negative change is in the diplomatic process. There are certain things that the AI won't even put on the table, like trading certain technologies or declaring war on certain people. It really limits the way the game can be played, but it is a bit more realistic. After all, in Civ III you could have made Canada declare war on the U.S. for the right amount of money, and that just wouldn't happen in real life. I hope.
Graphics, Sound, and Leonard Nimoy
The graphics in this game are leaps and bounds ahead of Civ III. It's in 3-D, with the ability to zoom as you wish and view the map in three angles. That doesn't sound like much, but to a Civ fan it's mind blowing. There's even a "Globe View" which let's you see the whole world the way an astronaut would.
The sound is tolerable. It's fun to zoom in to a forest and hear birds chirping, but the notification noises, although useful and important, can get quite annoying. You hear horns every time one of your units engages in combat, and you hear a little tune every time your religion spreads. Plus, the music is not stable. Sometimes you hear it, sometimes you don't. I think it depends on when you discover the technology "Music," but I'm not sure. By far the greatest part of the sound of this game is the narrator: Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. He reads you a related quote for every technology discovered, he narrates each game's intro movie, and he provides for a funny little gag with the foreign leaders (I won't ruin it for you).
War! What is it good for?
Numerous things, in this game. It takes a little while to figure out the mechanics of war, but when you do you'll definitely appreciate it. War is the way you gain strength over your neighbors, and the way you progress to three of the six possible victories. Of course it's not necessary, but you'll find your experiences in this game a little dull if you don't switch it up every once in a while. You should go into one game planning on conquering the world, and you should go into another planning to own it without firing a shot. It takes a while to get bored with this game, but if you keep using the same strategy, on the same map, with the same couple of civilizations as some people do, it's possible. That's why it's important to try different strategies. I say this because I used to be someone who avoided war and focused on nation building. I didn't win very quickly, but it was still fun. I've discovered recently though that the thrill of conquest also has it's appeal. Overrunning your rivals and burning down their cities can be quite the release.
You have friends? What's that like? (Multi-Player)
In all honesty, I've never used multi-player before. The single player game is just so robust that I've never needed any more. But if I had someone around me in real life who wanted to play I'd use the nifty new "Hot-seat" game, which allows you to play with two or more human players (and some computer players) on the same computer.
Problems
You knew there had to be some. First of all, there have been quite a few technical glitches reported. I've only experienced a couple, and they aren't worth avoiding the game for. Just make sure you patch your game up as soon as possible. Secondly, there aren't too many scenarios that come packaged with the game. I guess they're assuming you'll go online to find some scenarios to download, but that can be a bewildering experience for newbies and it would have been nice to have a good many well-built scenarios already installed. Finally, one of the game's more overlooked problems is also one of its strengths. The game never really ends. You could play a game, presumable, forever. There is no end, and there is no pressure to play the game in a particular way or with particular speed. This means people only do what they want to do. This doesn't sound so bad, but like I mentioned before there are people who'll do the same things over and over and over again because they're easier and more comfortable. They have no reason to change, and they're going to get bored with the game relatively quickly. But it's just something to avoid; this isn't a problem they could change. If you were forced to play the game in a different way every once in a while, it just wouldn't be the same.
Bottom Line
If you like computer games at all, buy this game. That's it. If you have any computer game, you have to have this one. It's not necessarily the end-all-be-all of PC games, but it is definitely something to experience. But remember, before you do...
Say goodbye to your family and friends. You won't be seeing them for a while.
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