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PC | Strategy | Civilization IV

Boxart for Civilization IV
Civilization IV 87 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 3.5
  • SOUND: 4.0
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 4.5
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.3
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.7
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Review: Civilization IV

Review by Boba Fatt | 11/22/2005 | 17:45:37 PM PST

The best Civilization yet... but it's still only a glimmer of what it could be.

Sid Meier's epic turn-based franchise returns with a far more drastic overhaul than any of its previous sequels, setting the series on a path toward greater accessibility. This is the best Civilization yet... but it's still only a glimmer of what it could be.

Rise of Nations
The concept is simple. As in all Civilization games, you and your opponents start by building a village. While expanding to claim land on the map, you simultaneously manage your existing cities by improving their culture, research, and workload. The game starts in the year 4000 B.C. and runs through 2050 A.D. As the Stone Age gives way to the space age, you'll develop, engage in research, and upgrade from crude catapults to stealth bombers.

The real strategy, however, rests in your diplomatic relations--how are you going to share the map with your opponents? There are six solutions for victory, ranging from the diplomatic approach to full-on military conquest. You can even win a technological victory by being the first to send a manned capsule to Alpha Centauri.

Technological Deficits...
Civ IV takes the game board to the world of 3D, so your units move and fight more realistically. In a nice touch, their models even reflect the damage they incur. This is a fantastic improvement to the genre and makes the game far more enjoyable, but in all fairness, this game is still leagues behind current visual standards. Civ IV's aural package includes insightful and amusing quotes from Leonard Nimoy, complimented by an inspiring score and crisp sound effects that are always appropriate but never impressive.

...Lead to Strategic Superiority
Sid Meier and his Civilization development crew know that this game isn't about audiovisual bells and whistles, however, and they focused their improvements right in the heart of the matter: the gameplay.

If God is in the details, Civilization is the high priest of video games. Each of your cities has a complicated details screen that allows you to micromanage things like trade routes and development concentrations. Civ IV's greatest improvement is that it drastically simplifies this interface: easier difficulty levels allow you to bypass this screen altogether, while still enjoying a compelling experience.

Thanks to a new RTS-style interface, units and cities can be moved, adjusted and brought into battle with simple mouse clicks on main screen menus. It feels like every element of the interface has been simplified or improved, making the franchise more accessible and intuitive. The vastly improved multiplayer mode, meanwhile, includes a play by email, in case you want to play a match out over a few days.

Civilization IV leaves little to want from fans of the franchise and makes vast inroads towards accessibility for newbies. There are still some strange sticking points--buried icons or inexplicable quirks--that leave room for improvement, and a more complete tutorial would also be helpful. But in the end, this is the tightest Civ yet.


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