Sid's Legendary Civ Enters a Golden Age

Author's Rating:

Pros: Excellent additions like religion, civics and great people. A return to good old Civ values.

Cons: Can bog down a little late in the game.

The Bottom Line: 
Long have devoted Civ fans waited for an entry to match the life-dominating addictiveness of Civ 1. Civ 4 doesn't quite do that, but it comes very close.

Author's Review
Civilization isn't a game - It's a way of life. That's how I felt into the third year of regular play of gaming demigod Sid Meier's original classic.

In the intervening years since the release of the original Civ, there have been more expansion packs and new entries in the series than you could reasonably hope to poke a stick at. Somehow though, despite numerous improvements in detail and realism, nothing has ever quite captured the honest to goodness addictiveness the original game was so endowed with. Never did I feel myself utterly unable to tear myself away, just staying up for that one last turn before bed-time. Civlization 2 was, despite rave reviews, little more than added bloat and move from 2D, to isometric for the sake of it, while the third installment was a great improvement, yet still somehow lacking.

The most recent game, Civlization 4, despite an array of bells and whistles that condemn the original to the stone age, doesn't quite recapture that pure addictiveness, but it comes close - much closer than any Civ sequel has managed so far.


Graphics and Sound

No longer does the 3D feel like a misguided attempt to "get with the times". I have always felt that sometimes simple is better and have long railed against the lack of a 2D gameboard style option for Civ sequels. This time though the essence of a Civ world is captured beautifully, and the isometric view is intuitive and actually streamlines play rather than jumble and confuse the action as I felt the second game had. Units are simply, yet pleasantly drawn, cities look like cities should and the perfect balance has been struck between pretty and functional.

In game music is pleasantly understated and sound is overall very good, with all the suitable spot effects during movement, combat, construction you would expect. There's a rather enjoyable turn by Leonard Nimoy as the in-game narrator every time a new piece of technology is discovered, adding atmosphere to discoveries that, lets face it, we all just clicked through to get on with the game in the past.


Game Improvements

Civilization 4 scores over the earlier, less ambitious sequels with a number of innovative ideas. The addition of religion to the game, perhaps a bit of a hot potato in the past, is a truly wonderful new element. Religions are founded in various places around the world and now provide and important part of international relations, as competing faiths rail against each other or nations attempt to convert their heathen neighbours. There's also a neat feature which sees a city pivotal in the researching of the new religion being named the "holy city" of that particular faith and becoming imbued with benefits for the true believers.

Also introduced newly here is the "great person" feature, which allows for the birth of exceptional people from history around the world. The civilization into which these people are born may utilize them in a variety of ways, depending on their speciality. These benefits range from military, to specialization in their field inside a chosen city, or even the mundane yet immensely helpful quick building of a portion of an important construction. There's also the possibility to use these heroes to trigger a golden age of prosperity for your people.


In addition to wholly new features, the game mechanics we have long been familiar with make a lot more sense. The whole government type system has been completely reworked in such a way that makes for a much more complex and less cookie cutter operation. There's now a number of civic functions within each government, each of which can take it's own policy path. Civ 4 is decidedly un-PC, with slavery with all its connotations and impact being a possible path for your labour civic to follow.

Finally it has been realised that instantly being able to change construction of a building to a different type of building without any sort of penalty is a bit silly. Now if you are halfway through building the pyramids and some other pesky people finish the thing one round before you, it is no longer a simple click of a button situation to change to a different wonder at the same stage of construction, with significant penalties in resource points from the current construction subtracted for each change. This makes good sense to me, the idea presumably being that all the materials could be salvaged from an abandoned project, but the construction would have to start anew - The retention of some of the progress reflects this situation.

Diplomacy is greatly improved this time around. It also makes a great deal more sense. You won't have war declared on you seemingly at random every five minutes anymore because just how your opponents feel about you will be pretty clear during negotiations. Hairs are certainly not split when it comes to discussions over just how one civilization feels about another. You might be allied with a bitter enemy, or even be trading with that enemy. Perhaps your religion is distasteful to this other tribe, or they disapprove of one or more of your civic policies.
The final improvement of note is the change from the predictable advancement of your military units from regular to veteran etc, to a new system which allows for greater flexibility and customization of your army. In addition to now being able to tailor your units to be better at specific tastes such as laying siege to, or defending a city, units have been made more versatile with a doing away of the old base attack/defence statistic.


Weaknesses

To be honest I didn't really find any significant weakness in Civ 4. It's true that like the playable Civ 3, games tend to bog down a little as you enter the modern age, with great temptation to start again rather than return to a save game, but this is a minor complaint.

The stability of the game has been questioned by many reviewers and although I didn't encounter significant issues myself, there are a number of patches available that should be applied before any play takes place.


Coming to the Crunch

When the dust settled on my early impressions and marveling at the improvements seen in Civilization 4 I was left well satisfied with what I view as the closest thing to a return to the halcyon days of Civ 1. This is the first time logical and technical innovation have managed to truly go hand in hand with playability. Finally the now ancient and simple DOS game that kept strategy gaming tragics like myself roped to our computers has a rival. I'll have to admit, the magic is there - perhaps not quite to the same extent and without quite the enduring hook, but this is a Civilization entry which richly rewards fans of the series who have remained loyal throughout, as well as being an enticing new experience for newcomers.