• Match wits against world leaders in a quest to build the ultimate empire
• Detailed, living 3D world with animated units and customizable armies
• Flexible tech tree provides more strategic choices for developing civilizations
• Easy-to-use interface; team play offers new way of setting locked alliances
• Single player or multiplayer gameplay options

Civilization IV is recognized as one of the greatest PC game franchises of all-time. Now the fun and incredibly addictive strategy game reaches new heights by adding new ways to play and win -- along with new tools to manage and expand your civilization. Civilization comes to life like never before in a beautifully detailed, living 3D world -- with all-new easy to use mod capabilities and intense multiplayer modes and options. It's a must-have for gamers around the world! Flexible Tech Tree allows players more strategic choices for developing their civilizations Team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading and shared territory Over 70 in-game movies and animated sequences advance the story

There's a trend rooted in graphic technology these days. It seems that people are willing to let their imaginations run wild and turn that into a visual. Sounds good but I've found this method usually distracts from the essense of what a good product is. The biggest examples of this I can immediately cite are the newer Star Wars movies and the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull episode. In both cases the essense is drowned beneath interesting visuals. I feel that way about Civ IV.

I began my interest in the Civ series back at Civ II. Like most I was drawn into many hours of play often of the expense of my mental alertness the next morning. But which is more important: studying to pass some measly English exam or preparing a decent strategy to finally stick it to those (insert enemy civilization, namely those pesky Mogolians) and move on to head a peaceful, productive new world order who might some day consider me "Chris the Magnificent"?

Now Civ 2 wasn't necessarily as easy to grasp as say Pac Man, but it didn't take a PhD either. It is a pretty straight forward, logical game. In my opinion, part of its ease of use comes from it's visual simplicity. Much of what we see on screen symbolizes something else, so why make it complicated? Do three realistic characters represent an army better than a simple single 2D character? I do like the map, but again, the look makes movement tricky. And the whole 'I can't see what I'm near unless I'm there all the time', while realistic (until sattelite development), doesn't give me enough information to play fairly with an AI unit that already knows my every move. On top of this, who doesn't miss the advisors and wonders from Civ 2? I miss real people talking with me and real pictures of what really exist(ed).

I think this game might appeal to those who've never played the earlier versions but for me it seems like a lot of gloss and confusing additions to an already great game. I think the first Activision Civ (Civ III) tried to pick up where CivII finishes but did it so poorly people lost interest. Perhaps Alpha Centauri is where I need to go next as I still haven't found a continuation of Civ II that tops it.

Oh yeah, it'd be nice if they could make a version/patch of Civ II that runs on XP. Talk about being buried in history.

This is a very engaging and addictive game. I stay up night after night FAR past my 'bed time' playing this game. Good stuff

I have no idea how this is averaging only three stars, because Civ IV (along with Beyond the Sword) is without a doubt the most balanced and entertaining turn-based strategy games ever made, and a serious contender for the best PC title released this decade.

This game is not for you if you:
- don't like time-intensive games that you'll almost certainly not finish in one sitting
- don't like strategy games in general and turn-based strategy games in particular

If either of those statements apply to you, don't buy Civilization IV. Otherwise, almost every serious criticism of previous turn-based strategy games has been addressed:
- You can choose to micromanage or simply have the AI take care of city and worker management-- the latter works perfectly fine for the first few difficulty levels. This removes a huge chunk of gameplay that may people find tedious.
- It's possible and oftentimes preferable) to win cultural, religious, or scientific victories. Combat is not a prerequisite to victory, particularly on the lower difficulty levels.
- There are a dozen different randomly generated map types, many difficulty levels, and a wealth of options. The game's extraordinarily replayable... especially since there is quite a bit of third-party, user-generated content you can download.
- The graphics are nice but not good enough that they overwhelm the gameplay or require a state-of-the-art computer.
- Combat is easy to learn but difficult to master.

Basically, just get it and play it if you haven't already.

Provides hours of challenging fun. I like the new additions to the original Civilization 4 game. Its nice to see that spies have returned to the game.

I played the Revolutions demo on Xbox Live and sought a demo on PC and I liked that even more. The product delivered on what was in the demo.

If you don't know the Civilizations series, but you liked Sim City (especially its earlier incarnations) you'll definitely like Civ IV. You can actually get more involved, if you choose, in smaller issues.

On the practical side, there's good and bad. It runs almost perfectly on my Lenovo laptop, unlike the first-person-shooters made by a certain famous rocket-launching individual in Texas. The flaw was that my laptop is wide-screen and the game had to be persuaded to use the screen's 1280x800 native resolution. And there's DRM. Not exactly unheard of but it's the kind of thing that could cause trouble.