Civilization IV: Complete reviews

Strictly speaking, if they had just packed Beyond the Sword with the engine, it would've been quite enough, thanks. I understand there is _some_ content from the Warlords expansion that didn't make it into ‘BtS’ and maybe I will look into that some day – maybe.

The appearance is familiar. The mechanisms are familiar. There are a few additions, like an espionage-as-civ production to chose from alongside money, research, culture. There are new buildings and so on. But the really exciting thing are the mods, and there are lots of them at www.civfanatics.com. Some are even included on the CD, like Final Frontier. But there are others, like MOO2Civ and Fall From Heaven 2 that completely change the appearance and feel of the Civ engine. Highly recommended.

I'd like to point out that I had some issues. I had to download the latest patches for BtS manually and install them, the autopatcher failed to do anything. I also had to download the DirectX August2008 patch from Microsoft, or the game would crash trying to start a game in some of the mods. But now it's fine and I am too busy playing to write much more here …

The other review said it all, so I won't bother with the details.

Like he mentioned, there is some trouble patching because of the way it installs the expansions (different than if you bought them separately, they're all in one folder), and the auto-patcher is completely useless. Also some people have reported trouble getting the latest BtS patch to work with the Complete version at all, but the version found here is meant to work around this issue – http://www.bigdownload.com/…rd-317-patch

I updated it using the above and everything worked fine, so if you have any issues getting it up to date give it a try. Besides that no complaints, it's Civ so you probably know what you're in for by now, and if you don't… well, prepare to lose hours upon hours playing without even realising it. :)

Fantastic Game, Having really honestly played the first civilization, and enjoying that so much…This one takes the cake, it's difficult to master for a novice like me but really addictive, defiantly 2 thumbs up

Installed fine, works great under Win7. The game with all expansions – great value.

I ahve long held Civ 3 – Conquests to be the ultimate Civilization title, and only bought this once it was on a storming deal. I now wish I had acquired it much earlier, though as the first reviewer said, you will only really be wanting to play Beyond the Sword content. The cultural dynamic from 3 is carried over, though diminished by my observation. You are at least able to see a percentage value on tiles as to their cultural influence, and normal tiles will flip to you at >50%. Cities however I found hardly ever flipped. They begin to have a chance to revolt over 50% of your influence, but success is not guaranteed, and I had the influence of one city at 80% and still no success, well after I had won the game (ironically by cultural victory).

The introduction of the Religion dynamic, along with corporations in modern times, adds yet another level to the complexity. Ignore at your peril, as both, though especially the former, can vastly improve your empire's success.

Another excellent addition is that of the Espionage points system, though I found actually performing missions using spies to be nigh useless unless you really dedicated yourself to it, at the expense of culture and science funding. But the passive abilities of seeing opponent research and city stats can be an invaluable tool, with only moderate outlay.

Perhaps my biggest disappointment is the trouble I encountered with the multiplayer engine. Trying to play both LAN and Direct IP games with my wife, we continually encountered Out Of Sync errors, even after turning off random encounters, reducing world size, and clearing the game cache as advised by forum posts. The only remedy was for one player to exit to menu and rejoin, which disrupts play somewhat when needing to do so every single turn, as is often the case. Hot Seat play is still available, thankfully, but with the obvious drawbacks.

Overall however, it is a triumph for the Civ franchise, and one wonders how they could possibly improve it in the upcoming Civ 5. Unless multiplayer is problem free, I will certainly likely repeat my buying pattern of remaining happy with Civ 4 – BTS until Civ 5 and its inevitable addons are available in a similar package to this.

For those of you like me who keep clear of strategy games because you can't keep up with everything happening at once this turn based game is really good. You can go at your own pace and being in turns helps you keep up with everything that is going on.

great game and got it at a really good price i would still say that this game is better than CIV5 with or without the expansion but all round 5 star turn based game (YES A 5 STAR TURN BASED GAME!!!!!!!)

I will recommend to anybody looking to buy a PC game

(via Mighty Ape as they have really good service) =)

Time seems to fly when your playing this game, So much do to, and even more fun when playing against other humans.

The level of detail in the units will surprise you, zoom all the way in and you will be surpised by what you see.

Bought myself a new laptop and thought I would get the latest version. Still as good as ever.

This was my introduction to the Civilization series and I was amazed by this game. It took a while to master but I love all the different paths you can take. There is still heaps of content left for me to explore and I'm looking forward to it.

This is the first time I have played any of the Civilazation games, and I loved it. I spent hours planning out my empire and working my way up through the levels of difficulty and I have found one that is really challenging for me. When I first started exploring the expansion packs and scenarios I began to really see the depth of the game. It has endless replayability, there is still so much for me to explore and I haven't even started playing multiplayer games online yet. There are tonnes of customisable features and new things I am learning every time I play. I definitely recommend this game and I look forward to the future of this series.

This Collection of the original game and the two expansion packs serves to make this great game better. The added avenues of the two expansions add to game play and replayability while the Mods allow for a different take. Only problem i have is some of the mods are hard to get into due to no real explainations of the differences.

This game is a classic which has come through 4 versions and has the typical expansions that come with a successful game. If you like turn based strategy that can be drilled down into the details, then this is the game for you. I've been playing the Civilisation series since Civ II, and hope to see another version in time.

I have spent more time on the Civilization games (Amiga and PC) than any other games combined. Easily the best games I have played.

Civ4 introduced all sorts of new ideas which only increased the “just one-more turn” game-play of it's predecessors.

And before you know it the sun is rising again! Damn, better get ready for work:D

Excellent Game, something that you cant just stop, you have to play that extra turn. Some new additions with the addons only add extra topping to a great game.

Great game, very addictive.