Sid Meier's Civilization IV previews

In civ 4 cannot view the cities like civ 3 used to. at the end of a game nothing much really happens! graphics could be a bit better than they are . all in all civ 4 is a great game , just needs more work into it.

At last!

A version of Civilization that will cripple my PC. I have so longed to see the Roman Colliseum rendered as an Octogan – who needs the detailed circular shape enjoyed by the 2D renderings of old.

Low polygon rendering is where it's at, and I am overjoyed that the best strategy game of all time is moving to this lesser artform.

Okay, if you can't already tell I'm not too thrilled at getting a 3D version of a Civilization game. Seeing the Colliseum rendered as an Octagon breaks my heart, well not really but it is disappointing.

Gameplay is where it's at though, and Civilization IV does not disappoint.

Point off for going to the less detailed 3D format.

This is a fun game and the best of the Civ series. It takes a little getting used to so give it a chance before you put it down – your patience will be rewarded.

It's one of those games where you can start playing at 8pm at night, and keep playing all the way through the night until the sun comes up – don't laugh, I do it often!

My main gripe is that unless your PC is 3.0ghz or faster with a Nvidia 7800 or equivalent graphics card you are going to find this game runs slow.

My laptop is a 2.13ghz Centrino with ATI X600 graphics – the game runs very slowly on it.

Also make sure you download and install the latest update patch – out of the box the game wouldnt run for me, but patched it works fine.

If you have an ATI video card, expect some serious problem getting this game to run at all. Major issues.

The gameplay follows the old precepts, but it's been done over in a good and refreshing way. Diplomacy is much better than before. You have many options on how you govern your empire, in a way similar to what you can do, policy-wise, in Alpha Centauri. Units get experience and promotions and you can customize them as you see fit – for city defence, for fighting in woods, for attacking certain types of units. You can get units started with bonus experience – the possibilities are plentiful. I like this one much better than Civ3, not at least because the annoying “corruption” is gone, and the micromanagement is reduced to a happy medium. You pay maintenance on cities, not buildings: build too many cities and you can bankrupt yourself!

Alas, 3/4 of the way through a game things get very unstable. Crashes which never seem to happen in the early game become a regular occurence. The demands the game places on the hardware and operating system are ridiculous, considering it's a turn based strategy game. What did they have to use a bleeding edge 3d engine for – it breaks the game. I do hope they will patch the problems – I expect after another few crashes I will shelve the game indefinitely until it gets fixed. Loading times are insane (minutes) and two or three crashes in an hour are a killer.

In the meantime, until they fix it, I would recommend you hang on to your dollars unless you are keen on lots of frustration.

5 out of 5 stars for gameplay, only 1 star for technical issues, sadly.