The world spins slowly, only inches away from your grasp. You imagine a world of peace, of beauty and of patience… oh and, you rule it. That sounds great, and very familiar… ala the classic game of Civilization returns in Civilization IV. Anyone that has played Civilization, knows that 2K Games and Firaxis Games are going to need to do something revolutionary in order to re-build its audience of Civilization fans. New art, new sound, new gameplay elements, improved AI and adding in a few new unit types just aren’t going to make it worth the time or money, especially with all of the clones out there that provide a unique and memorable experience.



Making a fourth title on a brand that would appear to be fairly drained of possibilities is a challenge, and it appears that they’re pulling in the big guns and taking a cliffhanger leap with their overhaul of the title, apparently following the mantra of “bring the world to life”. Let’s dig into some of these changes, shall we?

It’s a large world after all

The biggest change that was made to Civilization IV is the UI (User Interface), camera perspective and unit models. The world actually looks like the globe – you can spin around from one side of the world to the other through a few movements of the mouse. Select the region you’d like to view and it will provide a closer look at what’s happening in that area. The designers have ensured that players are able to see exactly what is happening in cities – whether it may be through structures, units or wonders.



Graphs and charts appear on the globe to show what’s happening in the world so you can get around quicker. Even combat animations have taken on clear visuals on what happens during battle from attacks to retreating – Final Fantasy style.

Awakening Religion

Something that has been added to the game is religion, which introduces some significant changes in gameplay. You can create temples and shrines to promote growth in cities, use them to build relationships with other countries and even use them to gain intelligence or funding. I found it interesting that many of the other journalists in the Civilization IV demo that were with me expressed concerns about the fact that religion has been added and the affects it would make on people who played the game or belonged to the religions in real-life. I guess time will tell on how that turns out – but really, it’s a game and the developers assured us that they are simply following historical data on religions.

Great People Think Alike

Great People are new units in Civilization IV that have made a significant change in our history, such as Einstein, etc. that can make powerful changes for your civilization – such as getting a free technology or an engineer that can help you finish a building that you’ve been working on. These Great People are a one-time use only, so you’ll want to use them wisely.

Join the Ranks

Your combat units can now be promoted depending on their records in the game. As they fight and become successful, you can promote them and customize them – adding a bit of an RPG element to the game. This gives you a unique connection between you and your units, and allows you to build a much more powerful army than your opponent(s).

Unique Experiences

CIV fans alike will be happy to hear is that the Tech Tree system has gone back to the tech tree from the original Civilization – with a few improvements that make it easy to use and find the information you need. Depending on the tech branch you focus on, you’ll have a unique experience each time you play if you change your tech plans. On top of that, you have 18 civilizations and 20 different leaders – some civilizations have two leaders to choose from which forces you to change up your strategy a bit. For instance – if you’re up against Napoleon, build lots of defenses.



Casual gamers will love the next feature - if you don’t have a whole lot of time to play or don’t care much for a certain era, you can use arrow points which let you skip eras so you can play ina shorter amount of time. You can also – as with most games – increase game speed to speed things up a bit.

Conquer the World… or just make a new game What’s to come is the biggest eye-opener is that Civilization will have full mod support – which consists of 4 different layers:



1) Worldbuilder

This is self-explanatory – build your own world and more.



2) XML

Change values for anything and everything inthe game. You don’t even need to re-load the game for those values to come into effect – just change the XML and switch your view back to the game.



3) Python

Use the Python language to script all popups and other elements of the game. This makes things much easier for those who don’t quite have C++ experience.



4) On top of all of that, they will be releasing the source code for the game… talk about a big move. When they told me this, I had to confirm with them what I was hearing since I thought I was hearing things. I asked them if they were worried about other clones – they aren’t. They are very confident that this is a good move for them – we’ll see!

Multiplayer Haps

Civilization IV will support multiplay with GameSpy, play-by-email, team games and team co-op.



The way to go

As you can see, Civilization IV is really only the beginning to next generation games. Do you think perhaps next we’ll be seeing The Sims AI in Civilization style games? Who knows – other than that open-source is the way to go as we have seen with the success of many platforms we use today. I’ll definitely be giving Civilization IV a try when it comes out before Christmas this year.