Civilization IV is the latest installment in the award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization series. The game is developed by Firaxis Games and is published by 2K Games on October 25, 2005. Firaxis began working on the title about two years ago.
Civilization IV will come to life like never before in a beautifully detailed, living 3D world that will elevate the gameplay experience to a whole new level. Civilization IV has already been heralded as one of the top ten games of 2005, and a must-have for gamers around the globe!.Mac version's Online Multiplayer is no longer supported. Civilization IV. Civilization IV is the latest installment in the award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization series. The game is developed by Firaxis Games and is published by 2K Games on October 25, 2005. Firaxis began working on the title about two years ago. Civilization IV: Directed by Mo Davoudian. With Leonard Nimoy, Sid Meier. Fourth installment in the turn-based strategy series Civilization, adding new tools to manage and expand your civilization, all-new easy to use mod capabilities and intense multiplayer modes and options.
The most prominent change from previous civilization games is the graphics. The game world is now completely 3D. Rivers, resources, and terrain improvements are all animated, making the map come alive like never before. You will also be able to smoothly zoom in from a rotating global view all the way down to the city level, as well as change the camera angle to a Civ2 style isometric view or a Civ1 style top-down view. All city improvements and wonders are now directly visible on the map, so if you build the Pyramid, it will appear within that city’s radius. Fans who missed the Civ2 wonder movies will be happy to know that wonder movies are making a return in Civilization IV! There are about 45 movies total in Civ4.
Of course, graphics is not the only area that received an overhaul. Firaxis has built the game from the ground up and added lots of interesting new features to make the game even more fun to play. Below we will briefly discuss some of the key features:
Civilization 4 Doc
Health
Firaxis is replacing the unfun elements such as corruption, riots, and pollution in previous civ games with better systems. For example, instead of pollution, Civilization IV will have a city health system. Some city improvements reduce the health of city, while some city improvements increase the health. Food resources such as wheat and fish also increase the health of your cities, and they are tradable just like the luxury and strategic resources in Civilization III. Building the city near a source of fresh water will also improve your city health.
Civics
The fixed governments are now replaced by a much more flexible Civics system, somewhat similar to the social engineering system in Alpha Centauri. The new system allows you to customize your government with various civics options that are classified into five categories: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion. There are five options in each category. Players are free to choose any combination of civics. Some of the known civics are Free Market, Environmentalism, Slavery, Serfdom, Free Speech, Conscription, Emancipation, and Nationhood. Civics options are unlocked through research.
Religions
Religion is a brand new feature for a Civilization game. The game has seven real world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, and Hinduism. The religions are associated with certain technologies and the first civilization to discover a technology attached with a religion founds the religion. Once found, the religions can spread slowly throughout the world from the holy cities. Players can make religions spread faster by building missionaries and send them to convert cities. All the religions are generic in abilities.
Religions impact the game in a few ways. At the city level, they can influence your citizens’ happiness by allowing you to build religion-specific buildings such as temples, monasteries, and cathedrals. In diplomacy, civilizations with the same religions can get along better and sometimes a computer player may ask you to switch to his or her religion. If you control the holy city of your state religion, you will gain line of sight in all cities with your religion. The religious civics will also affect your cities in different ways, depending on your choice.
Unit Promotions
Another major Civilization 4 feature is the RPG style unit promotions. In previous civ games, units have only a few levels: conscript, regular, veteran, and elite. Now in Civ4, there are more than 40 promotions you can give to your units as they gain experience, enabling you to customize your units to make them more unique and more powerful. Some of the promotions give your units a strength bonus, some give your units a bonus against a certain unit type, some make your units better on certain terrain types, while some give your units special abilities such as use enemy roads, faster healing, amphibious attack, and city raider.
Civilizations
Civ-specific units and animated leaderheads are still in Civ4. In addition, some civilizations now have two leaders, each has different traits and distinct personality. For example, if you play France, you can choose between Louis XIV or Napoleon. Playing as Louis XIV gives you free culture while playing as Napoleon gives you military bonus. Units now also carry unique civilization banner to make them easier to identify on the map. There are a total of 18 civilizations and 26 leaders in Civilization IV.
Great People
The Great Leader concept in Civ3 is replaced by a more elaborate Great People system. There will be five categories: Great Artist, Great Merchant, Great Prophet, Great Engineer, and Great Scientist. Each great people type will have three to four benefits such as culture boost, academy construction, free tech, wonder construction, and trade mission. You will also be able to use a group of Great People to start a golden age and multiple golden ages are now possible. The Great People are automatically generated by cities and the type generated depends on the structures in the city.
Customization
Civilization IV will be the most customizable version of Civ yet! There are four levels of customization. In the first and easiest level, players can use the built-in World Builder to create new custom maps to play in single player and multiplayer games. In the second level, players can edit the game’s XML data files using notepad or a XML editor to change the game parameters — nothing in the game is hard-coded. In the third level, players can edit the game’s python scripts to change map generation, the interface, game events, etc. Finally, at the fourth level, players with programming experience can even change the AI and all the game rules using the Civ4 Game/AI SDK (Software Developers Kit). In other words, you can pretty much change everything you want and even build a game based loosely on Civilization.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer has not been a strong point for Civilization games and Firaxis hopes to change that with Civilization IV. In addition to the standard internet, Hot Seat, and LAN multiplayer modes, Civ IV will be playable by email (PBEM) or on a persistent turn-based server (named Pitboss) out of the box. There is also a new Team Play option which allows players to form alliances with each other in multiplayer games. Players on the same team will pool their accomplishments together, join forces in combat and share all information, even line of sight, benefits of wonders, research, unit trading, and sharing of territory. Firaxis has been playing Civ4 multiplayer for well over a year.
There are lots of other interesting additions and changes in Civilization IV: the tech tree is no longer divided into arbitrary eras and it’s possible to reach a technology, such as Gunpowder, via a different path; barbarians can capture and operate cities and there are wandering wild animals on the map, making exploration more dangerous; a city’s culture level now affects its defensive value; the ability to broker peace in diplomacy… etc. They are too much to mention here. For a comprehensive collection of all known Civilization IV information, we invite you to visit the Civilization IV Info Center section.
As you can see from this overview, there are lots of exciting new features to look forward to in Civilization IV. Be sure to check back often for our complete coverage of the game, before and after release!
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External Links
Civilization IV Demo
The Civ4 demo is 314.27 MB and it allows you to play 100 turns, as either: India, Rome, Inca, or Greece. Another limitation is the tech tree ends at Divine Right.
- Download Civ4 Demo from: 3D Downloads | FilePlanet | GamersHell
Proceed to the Civ4 Downloads Database
Enter the Civ4 Creation & Customization Forum
Below, you can read an overview about installing, downloading, and creating mods.
Customizing Civilization IV
Civilization IV brought about an unprecedented level of customization, easily earning the role of the most flexible and modification-friendly title in the Civilization series. This is great news for those of you who feel that the core game is lacking or too repetitive, as it means that user-created content can provide new life and enjoyment. From simple modifications that alter the graphics or add a new civilization, to more complex overhauls of the entire game, Civilization IV has seen it all, and below you can find out how to download, install, and create custom content. For more detailed discussion and resources, check out the Creation & Customization forum!
Types of Mods
There is a wide variety of user-created modifications available, briefly explained as follows:
Modpacks: These generally bundle multiple additions together from the following categories, often adding new graphics as well as changing the gameplay. Some focus on a particular timeperiod (e.g. Ancient Rome, the Industrial Revolution), others on the entire length of history (from Stone Age to Future Age), while others still cover a particular theme (fantasy, sci-fi, etc).
Mod components: Less comprehensive that modpacks, these usually contain simple interface or gameplay changes and do not alter the core game as much. Examples include components that keep track of units’ wins and losses and others that add features like immigration, civil wars, and more.
Graphic mods, new units, and new civilizations: This type of content usually modifies the interface or graphics of the game, leaving the mechanics unchanged. Popular mods include things that alter the terrain to make it more Earth-like and ones that create a more user-friendly interface.
Scenarios, maps, and map scripts: Maps are, unsurprisingly, files that allow you to play a game of Civ4 in a premade setting. The most popular ones are Earth maps that place civilizations in historically-accurate locations and mimic reality. Scenarios are like maps, except that they contain preplaced units and cities, may have mod-like rule changes and custom content, and take place over a particular period of time. Map scripts, like the standard map scripts included with the game (Continents, Archipelago, etc.) allow for unique, randomly-generated maps.
Utilities: These are out-of-game tools that make modding or playing the game easier, simplifying the process of, say, installing mods or creating map files.
Keep in mind when downloading mods (explained in the next section) the amount to which you are willing to change the game mechanics. While things like maps and map scripts will not alter the gameplay, modpacks and scenarios can change the game rules dramatically. Experimentation to determine your personal preferences is best!
Downloading Files
All types of mods and content can be downloaded from the Civilization IV File Database, which organizes files by type (scenario, map, mod, etc). Almost all of the files there are ZIPs, a file type that can be opened using a program like 7-Zip, which is free. After finding a file or mod that you would like to use, simply download the ZIP or RAR file to your Desktop. You can then open it to extract the mod’s files from the compressed folder.
Note that mods for Civ4 (without expansions) are not compatible with Warlords (the first expansion) or Beyond the Sword (the second expansion). In fact, mods are not backwards- or forwards-compatible, though they can be converted from one game to another with some work. Also, when downloading mods, be sure that, in addition to the right game, they were created for the right patch level (you can find yours out in-game by selecting Advanced and then About This Build). You can always download the right patch from the Patch & Updates category of the database.
Installing Mods
Nearly all mods can be installed relatively easily, without any technical work. First, navigate to your C:Program FilesFiraxis GamesCivilization4, but NOT to the ../My Documents/My Games/ folder. Then, depending on which game you’re playing, open either directly the mods folder, Warlords, or Beyond the Sword folder. In all three cases, open the MODS subfolder. After you download the mod’s ZIP file, extract the mod’s main folder (almost always named the title of the mod) to this MODS directory.
Once in game, select from the Main Menu Advanced and then Load a Mod. Choose the mod from the list of mods available, and just wait for the game to restart, as it needs to load the changed game files. Then you’re all set! If you encounter problems, read this thread to double-check your procedure.
In some cases, mods will require a non-standard installation. In this event, you can find detailed instructions either from a readme file in the mod’s folder or from the mod’s thread on the forums. Even more lengthy and comprehensive instructions can be seen in the Tutorials & Reference forum.
Creating Your Own Mods
There are various ways of modding Civ4, and each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Below there are general descriptions of the four major ways to edit and customize Civilization 4, ordered approximately in order of increasing complexity and learning curve.
WorldBuilder
Civilization 4 Map
For those of you who played Civ3, the WorldBuilder is much like the out-of-game editor in that it allows you to create maps, place units and cities, edit the “fog of war”, set diplomacy, and other features that are useful in making scenarios and maps. It can be launched only in-game by pressing Control + W when a saved game has been loaded, though it can then create a totally new map. The WorldBuilder is fairly intuitive and the interface remains essentially the same as in Civ4, allowing for individuals to make quick changes or more complex scenarios. You can read more about the WorldBuilder and download a manual in this thread.
XML
XML, or Extensible Markup Language, refers to the format of the game’s data files, which store information regarding things like units’ attributes (strength, movement, hammer cost, etc.), leaders’ characteristics, civilopedia entries, and more. These files are located in the default directory of C:/Program Files/Firaxis Games/Sid Meier’s Civilization 4/Assets/XML and can be opened in a program like Notepad. Simple changes, like giving a unit more movement points or making terrain have a different food yield, can be accomplished with XML, as can more difficult things like creating new civilizations. For more about XML and modding in general, consult this guide to Civ4.
Python
Python refers to the more powerful language that is used by the game to control many things, including the interface, advisor screens, and map generation. Python can be used to create totally new features that are not in the default game. The Python API can be seen here, and a set of tutorials for Python can be read here.
SDK
The SDK, or Software Development Kit, allows modders the most direct access to the main Civ4 game files. By downloading and using the SDK, individuals can edit the game’s DLL source code, enabling them to change the game in ways otherwise impossible. Naturally, this is the most challenging form of modding, as it requires a more complex understanding of programming, but you can read an overview and instructions regarding the SDK on the forums.
Modding at CivFanatics
CivFanatics maintains a very vibrant modding community that has even attracted the attention of Firaxis, with some modders having their creations released on expansion packs. Main modding discussion takes place in the Creation & Customization forum, with subforums containing threads for finished files. Numerous mods have their own individual forums in the Project & Mod Development forum as a way to more directly communicate and receive feedback from users. Also, keep an eye out on the homepage here at CivFanatics for updates regarding recent creations!
Additional Information
Credit for much of this overview goes to the many stickies and influential threads in the Creation & Customization forum. That forum serves as a great reference and contains discussion on a much deeper level. If you have any questions, the users there can provide timely answers.