Civilization IV
Encyclopedia
Sid Meier's Civilization IV (also known as Civilization 4 or Civ4) is a turn-based strategy
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...

, 4X
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...

 computer game
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...

 released in 2005 and developed by lead designer Soren Johnson
Soren Johnson
Soren Johnson is a video game designer and programmer. He was employed by Firaxis Games from 2000 to 2007, where he co-designed several of their most popular games. Prior to his work at Firaxis, he obtained a BA in history and a master's degree in computer science from Stanford University...

 under the direction of Sid Meier
Sid Meier
Sidney K. "Sid" Meier is a Canadian programmer and designer of several popular computer strategy games, most notably Civilization. He has won accolades for his contributions to the computer games industry...

 and Meier's studio
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

 Firaxis Games
Firaxis Games
Firaxis Games is a computer game developer. It was founded in 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds upon leaving MicroProse. The company focuses on strategy games and is based in Sparks, Maryland in the United States....

. It is the fourth installment of the Civilization series
Civilization (series)
Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy, 4X video games produced by Sid Meier. Basic gameplay functions are similar throughout the series, namely, buiding a civilization on a macro-scale from prehistory up to the near future...

. Civilization IV was released between October 25 and November 4, 2005 in North America, Europe, and Australia. The game's first expansion, Warlords
Civilization IV: Warlords
Civilization IV: Warlords is the first official expansion pack of the critically acclaimed turn-based strategy video game Civilization IV.-Features:Warlords added many new features to the original game...

, was released on July 24, 2006 in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and July 28, 2006 in the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. A second expansion, Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the second official expansion pack of the turn-based strategy video game Civilization IV. The expansion focuses on adding content to the in-game time periods following the invention of gunpowder, and includes more general content such as 11 new scenarios, 10 new...

, was released worldwide between July 18 and July 30, 2007. A remake of Sid Meier's Colonization, based on a total conversion of the Civilization IV engine, Colonization
Civilization IV: Colonization
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization is a remake of the 1994 turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Colonization. Players control settlers from one of four European nations, Spain, England, France, or the Netherlands, that are trying to conquer/colonize the New World in the time period between...

, was released on September 23, 2008. As of March 26, 2008, Civilization IV has sold 3 million copies according to Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a major American publisher, developer, and distributor of video games and video game peripherals. Take-Two wholly owns 2K Games and Rockstar Games. The company's headquarters are in New York City, with international headquarters in Windsor, United Kingdom...

. The game was re-released along with both of its expansions in 2007 in an edition entitled Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Complete; the North American version of this compilation was released on May 12, 2009 in a DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

 free package that contains the core game, the two expansions, and the 2008 Colonization remake. Civilization IV was released in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

 and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

Civilization IV is a turn-based game in which the player builds an empire
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....

 from very limited initial resources. All standard full-length games begin in 4000 BC with a settler
Settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...

 who builds a single city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

. From there, the player expands an empire while contending with rival nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...

s, using the geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, developing infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

, and encouraging scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 and cultural
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 progress. By default, players can win the game by accomplishing one of five goals: conquering all other civilizations, controlling a supermajority
Supermajority
A supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds a simple majority . In some jurisdictions, for example, parliamentary procedure requires that any action that may alter the rights of the minority has a supermajority...

 of the world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....

's land and population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

, being the first to land a sleeper ship
Sleeper ship
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....

 in the Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...

 star system
Star system
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars which orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large number of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a star cluster or galaxy, although, broadly speaking, they are also star systems.-Binary star systems:A stellar...

, increasing the Culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 ratings of three different cities to "legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

ary" levels, or by being declared "World Leader
Leader
A leader is one who influences or leads others.Leader may also refer to:- Newspapers :* Leading article, a piece of writing intended to promote an opinion, also called an editorial* The Leader , published 1909–1967...

" by winning a popularity election through the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

. If the game's clock runs out (by default in the year 2050 AD) with none of these goals fulfilled by any nation, the nation with the highest score is declared the winner.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy in Civilization generally involves the trading of goods. Specific technologies are required to trade different commodities (for instance, a civilization must possess the technology of paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 to trade world map
World map
A world map is a map of the surface of the Earth, which may be made using any of a number of different map projections. A map projection is any method of representing the surface of a sphere or other three-dimensional body on a plane....

s). Players may trade technologies, resources, maps and gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. Advanced diplomacy options include the creation of trade embargoes
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...

, the promise of military aid, and the adoption of particular civics and religions. Finally, the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 wonder allows the passing of global resolutions
United Nations resolution
A United Nations resolution is a formal text adopted by a United Nations body. Although any UN body can issue resolutions, in practice most resolutions are issued by the Security Council or the General Assembly.-Legal status:...

 (Such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...

) in addition to granting access to the diplomatic victory.

The reasoning behind AI diplomacy is more transparent when compared to Civilization III
Civilization III
Sid Meier's Civilization III, commonly shortened to Civ III or Civ 3, is the third installment of the Sid Meier's Civilization turn-based strategy computer game series. It was preceded by Civilization II and followed by Civilization IV. The game offers very sophisticated gameplay in terms of both...

. The Diplomacy window now not only displays the other leader's disposition towards the human player (from friendly to furious), but why they feel that way (e.g. "-2: You refused to stop trading with our worst enemies!"). When a leader is sympathetic towards another civilization, they are more likely to accept deals without unfair bargaining.

Combat

Instead of receiving generic increases in rank as in Civilization 3, the player is allowed to "promote" units with upgrades that provide bonuses in certain situations (For example +25% city defense, or +25% vs. melee units.) There are 41 different types of combat promotions. It is also possible for players to examine "combat odds" before attacking, giving the player an idea as to whether a given attack will succeed or not. In addition, units in the game can be upgraded by spending a certain amount of money, and different nations have their own unique units. Leader traits can also play a part in warfare, for example a leader with the "Aggressive" trait receives melee and gunpowder land units with the promotion "Combat I" right away.

Production

The game features 32 resources. Resources enable construction of units which require them, double the speed of construction of certain wonders of the world
Wonders of the World
Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural wonders and manmade structures....

, accelerate city growth, or simply add happiness or health to all cities. To trade goods or to send them to other cities within one's border, they must have some form of connection between the goods and the city. In the later game, this connection can be through ocean tiles, but in the early game, it is limited to roads and rivers. Cities on the same river or same coastline are automatically connected for trading purposes.

Unlike in Civilization 3, the player is no longer able to transfer all production from one project to another, but all production on an already-begun project will remain. For example, if the player is building a temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

 but decides to switch to a harbour, production on the harbor will start from scratch, but the temple will stay in the building queue and retain all previous progress, aside from some decay over time.

Religions

The concept of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 is new to the Civilization series, where in previous games players built generic temples and cathedrals to contribute to happiness and culture. There are now seven distinct religions in the game: Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 and Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

. Each religion in the default game is associated with a specific technology on the tech tree; the first civilization that gains the technology founds the religion. For example, Christianity is founded by the civilization that first discovers "Theology". Custom games can link the founding of a religion to a technology but the player has his or her pick of which religion is founded. There are no special traits or bonuses associated with any particular religion.

Religion factors into a number of existing game mechanics. Civilizations that share a common state religion will find themselves more agreeable in their diplomatic dealings; conversely, civilizations with differing state religions will not be as close diplomatically. The religion's founder may also receive an economic benefit: if that civilization expends a Great Prophet at the religion's holy (founding) city
Holy city
Holy city is a synonym applied to many cities, all of them central to the history or faith of specific religions. Such cities may also contain at least one headquarters complex which constitutes a major destination of human...

, it will construct that religion's most sacred building and generate 1 gold per turn for every other city that hosts that religion. Once a player creates a missionary, he or she can send it to another city to spread that missionary's religion. Once a religion has spread to a city, there is no way it can be removed. Finally, if a civilization has adopted a religion as a state religion and owns that religion's holy city, they will receive 'line-of-sight' (fog of war is lifted) in every other city hosting that religion.

When it comes to selecting a player's civic options, there are five under the "religion" category. All players start with Paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

, but later on can impose a theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

, adopt pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

, have freedom of worship or have an organized and integrated religious policy. These civics can provide a great incentive to spread a state religion throughout one's empire, as the best bonuses will only be applied to cities in which the religion is present.

Civilizations and leaders

Each of the eighteen civilizations has at least one leader, and eight have two leaders. Each leader has two "personality traits" which offer bonuses to various game mechanics, as well as a distinct personality and behavior. Several historic figures not used in previous Civilization games, but included in Civ IV are: Asoka, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

, George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

, Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...

, Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa
Musa I , commonly referred to as Mansa Musa, was the tenth mansa, which translates as "king of kings" or "emperor", of the Malian Empire...

, Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...

, Peter the Great, Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang , personal name Ying Zheng , was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC...

, Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...

, Saladin
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...

 (though Saladin was a hidden leader in Civilization II
Civilization II
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy computer game designed by Brian Reynolds, Douglas Caspian-Kaufman and Jeff Briggs. Although it is a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization, neither Sid Meier nor Bruce Shelley was involved in its development.Civilization II was first released in...

), and Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

. Some art assets also existed in the game files for a Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....

ian civilization led by Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...

 and they were used by the modding
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...

 community to introduce the Sumerians into the game. Other unfinished art included leader head artwork for Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...

, Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

, and Menes
Menes
Menes was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the early dynastic period, credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt, and as the founder of the first dynasty ....

. Gilgamesh, Pericles and Augustus were officially added in the expansion packs later.

All civilizations have some element of uniqueness and all leaders have certain traits based on their achievements in life. All civilizations also have a unique unit, which replaces a standard unit (such as Persian Immortals
Persian Immortals
The "Immortals" was the name given by Herodotus to an elite force of soldiers who fought for the Achaemenid Empire. This force performed the dual roles of both Imperial Guard and standing army during the Persian Empire's expansion and during the Greco-Persian Wars...

 replacing Chariots).
Civilization IV
Civilization Unique Unit Leader(s) Capital
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Navy SEAL Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

, Roosevelt
Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

Arab
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...

Camel Archer
Camel archer
Camel archers are marksmen wielding bows mounted on camels. They took their popularity in the Crusades, used in Arabia, Asian and Eurasian countries. Saladin, the leader of Arabia from 1174 to 1193, was known, or rather believed to use camels as a substitute for other ways of transport, such as the...

Saladin
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...

Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

Jaguar
Jaguar warrior
Jaguar Warriors or Jaguar Knights were members of the Aztec military. They were an elite military unit similar to the Eagle warriors. The jaguar motif was used due to the belief that the jaguar represented Tezcatlipoca, god of the night sky. Aztecs also wore these dresses at war because they...

Montezuma Tenochtitlan
Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

Chu-Ko-Nu
Repeating crossbow
A repeating crossbow is a crossbow where the separate actions of stringing the bow, placing the bolt and shooting it can be accomplished with a simple one-handed movement while keeping the crossbow stationary. This allows a higher rate of fire than a normal crossbow...

Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang , personal name Ying Zheng , was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC...

, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

, Taizong
Emperor Taizong of Tang
Emperor Taizong of Tang , personal name Lǐ Shìmín , was the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China, ruling from 626 to 649...

 (in the Chinese version)
Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

War Chariot
Chariot
The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...

Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut also Hatchepsut; meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies;1508–1458 BC) was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt...

Thebes
English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

Redcoat
Red coat (British army)
Red coat or Redcoat is a historical term used to refer to soldiers of the British Army because of the red uniforms formerly worn by the majority of regiments. From the late 17th century to the early 20th century, the uniform of most British soldiers, , included a madder red coat or coatee...

Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

, Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

Musketeer
Musketeers of the Guard
The Musketeers of the Guard were a fighting company of the military branch of the Maison du Roi, the Royal Household of the French monarchy.-History:...

Louis XIV, Napoleon Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

Panzer
Panzer
A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...

Frederick
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

, Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

Phalanx
Phalanx formation
The phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...

Alexander Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

Incan Quechua
Quechuas
Quechuas is the collective term for several indigenous ethnic groups in South America who speak a Quechua language , belonging to several ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Argentina.The Quechuas of Ecuador call themselves as well as their...

Huayna Capac
Huayna Capac
Huayna Capac was the eleventh Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire and sixth of the Hanan dynasty. He was the successor to Tupac Inca Yupanqui.-Name:In Quechua, his name is spelled Wayna Qhapaq, and in Southern Quechua, it is Vaina Ghapakh...

Cuzco
India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n
Fast Worker
Caste system in India
The Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis....

Asoka, Gandhi Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese
Samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

Tokugawa
Tokugawa Ieyasu
 was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara  in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

Malinese
Mali Empire
The Mali Empire or Mandingo Empire or Manden Kurufa was a West African empire of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I...

Skirmisher
Skirmisher
Skirmishers are infantry or cavalry soldiers stationed ahead or alongside a larger body of friendly troops. They are usually placed in a skirmish line to harass the enemy.-Pre-modern:...

Mansa Musa
Mansa Musa
Musa I , commonly referred to as Mansa Musa, was the tenth mansa, which translates as "king of kings" or "emperor", of the Malian Empire...

Timbuktu
Timbuktu
Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

Mongolian
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

Keshik Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

, Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...

Karakorum
Karakorum
Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, and of the Northern Yuan in the 14-15th century. Its ruins lie in the northwestern corner of the Övörkhangai Province of Mongolia, near today's town of Kharkhorin, and adjacent to the Erdene Zuu monastery...

Persian Immortal
Persian Immortals
The "Immortals" was the name given by Herodotus to an elite force of soldiers who fought for the Achaemenid Empire. This force performed the dual roles of both Imperial Guard and standing army during the Persian Empire's expansion and during the Greco-Persian Wars...

Cyrus Persepolis
Persepolis
Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...

Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

Praetorian
Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard was a force of bodyguards used by Roman Emperors. The title was already used during the Roman Republic for the guards of Roman generals, at least since the rise to prominence of the Scipio family around 275 BC...

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, Caesar Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n
Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

Peter
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...

, Catherine
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...

Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

Conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

Isabella
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...

Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...


Technologies

As in prior versions of Civilization, a set of technologies are arranged in a tech tree. A total of 86 are included in the game, up from 81 in Civilization III
Civilization III
Sid Meier's Civilization III, commonly shortened to Civ III or Civ 3, is the third installment of the Sid Meier's Civilization turn-based strategy computer game series. It was preceded by Civilization II and followed by Civilization IV. The game offers very sophisticated gameplay in terms of both...

. Technologies have many uses; they can be used for trade, for the construction of new terrain improvements, units, buildings and wonders, to reveal new resources, for the founding of new religions, or for the development of new forms of government. To discover a new technology, it is first necessary to discover the prerequisite technologies (for example, democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 can only be discovered after the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

).

Unlike previous versions, technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

 development is flexible: certain technologies can be discovered by following more than just one path, and others (all six starting technologies, for example hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

) are not linked to any technology and must be found from scratch. The game's technology tree displays all the techs in the game and their relation with one another, and allows the player to queue any number of technologies for research. If multiple paths lead to the target technology, the AI will pick the shortest. The final technology in the game, as in previous versions, is called "Future Tech", followed by a number; each iteration of it imparts a happiness and health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...

 bonus to that nation's cities. In previous Civ games, Future tech gave a score bonus, but no gameplay advantages.

The discovery of each technology is announced by the game's narrator, Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....

. In the single-player game, he reads off a famous quotation pertaining to the technology; the sources of the quotations range from the Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 to Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

, Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...

, Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....

, and a monotonic "Beep. Beep. Beep." attributed to the Sputnik space probe. In multi-player games, Nimoy simply declares, "You have discovered [Name of Technology]."

Wonders

The game features a number of World Wonders which bestow certain advantages to the city or the empire of the civilization that construct it. A number of World Wonders which have been present in earlier versions of the game have been tweaked to reduce their overall effect on the game dynamic. For example, in prior versions the Pyramids (granary in every city) and Sistine Chapel (cathedral in every city) could dramatically alter the balance of gameplay. In Civilization IV, many of the World Wonders provide a temporary boost to money, science and a permanent boost to culture. A Wonder can only be built once although multiple civilizations can compete to be the first to complete said wonder. Certain technologies make certain Wonders obsolete; though the Wonder's base effects to the city (culture and great person points) remain, its special effects are removed, to show how modern technology eliminates the influence or use of older wonders.

There are a number of National Wonders which can be built by all civilizations once which give city-specific bonuses and often have a particular pre-requisite gameplay conditions to permit construction as well the relevant technologies. Only two National Wonders can be built in any one city, which encourages players to think strategically about which National Wonders should be built in which cities.

Scoring system

Score is based on a number of factors, including military growth and success, population size and attitude, technological advancement, construction of wonders and economic growth. At the end of a game, the leadership skills of players are compared to a subjective list of twenty of the best or worst leaders in history, similar to the list in the first Civilization
Civilization (computer game)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy "4X"-type strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time": it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires...

 game.

The released version of the game abandoned Civilization III's graded scale. In Civ3, a spectacular victory on the easiest difficulty would provide the player with only a middling score, and the best titles were only awarded to players attempting the hardest difficulties. The original Civilization, as well as Civilization IV, on the other hand, allows the player to obtain any score on any difficulty level. As of the v1.61 patch, the grading system has returned to the curved-by-difficulty scale.

Victory conditions

  • Conquest Victory – achieved by the player who successfully eliminates all of their rivals.
  • Domination Victory – awarded when a player uses military might and cunning negotiation tactics to conquer a certain (often large) percent of the world's population and a certain (large, but not quite as large) percent of the global land mass.
  • Cultural Victory – awarded when a player has developed a culture so powerful that three of their cities have achieved legendary culture status. Legendary culture status is achieved by culture points, with the exact amount depending on game speed (25,000 for quick, 50,000 for normal, 75,000 for epic and 150,000 for marathon).
  • Space Race Victory – achieved when a player completes all of the components necessary to send colonists off into space to found a new colony on Alpha Centauri and is the first to have their ship arrive there.
  • Diplomatic Victory – awarded to the diplomatically gifted player who manages to garner 75% of the "Yes" votes (abstentions don't count) in the United Nations or Apostolic Palace elections.
  • Time Victory – achieved by the player who can do whatever it takes throughout all of human history to defeat enemies, expand their civilization, win the hearts and minds of the people, and boasts the highest score at the end of the game, in 2050 AD. A time victory will only be enabled if any of the previous five victories are not achieved by 2050. A time victory, like all the other victory conditions, can be disabled, and the player can build his or her civilization past 2050 AD (although the player will occasionally be subjected to "Global Warming
    Global warming
    Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

    ").

Gameplay

Many aspects of Civilization IV are new to the series. These include, but are not limited to:
  • Great People that fall into seven categories, the original great people are: artist
    Artist
    An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

    s, merchant
    Merchant
    A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...

    s, prophet
    Prophet
    In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

    s, engineer
    Engineer
    An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

    s and scientist
    Scientist
    A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

    s; generals and spies
    SPY
    SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...

     are added in expansion packs. Great People can be used to create several different effects: they can join the city as a Specialist; provide a one-time bonus or unique building; contribute to the discovery of a new technology; or be used to trigger a Golden Age, at least two at a time, except with the Beyond the Sword expansion where the first is triggered by only one. Great People include Aristotle
    Aristotle
    Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

    , Plato
    Plato
    Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

    , Moses
    Moses
    Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

    , Homer
    Homer
    In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

    , William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

    , Ramakrishna
    Ramakrishna
    Ramakrishna , born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay , was a famous mystic of 19th-century India. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda – both were influential figures in the Bengali Renaissance as well as the Hindu...

    , Michelangelo
    Michelangelo
    Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

    , Leonardo Da Vinci
    Leonardo da Vinci
    Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

    , Isaac Newton
    Isaac Newton
    Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

    , Zoroaster
    Zoroaster
    Zoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...

    , Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Coco Chanel
    Coco Chanel
    Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...

    , Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

    , Marie Curie
    Marie Curie
    Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...

    , and more. They can be born to any civilization. (For real world historical implications see: Heroic theory of invention and scientific development
    Heroic theory of invention and scientific development
    The heroic theory of invention and scientific development is the hypothesis that the principal authors of inventions and scientific discoveries are unique heroic individuals "great scientists" or "geniuses." A competing hypothesis is that most inventions and scientific discoveries are made...

    )
  • The founding and spreading of religions and the adoption of a state religion (see above).
  • Instead of subtracting from a city's population upon completion, Settler and Worker units cause the city to suspend its population growth by contributing its food production to the unit's total. Both units are relatively expensive—which, as implied by the in-game "Hints" feature, is to slow the pace of expansion by forcing players to spend time maturing their cities. (A Settler requires 100 points of food and/or production to create; in comparison, the Musket
    Musket
    A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....

    men military unit requires only 80.)
  • The cash flow of cities and city improvements has been reversed completely from predecessor games. The concept of "city maintenance" replaces the concept of "corruption". Each city in a CivIV empire pays a certain maintenance fee which rises for all cities when new ones are created. Thus a new city with no improvements is a net drain on income.
  • Government
    Government
    Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

    s have been replaced with a more flexible civics model with five different categories — Government
    Government
    Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

    , Legal
    Law
    Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

    , Labor, Economy
    Economic system
    An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...

    , and Religion
    Religion
    Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

     — and five separate civic options within each category. For example, the Labor category includes the civics tribalism
    Tribalism
    The social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, but, due to the small size of tribes, it is always a relatively simple role structure, with few significant social distinctions between individuals....

    , slavery
    Slavery
    Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

    , serfdom
    Serfdom
    Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

    , caste system and emancipation
    Emancipation
    Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...

    .
  • AI civilizations no longer act as if they start the game knowing what the map
    Map
    A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

     looks like. Instead, they make full use of all options and exhibit better long-term planning.
  • Barbarians now form cities in unexplored
    Exploration
    Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...

     or unwatched territories, often named after their tribe or culture (Hun, Visigoth
    Visigoth
    The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...

    , etc.). These cities act and react like any other city: they send out worker units to improve terrain, can be captured
    Siege
    A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...

     or razed
    Demolition
    Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....

     by military force, can be culture-flipped, and so on. However, they cannot be contacted via diplomacy
    Diplomacy
    Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

    . Barbarian cities do not produce settlers to expand with new cities, although new barbarian cities can crop up unseen.
  • The United Nations can pass resolutions. Until the Beyond the Sword expansion pack, these resolutions were automatically binding; Beyond the Sword introduced the option of defying the resolution, which carried certain drawbacks.
  • Unit improvement is specialized and no longer random. Military units now gain experience point
    Experience point
    An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...

    s and can be awarded a promotion for each time they go up a level. These promotions generally increase the unit's strength under certain conditions (in forest
    Forest
    A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

    s or jungle
    Jungle
    A Jungle is an area of land in the tropics overgrown with dense vegetation.The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jangala which referred to uncultivated land. Although the Sanskrit word refers to "dry land", it has been suggested that an Anglo-Indian interpretation led to its...

    s; against gunpowder
    Gunpowder
    Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

    -based units; when attacking cities), others provide utility bonuses (can heal while moving; can use enemy roads). Several generic units and many culture-specific units receive free promotions when built. Some units have additional inherent bonuses to define their intended use (archer
    Archery
    Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

    s, for example, have an inherent bonus which increases their strength when defending cities or hills). Promotions are carried over when unit is upgraded, whereas bonuses are not.
  • Military units no longer have separate ratings for attack, defense and health, but instead a single strength rating. The combatants' strengths are modified by multiplicative promotion and circumstance bonuses, and the highest number generally wins. As of the game's most recent patch, a damaged unit loses half that amount of combat strength. The player may now check the probability of success before commissioning an attack.
  • Individual citizens in each city no longer have their own nationality. The nationality breakdown of each city is now a cultural breakdown; foreign culture can affect a city without the use of military conquest.
  • Random events were not implemented until the Beyond the Sword expansion.

Interface changes

  • Pollution
    Pollution
    Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

    , size restrictions, and similar aspects have been combined into one "City Health" system. Resources and buildings — such as wheat and hospitals — add health points, while population growth and industry add unhealthiness points. Forests and fresh water near the city increases the health score, jungles and flood
    Flood
    A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

     plains decrease it. An imbalance in favor of sickness causes a food production penalty for the city. Fallout
    Nuclear fallout
    Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...

     continues to exist in the case of a nuclear attack or meltdown
    Nuclear meltdown
    Nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission...

    .
  • Some streamlining elements have been introduced, such as the ability to select and issue orders to multiple units at the same time. When population grows, a new technology is discovered, or a new unit/improvement is built, any excess food, research, or production is carried over rather than wasted (truncated).
  • Greater emphasis has been placed on the overall map-view mode. Where, in previous Civilization games, a player was often forced to access the City Management screen, almost all of its functions have been integrated into (or made accessible via) the standard map view, as have many abilities (diplomacy, research topic selection, tax rate, etc.) that were formerly the domain of the Advisor screens.

Audio-visual

See also: Music in Civilization IV
  • The game's soundtrack features compositions of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Minimalist
    Minimalist music
    Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

     origin, and contemporary by Jeff Briggs
    Jeff Briggs
    Dr. Jeffery L. Briggs is founder and former President and CEO of Firaxis Games, a video game developer based in Hunt Valley, Maryland, United States...

    . The 2011 Grammy Award winning song "Baba Yetu
    Baba Yetu
    "Baba Yetu" is a song by composer Christopher Tin.While 'Baba Yetu' is the opening track on Tin's debut album, "Calling All Dawns", the song was originally created to serve as the theme song for the video game Civilization IV...

    " was composed specifically to be played at the start of the game. The title means "Our Father" in Swahili
    Swahili language
    Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

    , and the song itself is a rendition of the Lord's Prayer
    Lord's Prayer
    The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...

    . It is performed by Stanford University
    Stanford University
    The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

    's Talisman A Cappella and was composed by Christopher Tin
    Christopher Tin
    Christopher Tin is an American composer of Chinese descent whose work is primarily classical, with a world music influence. He won two Grammy Awards for his classical crossover album, Calling All Dawns. He is also a composer for films, video games and commercials...

    .
  • Each leader has a unique piece of music played during diplomacy (with the exception of Kublai Khan
    Kublai Khan
    Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...

     and Genghis Khan
    Genghis Khan
    Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

     who share music).
  • Narrative voice acting is provided by Leonard Nimoy
    Leonard Nimoy
    Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....

    , who reads a quotation related to a technology when it is discovered. Land-based units also offer short phrases in their culture's native language when selected. If the player's view is near a city, they will hear sounds related to the nation which owns that city.
  • Great artists visually resemble famous people, such as Elvis Presley
    Elvis Presley
    Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

     and William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

    , even when they are not given those names. The "create great work" button for the Great Artists is a picture of the Mona Lisa
    Mona Lisa
    Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...

    .
  • Sound effects are played when certain buildings or improvements are built, such as coins jingling when a bank
    Bank
    A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

     is completed. Ambient sounds can also be heard near different terrains when zoomed in. For example, near the ocean or on its shore, waves splashing and breaking up can be heard.
  • Civilization 4 uses a 3D engine
    Game engine
    A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...

      which allows zooming smoothly from world map levels down to individual squares. There's a set of overlays for world map levels.
  • Wonder movies have returned after being absent in Civilization III
    Civilization III
    Sid Meier's Civilization III, commonly shortened to Civ III or Civ 3, is the third installment of the Sid Meier's Civilization turn-based strategy computer game series. It was preceded by Civilization II and followed by Civilization IV. The game offers very sophisticated gameplay in terms of both...

    .
  • As game time passes and the player enters new eras, pictures of devices
    Clock
    A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...

     that measure the passage of time are shown. When the player leaves the Ancient era
    Ancient history
    Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

     and enters the Classical era
    Classical antiquity
    Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

    , a picture of a sundial
    Sundial
    A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...

     appears. The player is shown a picture of an hourglass
    Hourglass
    An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...

     upon entering the medieval era
    Middle Ages
    The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

    , an armillary sphere
    Armillary sphere
    An armillary sphere is a model of objects in the sky , consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centred on Earth, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features such as the ecliptic...

     upon entering the Renaissance
    Renaissance
    The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

    , an analog clock upon entering the Industrial Age, a digital clock
    Digital clock
    A digital clock is a type of clock that displays the time digitally, i.e. in cyphers, as opposed to an analog clock, where the time is displayed by hands. Digital clocks are often associated with electronic drives, but the "digital" description refers only to the display, not to the drive mechanism...

     upon entering the Modern Era
    Contemporary history
    Contemporary history describes the period timeframe that is without any intervening time closely connected to the present and is a certain perspective of modern history. The term "contemporary history" has been in use at least by the early 19th century. In the widest context of this use,...

    , and, in Beyond the Sword, an identical digital clock upon entering the future era.

Wonders and Projects

  • The Three Gorges Dam
    Three Gorges Dam
    The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in the Yiling District of Yichang, in Hubei province, China...

     has replaced the Hoover Dam
    Hoover Dam
    Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...

    , which was a Wonder used in previous versions.
  • Spaceship journeys to Alpha Centauri
    Alpha Centauri
    Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus...

     are always successful in games prior to the second expansion, Beyond the Sword, after which the chance of success once again varies depending on how complete the spacecraft is; it is possible, by fully constructing the spacecraft, to guarantee success.
  • Civ IV is the first in the franchise not to feature SETI
    SETI
    The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...

     as a wonder.

Official maps and scenarios

Sid Meier's Civilization IV included some bonus content, released with mainly the purpose of showing modding capabilities:
  • Earth – This is the world map of the game. 124x68 tiles big, it features just 9 ancient civilizations. It is based on the Robinson projection
    Robinson projection
    The Robinson projection is a map projection of a world map, which shows the entire world at once. It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a flat image....

     of the Earth in order to optimize its size. Later, an 18 civilizations version was released, and being reckoned "flawless", it won the first prize at GameFlood modding contest.
  • Earth Ice Age – This map is set in the world during the last ice age (20,000 years before present). 11 randomly-picked civilizations are contained in this map.
  • Earth 1000 AD – 13 civilizations populate the world in this recreation of the Earth at the time of the Crusades.
  • Greek World – To reenact the classical Mediterranean, a special map was made, based on Hecataeus' map of the world, as it was known by the Greeks. Extra detail is borrowed from other ancient sources such as Homer, Ptolemy, and Herodotus.
  • Desert War – This scenario represents the Mediterranean theater of World War II. Axis and Allies have different cities as objective. They can win the game holding them for 10 turns.
  • American Revolution – This scenario begins in 1775 AD. Player can side with American colonists or with the British Crown.
  • Rhye's and Fall of Civilization
    Rhye's and Fall of Civilization
    Rhye's and Fall of Civilization is a "fan scenario" for the 2005 computer game Sid Meier's Civilization IV. It is an 'Earth simulator' that uses a variety of scripted events to mirror history much more closely than a typical game of Civilization...

     – This scenario offers the "closest-to-reality" experience with much of the core settings of the game having been changed to ensure historical realism. Includes a dynamic rise of civilizations and other features like stability, plagues, congress and different Unique Historical Victories for each civilization. The player can decide to begin at the dawn of humanity (3000 BC) or at the beginning of the Middle-Ages (600 AD). It is currently one of the three user-made mods to be officially included with the game.

Customization

Civilization IV is much more open to modification than its predecessors. Game data and rules are stored in XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 files, and a Software Development Kit
Software development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...

 was released in April 2006 to allow AI customization. Major parts of the interface, map generation, and scripted events are written entirely in Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

 and can be customized.

World Builder

The World Builder allows a player to create a map from scratch or to use an in-game situation as a starting point for a new scenario. The user can modify the map by placing and modifying rivers, landmasses, mountains, resources, units and cities. For example, it is possible to adjust a city's population or culture. Additionally, each civilization's technological progress as well as its diplomatic and military ties to other civilizations can be edited. The world builder can also be used during the middle of a campaign to change anything from names of cities to giving yourself more units making it a quite useful in game cheat device. The World Builder for Civilization IV is in-game, in contrast to previous Civilization games where the Map Editor was an external application.

XML

More game attributes are stored in XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 files, which must be edited with an external text editor or application. Barry Caudill, a senior producer at Firaxis Games, said in September:
At the current time the XML processing in Windows is permissive of errors, whereas the Mac OS X version is not. As a result, some XML files which will work on the Windows version of the game may need correcting before they function correctly on the Macintosh version.

Python

The game uses boost.python
Boost library
Boost is a set of free software libraries that extend the functionality of C++.-Overview:Most of the Boost libraries are licensed under the Boost Software License, designed to allow Boost to be used with both free and proprietary software projects...

 to allow the Python programming language
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

 access to many parts of the game (including the style and content of all interface screens). Python can also be used to modify random map generation and to add complex scripted events.

The version of Python present in the Windows version of the game differs from the version in Mac OS X up to and including version 10.4.7, and as a result, while most Python files for the Windows version will work on the Macintosh version, not all will. The reverse is also true.

Software development kit

The Civilization IV software development kit
Software development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...

 was released on April 13, 2006 to coincide with the release of the v1.61 patch. The kit allows players to view, modify, or completely re-write the game's DLL source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

, enabling the modification of the game's AI
Ai
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...

 and other integral parts of the game.

As of the first official patch for the Macintosh version (v1.61 Revision A), there is no SDK for the Macintosh version of the game. In fact the Macintosh version lacks the separate library of game related code which the PC version uses, but instead includes the code compiled into the main executable. There is as of yet no indication of whether this will change in a future patch.

Launch problems

The release of Civilization IV reportedly included some technical, production and shipping problems. The most common packaging errors have been French and German technology charts in English-language boxes and the erroneous packing of two of the same CD-ROM, rendering the game unplayable. 2K Games replaced such shipments. Other copies have mislabeled disks; since this does not affect gameplay, users are asked to just use the right CD-ROM when applicable. There have also been some cases in which the game manual has pages situated in the wrong place (e.g.: page one is the very last page of the manual). There are also many typographical errors in the Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 manual.

Platforms

Civilization IV is available for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 (PC) and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

. The Mac OS X version is published by Aspyr and was released in June 2006. A Mac digital version was released January 2010 on gameagent.com. Though it lacks some of the customization features which were added to the PC version in v1.61, it is otherwise identical to v.1.61 of the PC version. The game was released as a Universal binary
Universal binary
A universal binary is, in Apple parlance, an executable file or application bundle that runs natively on either PowerPC or Intel-manufactured IA-32 or Intel 64-based Macintosh computers; it is an implementation of the concept more generally known as a fat binary.With the release of Mac OS X Snow...

, running natively on both PPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

- and x86
X86 architecture
The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...

-based Macintoshes. Mac OS X users may also, in addition to the cross-platform GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...

 service (although Revision B is required for GameSpy), use GameRanger
GameRanger
GameRanger is an Internet gaming service for the Macintosh and Windows computing platforms. The service includes custom software and unlike other gaming services is not strictly web-based. GameRanger was created by Scott Kevill and was first released in July 1999 for Macintosh with support for 11...

 to play multiplayer games.

Civilization IV and its expansions are also available via Steam and Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...

's GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...

 subscription service. Multiplayer games involving both game platforms work, but require the use of one of the multiplayer options other than "Internet Play" due to the incompatible formats employed.

Spin-offs

A re-make of Sid Meier's original (1994) Colonizations built with Civilization IV's game engine, Civilization IV: Colonization
Civilization IV: Colonization
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization is a remake of the 1994 turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Colonization. Players control settlers from one of four European nations, Spain, England, France, or the Netherlands, that are trying to conquer/colonize the New World in the time period between...

, was released for Mac and PC. It is a standalone game, playable without the original Civilization IV.

Recently Oasys Mobile
Oasys Mobile
Oasys Mobile is a leading mobile game developer and publisher. Oasys develops top-ranked franchise games and applications based on brands such as Mattel, Sid Meier's Civilization IV, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, Phil Hellmuth, AROD and Hooters Calendar...

 published various arcade games under the brand name of Sid Meier's Civilization IV like Civilization IV: War of Two Cities, a catapult game and Civilization IV: Defenders of the Gates, which is a tower-defense game.

Expansions

Two expansion packs have been published for Civilization IV. The first one, entitled Civilization IV: Warlords
Civilization IV: Warlords
Civilization IV: Warlords is the first official expansion pack of the critically acclaimed turn-based strategy video game Civilization IV.-Features:Warlords added many new features to the original game...

, was released in the United States on July 24, 2006 and in Europe two days later, on July 26, 2006.

The second expansion pack, Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the second official expansion pack of the turn-based strategy video game Civilization IV. The expansion focuses on adding content to the in-game time periods following the invention of gunpowder, and includes more general content such as 11 new scenarios, 10 new...

, was released on July 18, 2007 in the United States and on July 20, 2007 in Europe. The expansion focuses on adding content to the in-game time periods following the invention of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

, and includes more general content such as 11 new scenarios, 10 new civilizations, and 16 new leaders. It also expands the technology tree.

Reception

Civilization IV was exceptionally well-received by video game critics, with an aggregated review score of 94 on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

. The game was generally praised for its depth in strategy and for competent AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 opponents, with several critics calling the game "addictive" and "infinitely replayable". At the same time, many critics appreciated the more streamlined and intuitive interface as well as the visual and sound design, describing them as more welcoming of newcomers to the series.

Awards

Civilization IV won multiple awards at various events and gaming websites.
IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...

 chose the game as the PC Game of the Year in 2005 over F.E.A.R. and Guild Wars
Guild Wars
Guild Wars is an episodic series of online 3D fantasy role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Although often defined as an MMORPG the developers define it as a CORPG due to significant differences from the MMORPG genre. It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative...

, and also as the Best Strategy Game (both overall and on PC) and Best Online Game of 2005 on PC. In 2007, IGN also ranked the game at #2 on Top 25 PC games of all time.
GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...

 awarded the game Best PC Game and Best Strategy Game of 2005, and nominated it for Game of the Year.
GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...

 named the game Game of the Year, PC Game of the Year, and Best Turn-Based Strategy Game of 2005.

At the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Civilization IV won Strategy Game of the Year and was nominated for Overall Game of the Year (lost to God of War
God of War (video game)
God of War is an action adventure video game for the PlayStation 2 first released by Sony Computer Entertainment's Santa Monica division in March 2005...

) and Computer Game of the Year (lost to Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 is a computer game by the Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE . During development, Trauma Studios contributed to the development of the game after it was acquired by DICE...

).
In the 2010 Grammy Awards, the Civ IV theme, Baba Yetu
Baba Yetu
"Baba Yetu" is a song by composer Christopher Tin.While 'Baba Yetu' is the opening track on Tin's debut album, "Calling All Dawns", the song was originally created to serve as the theme song for the video game Civilization IV...

, won in the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist category. This is the first Grammy Award nomination and win for any video game theme.

External links

Official sites

Third-party sites
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