Civilization 4 Full PC Game

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Civilization 4 Full PC Game Overview

Civilization 4 Download Free Full Game (also known as Civilization 4 or Civ4) is a turn-based strategy computer game and the fourth installment of the Civilization series. It was developed by lead designer Soren Johnson under the direction of Sid Meier and his video game development studio Firaxis Games, and then first released in North America, Europe, and Australia, between October 25 and November 4, 2005.

Civilization IV uses the 4X empire-building model for turn-based strategy gameplay, in which the player's main objective is to construct a civilization from limited initial resources. Most standard full-length games start the player with the a settler unit and/or a city unit in the year 4000 BC. As with other games in the series, there are by default five objectives the player can pursue in order to finish the game: conquering other civilizations, controlling a supermajority of the game world's land and population, building and sending the first sleeper ship to the Alpha Centauri star system, increasing the «Culture ratings» of at least three different cities to «legendary» levels, or winning a «World Leader» popularity contest by the United Nations. If the time limit for the game is reached and none of the previous goals has been fulfilled by any players including game AI players, the civilization with the highest total game score is declared winner. A large departure from earlier Civilization games is a new graphics engine created from scratch, based on the Gamebryo engine by Numerical Design Limited (NDL).

The game has generally received nearly universal acclaim and was hailed as an example product of one of the leading video game producers in the turn-based strategy genre. Civilization IV has sold 3 million copies and won multiple awards, including several Game of the Year awards. In addition to this, Firaxis Games has also released two other major expansions, Civilization IV: Warlords and Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, plus the standalone game Civilization IV: Colonization, which were all combined in 2007 into one release edition titled Sid Meier's Civilization IV: The Complete Edition. Civilization 4 Free Download.

Gameplay

Civilization IV follows some of the 4X model of turn-based strategy games, a genre in which players control an empire and «explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate», by having the player attempt to lead a modest group of peoples from a base with initially scarce resources into a successful empire or civilization.[3][4] The condition for winning the game is accomplished through one of the five ways: militarily defeating all other civilizations in the game world, controlling over two-thirds of the game world's land and population, building the first spaceship in the Space Age and sending it to Alpha Centauri, having the most dominant Culture ratings over other civilizations, or becoming «World Leader» through the United Nations votes.[5] Additionally, there are multiple game scores for each civilization throughout the game based on the actions of each civilization and a number of different factors, allowing for a win condition based on the total of these points if the game timer runs out. The game can be played in multiple modes: as a single player facing against one or more computer-controlled opponents, or through online multiplayer games.[6]

As with other turn-based strategy video games, the player can customize the look and feel of their game world as well as the difficulty of any game AI players before the game starts.You may also buy ships to gain money by stealing from the other players.There are several different kinds of ships some bigger than others. Some strategies, include winning destroying and winning and owning. Each map space has a terrain type, such as plains, tundra, or desert, that affects the available resources players can extract from their environments and the movements of certain units through that terrain. The player is then given a total of 18 different civilizations to choose from, each with their own pros and cons, plus a leader avatar, an initial set of civilization technology, and any units unique to that civilization. When the game starts, however, it chooses random locations to place across a predefined square grid map. Like other strategy games, Civilization IV has a fog of war feature, in which unexplored territory remains darkened and territories without any units stationed on its designated square is shaded with darker colors. Civilization 4 Free Download PC Game.

Units and combat

Most units that the player can generate and use are military units, with certain attributes such as combat strength and movement rate particular to each military type. Each unit can gain experience through combat, which later translates into experience points that the player can use to assign military units new bonuses.[5] Initially, most combat takes place on land, but further advancements in the game's technology tree can allow the player ships and planes with which to fight battles on sea and in the air. Any number of units can be stacked onto a single space and move as a group if so assigned, but the overall combat phase is resolved by one-on-one unit battles.

Combat is initiated when moving military units are moved onto the square occupied by an opposing force's military units and cities, and combat is then resolved with calculating statistics of each unit combined with some random chance. Defeated units are removed from the game, and any attacking units that are able to defeat the last defending military unit on a space will move to occupy that space; if the space is occupied by a city the player may choose to occupy and capture the city as their own or raze it down. Other than combat, military units can be also be assigned to fortify a specific space, perform sentry duties, destroy enemy city improvements, or explore the game world.

Non-military units include settlers who are used to found cities, workers who are used to improve space and gather resources, spies who can perform counterintelligence and espionage, and religious missionaries who can be sent to convert different civilizations and cities. Throughout the game, players may also have a random chance to generate a special unit called a «Great Person», who are named after historical figures and can be used for one-time advantage boosts over other civilizations in various ways; examples include Great Engineers who increase overall production levels and Great Scientists who improve current civilization technology. Building certain wonders or discovering certain technologies can improve the chances of generating a Great Person. However, like other units, they can be attacked and captured before the players can use them. Civilization 4 for PC.

Resources and buildings

Once a city is founded, it will automatically begin extracting resources from surrounding spaces; the amount of spaces it can extract from is determined by the city's population size. The game automatically allocates the spaces a city uses and how its resources are maintained as the city grows, but the player is free to manage the city directly. This feature can be utilized to turn a part of the population into one of several specialized occupations; at the cost of having one less space from the city, these specialists increase gathering and production of the resources of their targeted specializations. If the specialists are assigned to be «idle», they generate the «happiness» resource for a city; a city that is «unhappy» may fall into a brief period of rioting where no production can occur.

Each city can only produce one military unit or one building at a time; any additional units or buildings are placed into a queue. The rate of construction is determined by the amount of material collected from the surrounding spaces; players can also choose to speed production through the city coffers once they have obtained the required technology for it. Lastly, the player can instead specialize the city towards gathering a particular resource instead of constructing additional units or buildings.

Buildings perform any number of different functions depending on building type; for example, early buildings such as granaries produce food to boost the city's growth, while later buildings such as factories can be made to increase general production levels. There also a number of unique buildings throughout the game, such as World Wonders, which can be accessed through research nodes in the technology tree and construction through the worker unit. These provide advantages that are unique to each civilization, as they are limited to only one or two players.

Through buildings and specialists, each city also generates the «Culture» resource that contributes towards both the area upon which the city can influence for extracting resources and the overall civilization's cultural value. When two cities of different civilizations are adjacent to each other, the culture values of each city influences the space they can control; it is even possible that a city close to another civilization's city will join that civilization if their culture is strong enough. The high levels of culture gathering and attainment are also one of the default conditions that can be used to win the game.[5]

Technology, government and religion

Once a city has been founded, the player can select their first technology node from the game's technology tree to research; in other instances throughout the game however, the player must accumulate the required number of research points before accessing each of the technology nodes. As with other types of technology trees, technology nodes require the research of other previous technology nodes. The player can also select a future technology and immediately place into the game queue any technology nodes between the current technology level and the specified technology node. Technology can also determine another win condition that the player can decide to utilize as a goal; an endgame technology node is required to develop a colony ship to reach Alpha Centauri.[5]

Within the technology tree are technology nodes relating to government civics and state religions, each with their own pros and cons. The player has the option of selecting which set of government civics or state religions that the player wants their civilization to follow, but not all civics and religions can be encompassed.

Once the player has formally met another civilization, they can perform diplomacy at any time. For example, if the two civilizations are on friendly terms, the player can ask to trade units and/or technology for money and vice versa, or request opening of national borders in order to freely explore in the other civilization's territories. The player can also use the diplomacy menu to request help in a war against a third civilization, or formally declare war on any civilization in which they engage diplomacy.

Religion plays a larger role in this game than it did in previous installments of the Civilization series. Each city is tracked according to its adopted religion, which can come from when the religion's first founding or the presence of missionaries. The specific religion's pros and cons depend appropriately on the player's selected government civics and state religions; for example a city with a religion contrary to the state religion can produce unhappiness in a city. Missionary units are not restricted to spreading religion within a single civilization; they may also travel across national borders to other civilizations to spread their religion.[1]

Customization

Civilization IV is much more open to modification than its predecessors were. Game data and rules are stored in XML files, and a Software Development Kit was released in April 2006 to allow customization of game AI. Most of the game is written in Python, and can be customized.[6][8]

The World Builder allows a player to either design a map from scratch or edit a preloaded template map as a starting point for a new game. The player can modify the map by placing and modifying any number of rivers, landmasses, mountains, resources, units, and cities, as well as their attributes such as Culture generation. The World Builder for Civilization IV is in-game, in contrast to previous Civilization games where the Map Editor was an external application.[9]

More game attributes are stored in XML files, which can be edited with an external text editor or application. On September 20, 2005, Firaxis Games senior producer Barry Caudill stated that [e]"diting these files will allow players to tweak simple game rules and change or add content. For instance, they can add new unit or building types, change the cost of wonders, or add new civilizations. Players can also change the sounds played at certain times or edit the play list for your soundtrack.[9]"

The Civilization IV software development kit was released on April 13, 2006, to coincide with the release of the v1.61 patch. The kit allows players to view, modify, or even completely re-write the game's DLL source code, enabling the modification of the game's AI and other integral parts of the game that were previously not accessible.[10]

Production and development

The game engine for Civilization IV was built entirely from scratch,[11] with some help from NDL's Gamebryo engine.[2] This decision resulted in a full 3D immersion of the game, which was the first in the series,[12] and which allowed easier readability[5] and smoother, more in-depth zooming capabilities.[4] Additionally, some of the quotes relating to the technology tree and narration for the game was provided by Leonard Nimoy.[5][7] The soundtrack for the game features compositions of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque origin,[1] and design for the title music was influenced by The Lion King.[1][7] Stanford University performer Talisman A Cappella and composer Christopher Tin helped create the 2011 Grammy Award winning song «Baba Yetu» (swahili «Our Father»), which was a rendition of the Lord's Prayer specifically to be played at the start of the game.[13]

Mods

Sid Meier's Civilization IV also released some bonus content, mainly to show modding capabilities:

• Earth – This is the world map of the game, based on the Robinson projection of the Earth in order to optimize its size. 124×68 tiles big, it features just 9 ancient civilizations.[14] An 18 civilizations version of this mod was later released which won the first prize at a GameFlood modding contest.[15]
• Earth Ice Age – This map is set in the world during the last ice age (20,000 years before present), with 11 randomly picked civilizations.[16]
• 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 was also borrowed from other ancient sources such as Homer, Ptolemy, and Herodotus.[17]
• Rhye's and Fall of Civilization – This mod changes much of the core settings of the game as an attempt at maintaining a sense of historical realism into the game. In order to do this, it introduces other features such as plagues and congresses.[18]
• Caveman2Cosmos – extensive mod for Civ 4 BTS, stretches over 50,000 years and introduces a large amount of new content in the TechTree and Units. It is described[by whom?] as spiritual successor to the Civilization 4 mod «Rise of Mankind» and its addon «A New Dawn».[19]

Civilization Anonymous

The game had a viral marketing campaign, revolving around a fictitious self-help organization known as Civilization Anonymous (shortened to CivAnon), the intention being to satirise how addictive the game was. With the slogan «No More Turns», the premise was the following: «Rumors have begun to circulate that the newest edition of the „One More Turn“ franchise is on its way. STAY AWAY from this game at all costs. You will likely be powerless to its extreme addictive properties once exposed».[20] Various characters were created, and their scenarios were included in various trailers showing the "inside [of] a Civanon meeting for [Civilization] addicts.,[21] the first of which being played during E3 2005 once an hour at the 2K Games booth[22] These "video testimonials of supposedly recovering Civilization addicts[23]" also featured cameos by Sid Meier. In addition to this, «official» website was created by 2K Games with extra content. The Civilization Anonymous campaign was brought back for the following game Civilization V. Break described the campaign as «hilarious»,[21] while Kotaku described it as a «great promotional campaign» that «comes across as terrifyingly realistic».[24] Destructoid shared this view, saying the support group campaign is «a clever marketing tool», but wishing it existed as «we all know there really are people who suffer from one-more-turn-itis».[25] VantureBeat said the campaign was «incredibly clever and funny», adding «what made it so powerful was not the near-flawless execution and fine detail; it was the fact that it could have been real». 'Ctrl-Alt-Play: Essays on Control in Video Gaming noted the spoof highlighted the series' «hyper-addictive turn-based gameplay».[23] As part of the Civilization V version of the campaign, 2K Games asked Civilization addicts to submit stories via video in order to win $2,500 and a «framed, limited edition Civilization Anonymous poster signed by Firaxis Games».[25] The 2010 version was "updated for modern concerns, like the franchise's broader audience and iPhone editions of the game acting as a gateway drug.[26]"

Release

Civilization IV was published for the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. Aspyr released the Mac OS X version in June 2006, and a Mac digital version was released January 2010 on gameagent.com; there is no support for the Mac OS Extended platform.[27] Users who quickly purchased the game after initial release reported having problems playing the game on particular sets of video drivers, which were later resolved by a Firaxis patch, according to GameSpy.[8] By the end of March in 2008, the game sold over three million units.[28] Firaxis Games has also published two expansion packs for Civilization IV, entitled Civilization IV: Warlords and Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword. A remake of the original 1994 Sid Meier's Colonization, rebuilt with Civilization IV's game engine and titled Civilization IV: Colonization, was released for Mac and PC as a standalone game and later bundled with the two expansions as Civilization IV: The Complete Edition. Civilization 4 Download Torrent.