Anybody know when the Civ 4 will be available for Mac?

It will be available in June, 2006. First half of June I believe.

There is a Macintosh Civ3 forum hereabouts where this topic is aired, and it is even visited occasionally by Aspyr staff, including the lead programmer Brad Oliver. Drop by sometime.

I hope they make a linux version aswell, mac osX is based on unix so I don't think there so much work to to a linux port aswell..

I hope they make a linux version aswell, mac osX is based on unix so I don't think there so much work to to a linux port aswell..
I wouldn't count on it. The market for OSX is small as it is, and Linux has an even smaller market. They would probably loose money proting it to Linux, so I just don't see it happening.

Don't underestimate the differences between OS X and Linux. Moving Civ4 from OS X to Linux would not be a trivial porting task. There's a world of difference between the APIs (programming interfaces) for the display managers in Linux and OS X. Sure, you can use a lot of Linux software in OS X, but only because it either doesn't need a user interface, or it runs in X-Windows, or someone's done extensive work to move the UI into Aqua.

What Alan said. ;)

While I believe that the *true* Linux games market is at least as large as the Mac games market, that perception is commonly not held in the corporate world. Plus there is often the mistaken belief that anything ported to Linux must be open-sourced. OTOH, if a company like Linux Games Publishing could work out an agreement with Firaxis/Take2, they could certainly make money, even given the fact that OSX/Linux games tend to run $10 more than the original Windows game.

Pre-ordered yesterday! I am just DYING in anticipation ;)

(My wife is not.)