Obviously a loaded question to post in the Mac forum, but WTF.

I own a stock MacBook Pro (2.16 Core2 Duo, 1 GB, 10.4.8).
I own Civ IV vanilla and Warlords for PC (received as gift).

I plan to play both solo and MP (vs. PC users). MP is key.

Should I:
A. Buy a copy of XP, install it and BootCamp, and play in PC world?
B. Just buy Vanilla and Warlords for Mac?

My concerns re going all-Mac are: crashes in MP (cuz the Mac player is always blamed), sharing saves (like in demogames, successions, etc.), periods of MP drought while waiting for patches to catch up with PC version.

My concerns re going XP/PC are: incompatible in key assignments/shortcuts (ie, the Apple key, right-clicking, etc), general weirdness in having two OS on one machine (having never done so), expense of having to buy Leopard (assuming the beta of BootCamp will "expire"). I'm told this game is very mouse-intensive, so I guess I'll have to buy a mouse as well.

Also, what is GameSpy? Are there platform issues with that?

I see from other posts that the cross-platform compatibility in MP seems to be cool at this point, as long as non-modded versions are used by all. Is this accurate?

So: any sage advice based on actual experience would be most appreciated.

The Mac version works reasonably well at the moment for most users, but some users are still experiencing weird problems (note that so are a few windows users, this is not a mac-only issue). Mac vs. Windows multiplayer works fine if you use the Rev B patch on the mac version -- but for some reason on some systems the Rev. B patch removes the sound effects and causes random crashes (on my system, for example -- although I haven't heard anyone else complain about this so it could just be my system maybe).

On the whole if multiplayer is a big thing for you then Windows might be a better choice right now.

I'm involved with several multiplayer games right now, and have yet to experience a cross-platform issue. One important consideration, however, is that the mac version doesn't support Pitboss play.

It seems to me that if you really want lots of multiplayer options, then you'd want to have pitboss capability, and so you'd be better playing on a windows platform. But if you're satisfied with play by email, then I'd just stick with mac.

"Pitboss"? What's that?

Essentially, everyone is playing at the same time... sort of. The pitboss host determines how long to allow for each turn, say, 24 hours. At any point up until the timer runs out, you may log into your game (hosted on the pitboss server), set up your worker actions, build queues, conduct diplomacy, etc. Then the moves are executed when the timer runs out. Next turn, you log back in, play your game, etc. The games progress much faster than with pbem. You can think of it as a slow-motion hotseat game. :)

Gotcha. I doubt I'll be playing in that format. More likely it will be simul-turn MP in real time.

In my experience, the PC version is much more stable. However, unless you're buying XP at student prices, I wouldn't think this game is worth buying XP.

Just my two cents.

Well, I've got to buy either XP or Civ4/Mac. The price difference is not that big.

Is there anyone around here who has played the PC version on a Mac? I'm still concerned about the keyboard differences...