I've heard most people who I talk to tell me that Civ IV is the bomb. I'm like really?? So I bought Civ IV thinking it would be better than Civ III. I was a little disappointed. I'm still trying to figure out what makes Civ IV as fun as people are describing?! For one thing I can't change the settings to start with this # of Civ's or this many barbarians. World size is another thing. I am use to playing huge map games in Civ III. In Civ 4 the huge map option yields a very very small map. What is going on?? The civics option with so many things in it makes gameplay very complicated. Maybe I haven't played long enough yet to find the virtues of Civ IV. Either that or maybe its just that everyone have different tastes and to me less is more sometimes? I dunno. I certainly wish though that Civ IV will become fun for me so that it wasn't a waste of 50$. Maybe its the multiplayer. I haven't tried that.