Do I need to copy the Play Disk and, if so, how ?

[Siggy19]

I do not want to pirate Civ IV... I bought it 6 weeks before I could play it !

However, I really hate having to cart around the original CD in the CD Drive of my laptop so that I can play the game when I wish to.

Do Firaxis have a policy of replacing trashed or lost original CDs or is there some way I can legally copy it myself and use the backup ?

It is dumb of Firaxis to penalise the legitimate users by imposing this sort of condition, but I guess that it is their right so long as they do provide replacements of the disk or allow it to be copied.

 

[BomberEscort]

Goto Gamecopyworld.com... it has your solution.

 

[quakeboy]

try Alcohol 120%

 

[calyth]

It is dumb of Firaxis to penalise the legitimate users by imposing this sort of condition, but I guess that it is their right so long as they do provide replacements of the disk or allow it to be copied.

Depending on where you're from, you might be allowed to make a backup copy of your CDROM for backup purposes. I would think most game publishers would gladly replace a CD (maybe dock you for shipping, or alternatively mail you an envelope for you to prove ownership). They usually don't want to piss off gamers that paid cash.
It isn't dumb for them to "penalize" users by making them having the CDs in the drives. I don't even think new games nowadays actually run all that much off the CD anyways - HD size allows them to have timely access to game data. They require it in the drives because people do pirate CDs, and they can't just check for authenticity during install.
Blizzard, at one time, had pretty good solutions to allow people to try out games. "Spawning" a minimal install allowed friends of an owner to play with the owner. Old C&C games didn't actually require 2 CDs, but they built it that way so that one could be loaned to a friend to try out. It would be nice to be able to run off the HD and not do the CD shuffle, and you can figure this out pretty quickly - you're already told where to look.