After playing Civ4 a few times, & winning in 2 different ways, I find it a good game all in all.
PLAYABILITY:
The only new hardware I needed to buy was an ATI video card, & the one I bought is a 256MB card. As far as RAM goes, I have the minimum 256MB needed, & both of my RAM slots are full. I played for a while on a Standard map at Chieftain; once I got past the year 1800 the game started slowing down (now I see why 512MB RAM is recommended). So then I played a few more games on a Tiny map at Settler; the game ran more smoothly & I was able to keep playing until I won.
VICTORIES:
The 1st vic I attained was Culture in 2005 (the very same year it now is in real life!). After that I restored to an early point in the game & played differently. I expanded my empire a couple more cities so I could build an FP. I built forges, factories & labs in just about all my cities, & in 2020 I won Space Race.
CIVILIZATIONS:
For my own civ I tend to pick Julius Caesar, whose starting techs are Mining & Fishing. Briefly I did also try (on a Small map at Chieftain) playing Gandhi; that way I could get a head start on beating my rivals to Buddhism, have my workers work faster, & switch civics without anarchy. As for which civs to play against, I like Egypt, whose ruler Hatshepsut looks like my favorite singer Tammi Terrell. Isabella of Spain is good also, for her theme song is "Malaguena." For my Tiny-map games I played vs. Hatshepsut & Louis XIV. Of the latter's cities I was able to culturally conquer a few.
RELIGION:
I like how religion has revolutionized the Civ series in Civ4 like culture did in Civ3. As soon as I founded Buddhism I converted to it & stayed there almost throughout the game (except very late, through UN Resolution for Free Rel as global civic). I notice that AI cities appear dark on the map unless I have my own units nearby OR my state rel is present in those cities. I also notice that if I don't spread my rel to AI territory early & quickly, they might convert to something else & close their borders to me. I know the manual says it's easier to spread your rel to your own cities than to AI cities, yet if you want your rel to reach the AI quickly, the best strat is to send your 1st few missionaries to the AI, *then* spread to your own cities. I also made sure I beat the AI to all the religious techs so all the holy cities would be my own; I even managed, by the late game, to build a shrine for every rel.
THE UNITED NATIONS:
Whereas in Civ3 the only thing the UN could do was allow Diplo vic, it is much more developed here. You can vote on resolutions to ban nukes, make Free Rel global, make Emancipation global, make Uni Suff global, etc. Though I was always several votes short of Diplo vic, I was able to pass all other resolutions.
WHAT'S GONE:
I'm glad to be rid of the pollution spots that, in previous versions, would often pop up during the Industrial & Modern eras. They have been replaced with a healthiness/unhealthiness concept that applies throughout the game. I also like how maintenance costs for units & buildings have been consolidated into one expense for the whole city; corruption is no longer overt like in previous Civ games. No more non-productive cities just for keeping the AI from settling! OTOH, I miss the ability, when disbanding units in cities, to convert them to production shields; in Civ3 I often would draft & disband to hasten city buildings. Now, if I disband a unit, it's simply gone for good--no hammers, no gold, no nothin'. I also miss the ability to join workers & settlers to existing cities; I used to do that in Civ3 whenever I wanted a small city to grow quickly, or I wanted to reduce the pop of a city that got too big, or my workers were done improving the squares around a given city & I didn't want to disband them outright.
Good game overall--as long as I stick to small maps & easy difficulty levels.
PLAYABILITY:
The only new hardware I needed to buy was an ATI video card, & the one I bought is a 256MB card. As far as RAM goes, I have the minimum 256MB needed, & both of my RAM slots are full. I played for a while on a Standard map at Chieftain; once I got past the year 1800 the game started slowing down (now I see why 512MB RAM is recommended). So then I played a few more games on a Tiny map at Settler; the game ran more smoothly & I was able to keep playing until I won.
VICTORIES:
The 1st vic I attained was Culture in 2005 (the very same year it now is in real life!). After that I restored to an early point in the game & played differently. I expanded my empire a couple more cities so I could build an FP. I built forges, factories & labs in just about all my cities, & in 2020 I won Space Race.
CIVILIZATIONS:
For my own civ I tend to pick Julius Caesar, whose starting techs are Mining & Fishing. Briefly I did also try (on a Small map at Chieftain) playing Gandhi; that way I could get a head start on beating my rivals to Buddhism, have my workers work faster, & switch civics without anarchy. As for which civs to play against, I like Egypt, whose ruler Hatshepsut looks like my favorite singer Tammi Terrell. Isabella of Spain is good also, for her theme song is "Malaguena." For my Tiny-map games I played vs. Hatshepsut & Louis XIV. Of the latter's cities I was able to culturally conquer a few.
RELIGION:
I like how religion has revolutionized the Civ series in Civ4 like culture did in Civ3. As soon as I founded Buddhism I converted to it & stayed there almost throughout the game (except very late, through UN Resolution for Free Rel as global civic). I notice that AI cities appear dark on the map unless I have my own units nearby OR my state rel is present in those cities. I also notice that if I don't spread my rel to AI territory early & quickly, they might convert to something else & close their borders to me. I know the manual says it's easier to spread your rel to your own cities than to AI cities, yet if you want your rel to reach the AI quickly, the best strat is to send your 1st few missionaries to the AI, *then* spread to your own cities. I also made sure I beat the AI to all the religious techs so all the holy cities would be my own; I even managed, by the late game, to build a shrine for every rel.
THE UNITED NATIONS:
Whereas in Civ3 the only thing the UN could do was allow Diplo vic, it is much more developed here. You can vote on resolutions to ban nukes, make Free Rel global, make Emancipation global, make Uni Suff global, etc. Though I was always several votes short of Diplo vic, I was able to pass all other resolutions.
WHAT'S GONE:
I'm glad to be rid of the pollution spots that, in previous versions, would often pop up during the Industrial & Modern eras. They have been replaced with a healthiness/unhealthiness concept that applies throughout the game. I also like how maintenance costs for units & buildings have been consolidated into one expense for the whole city; corruption is no longer overt like in previous Civ games. No more non-productive cities just for keeping the AI from settling! OTOH, I miss the ability, when disbanding units in cities, to convert them to production shields; in Civ3 I often would draft & disband to hasten city buildings. Now, if I disband a unit, it's simply gone for good--no hammers, no gold, no nothin'. I also miss the ability to join workers & settlers to existing cities; I used to do that in Civ3 whenever I wanted a small city to grow quickly, or I wanted to reduce the pop of a city that got too big, or my workers were done improving the squares around a given city & I didn't want to disband them outright.
Good game overall--as long as I stick to small maps & easy difficulty levels.
