Game Review: Civilization IV

I suppose I owe Sid Meiers a debt of gratitude. I recently installed Civ IV and faced the usual Meiersian cavalcade of spreadsheets and tech trees.

"Well, self," I said to myself, "I guess I'd best settle in and start studying."

Then my Tyler Durden personality popped up and said "Pop quiz: how is your 401k fund invested, in round figures? Do you even know the password for you account?"

So, I've spent much of my free time over these past weeks reining in my long term finances, in case I DON'T die of laziness before 40.

That handled, I spent some time yesterday and today playing through my first game.

The good: It's much like the previous games in the Civ series. Turn-based economic/war strategy boardgame.

The bad: It's much like the previous games in the Civ series. Micromanagement-palooza.

Though, this entry is MUCH better about the micromanagement thing. Worker units (introduced in Civ III) are back, and you can just set them to a task like "build a big ass road network" or "improve everything" instead of having to a) burn an (expensive) settler unit on that task and b) tell it every little thing you want it to do.

I also really like the unit upgrade and skill promotion feature, as well as the collateral damage and anti-city-defense attacks (failure to appreciate which caused me to lose my first war...thank god for reload.)

Anyway, since Spore draws a good deal of inspiration from Sid's game, I'm glad I got a chance to dig into a little. Civ can be a demanding mistress. Most games, you can play for five minutes or five hours at a time and it doesn't really matter in terms of grokking the gameplay. Civ, you need at least three hours for.

Oh, and this one is narrated by Leonard Nimoy, which is always fun.

Three stars, Jason Bob sez check it out if you've got some time.