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Okay, we (sort of) had this for Civ3, time to do one for Civ4. Common abbreviations and terms explained for the non-initiated. Please note that I want to focus on common ones, the Civ3 list in my opinion had quite a few fairly obscure ones. Also note that this is not just for abbreviations but also for other terms that the new users may not be familiar with, and I included explanations along with the terms.
Feel free to submit your own, I will update this post on a regular (but not daily) basis. I reckon as Civ4 grows older more of these will be developed by the community. Remember, they have to be common and relevant for Civ4.
Edit: Eternal thanks to vovan to learning this old dog a new trick on how to avoid whitespace in tables
For non-civ specific abbreviations in every day chatting/posting (things like IMO, LOL, WTF, OMG, etc), see Wikipedia (if it isn't on that list, someone made it up on the spot 
)
Feel free to submit your own, I will update this post on a regular (but not daily) basis. I reckon as Civ4 grows older more of these will be developed by the community. Remember, they have to be common and relevant for Civ4.
Edit: Eternal thanks to vovan to learning this old dog a new trick on how to avoid whitespace in tables
Code:
| ACS | Apolyton Civilization Site, the website you're visiting right now. |
| AI | Artificial Intelligence, the computer opponents and the code that controls them. |
| AW | Always War, game option. |
| BSOD | Blue Screen Of Death, what happens when the game crashes and displays a blue screen with white text, indicating an Operation System error. |
| C4P | [url=http://civ4players.proboards44.com/index.cgi]CIV4Players[/url], a multiplayer ladder community. |
| CD | Collateral Damage, game concept. |
| Civ | Abbreviation for Civilization; Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, Civ4 refers to a specific game in the Civilization series. |
| CIV | Abbreviation for Civilization IV. |
| CFC | [url=www.civfanatics.com]Civilization Fanatics Center[/url]. Apolyton and CFC are together the two biggest Civilization fansites. |
| CP | Culture Point, game concept. |
| CPT | Culture Per Turn, game concept. |
| CS | Civil Service, game concept. |
| CS Gambit | See CS slingshot. |
| CS Slingshot | Civil Service slingshot, strategy where you try to finish researching Code of Laws just before you complete building The Oracle. This allows you to take Civil Service as your free tech. |
| CTD | Crash To Desktop, what happens when a game crashes and sends you back to the Windows desktop. |
| CtP | Call to Power, a game series that's similar and related to the Civilization series but not part of it; CtP1, CtP2 are specific titles in the series. |
| Culture Bomb | Using a Great Artist to create a Great Work that provide an instant boost of culture to a threatened city. |
| DemoGame | See Democracy Game. |
| Democracy Game | A game where a group of players controls a single civ, see [url=http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=259]DG forum[/url]. |
| DG | Democracy Game, see there. |
| FoW | Fog of War, game concept. |
| FPT | Food Per Turn, game concept. |
| GA | Golden Age, game concept. |
| GP | Great Person, game concept. |
| GPP | Great People Point, game concept. |
| GPPT | Great People Points per Turn, game concept. |
| GPT | Gold Per Turn, game concept. |
| GW | Great Wonder, game concept. |
| Hotseat | Game where several humans play on one PC, each controlling their own civ and taking turns to play. |
| HP | HitPoint, game concept. |
| HPT | Hammers Per Turn, game concept. |
| ICS | Infinite City Sleaze/Sprawl/Syndrome, strategy in Civ1-3 where you spam the map with cities like mad to control as much territory as possible, which in those games was a guaranteed no-brainer way to win the game. |
| Locust | Early game Civ4 strategy revolving a beeline for bronzeworking and clear-cutting forests for the short term shield gain. Lethal on Pangea maps if you can win quick. Self-destroying if you can't win quickly. |
| MM | Micro-Management, managing your empire in excruciating detail, squeezing every last Food, Hammer and Gold out of it by often doing very mundane and repetitive tasks. Particularly in Civ1-3 necessary to run the game at 100% efficiency but typically seen as very tedious and unfun to do. |
| MP | Multi-Player, game with more than one human player, usually played either online or on a LAN (local network). Other forms of MP are PBEM, Pitboss and Hotseat (see there). |
| NW | National Wonder, game concept. |
| OB | Open Borders, game concept. |
| OCC | One City Challenge, a game in which human players are only allowed to have one city. |
| OOS | Out Of Synch, a common multiplayer error that happens when the games of the different players are not identical (in theory only happens when not using the same set of files... in theory). |
| OS | Operating System, program that controls a computer, for most people Windows. |
| PBEM | Play By EMail, a form of multiplayer gaming where every player plays one turn and then sends the game to the next player by email. |
| Pitboss | Persistant Turn-Based Server which lets you play an online game when everyone is online at the same time, otherwise game functions as PBEM game. |
| Pop-rush | Hurrying production with population. |
| Py | Short for Python, see there. |
| Python | Python is the scripting language of Civ4, used to control the user interface, create mapscripts, add events and add some features to the game. Python files (extension: .py) can be opened and edited in any text editor, but there are specialised editors that are more user-friendly and powerful. See the [url=http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=257]Creation forum[/url]. |
| REX | Rapid Early EXpansion, dominant Civ3 strategy for the early part of a game where you found new cities as quickly and often as possible, at the cost of growing/developing them, until you run out of new land to claim. Not feasible in Civ4. |
| RoP | Right of Passage, Civ3 equivalent of Open Borders. |
| SE | Social Engineering, SMAC game concept, similar to Civics. |
| Shield | read: Hammer (known as Shield in Civ1-3, old habits die hard), game concept. |
| SG | Succession Game, see there. |
| SMAC | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a game similar and related to Civilization and functions as a 'sequel' (to Civ2): it's set on a new planet, after the launch of the space ship to Alpha Centauri. |
| SMAX | Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire, expansion pack for SMAC. |
| SoD | Stack of Doom, the concept of creating one very large stack of unit, capturing one city after another with it. Dominant strategy in Civ1-3, much less viable in Civ4. |
| SP | Single Player, game with only one human player. |
| SPT | Shields Per Turn (read: Hammers Per Turn), game concept. |
| Succession Game | A game played by several people where every player plays a few turns and then passes the savegame on to the next person. |
| ToT | Test of Time, expansion pack for Civ2. |
| UI | User Interface, all buttons, screens, messages, etc that take care of interaction between player and game. |
| UU | Unique Unit, game concept. |
| WLT*D | We Love The (Leader) Day, game concept. |
| XML | EXtensible Markup Language, the format used for the files that store all the in-game data in Civ4. XML files can be opened and edited in any text editor, but there are specialised XML editors that are more user-friendly and powerful. See the [url=http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=257]Creation forum[/url]. |
| XP | Experience (Points), game concept. |
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) I don't know what CT's supposed to be (beyond alva's suggestion), didn't add that either.
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