Why CIV4 is the best video game ever made

[ethan6080]

If you made it so that people couldn't declare war while in these deals then they could be exploited as a cheap way of keeping peace with a strong opponent.

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[Brael]

The best game ever made is obviously an exaggeration. The point is: it's a great game.

I wish I found out about this earlier, when I became bored of all the generic mmorpg titles.

The best game ever is up for debate, however in various "greatest game ever" lists it routinely scores very high. Even above starcraft in a lot of them (which is easily one of the most successful games ever). The fact is, no one is ever going to agree on what the best game ever is but if a game can consistently score a pretty high rank on everyones lists (to say nothing of even making the vast majority of lists in the first place) you can safely say it's a very good game.

...yay for responding to old posts.

[yingxuy]

If so, one can not declare war, and in these transactions, they can use as a cheap way to maintain a strong opponent of peace.

[wodan11]

The best game ever is up for debate, however in various "greatest game ever" lists it routinely scores very high. Even above starcraft in a lot of them (which is easily one of the most successful games ever).

Civ4 has high loyalty because it has extremely high replayability in solo mode, and extremely good mods. Starcraft is not so high on either of those, but it has extremely high multiplayer and scenarios.

Is Civ4 the greatest game ever? I seriously doubt it; it has serious flaws in multiplayer, memory management by the core engine, and AI. There's certainly a lot of room for improvement or for other games to do better.

[Nwabudike]

The funny thing about this is, that this topic was started in 2006 and nowadays its still true! Civ4 sure is a brilliance game. And about the opening soundtrack...That is the only bad thing about the expansion BTS... the Civ4 opening music is gone

I got Civ 4 for Christmas and felt the same way. So I went into the Assets\Sounds\Soundtrack folder in the Civ 4 directory and copied the mp3 file OpeningMenu to BTS's Soundtrack folder (Beyond the Sword\Assets\Sounds\Soundtrack), storing BTS's menu music as OpeningMenuBackup. You might not even need to copy it; IIRC, BTS's Soundtrack folder already had files called OpeningMenuCiv4 and OpeningMenuWarlords in it, so simply renaming whichever one you want should do the trick. (As far as I know, neither one is used by BTS at all; my guess is that they're there so that you can achieve the same thing by changing a line in an ini/xml file somewhere.)

The folders in question might be in your Documents folder rather than the Civ 4 directory if you're running Windows Vista/7, not sure because I'm on my XP computer at the moment.

I read somewhere that the piece in question is a variation of the Lord's Prayer sung in Swahili, BTW. And the music for the menu on Warlords is a Lebanese love song!

[bluetemplar]

Best ever? Hardly...

First I think that you can't really compare games in different genres like Civ 4 and for instance Crysis, so it actually bears down to personal preferences...

1) You can play it the rest of your life and never play the same game twice

You just haven't played it enough, after a while you will start employing a limited number of strategies, because they're the most effective. (and no one likes losing... )

2) It makes you really think and research shows it actually can increase your IQ

I doubt that's the only game.

3) You get a sense of accomplishment when playing the game, unlike any of game

You just haven't played enough different games.

4) Its a new kind of "drug" that is addicting in a good way, see number 2

Again, I doubt it's the only game that works that way, actually I think all the best games have this kind of effect...

5) What other game allows you to build a country from 1 settler from the stone age to the space age? Sure there are others, but they don't do it like CIV4, not even close

All other 4X games?

6) You don't need a $3000 gaming comp to run it! In fact you can run it on a $600 machine or even a laptop

Most strategy, and especially TBS games demand few resources. And I had to buy 8 Gb of ram because modded Civ 4 would crash with 2.75.

7) There is more depth here then the pacific ocean!

True that, the Civilopedia is very well made.

8) The music is just, well we all know, AWESOME!

Oh, I still have the chills sometimes when I listen to the intro. Do you know it won a Grammy award?

9) The ability to interact with AI leaders is downright incredible!

Again, look at most of the 4X games. Nothing exceptional here. For instance the leaders are a lot more memorable and lifelike in Alpha Centauri, despite the lack of animated avatars.

10) AI is just about this best for a strategy game as big as this

Are you kidding me? AI is absolutely awful, especially in combat, it needs a big boost to even hope to compete with a human player. But this is true for all Civ games. I'm not an AI programmer so I don't know if this is due to the inherent design of the game, it's complexity or just having been decided that coding a decent AI wasn't worth the trouble.

11) Spearmen, horses, ships, tanks, jets, nukes, etc!Awesome selection of units that not many games can match

Meh, that's just your preference.

12) Can actually "teach" kids why wars are fought.

Yup, we're going to have more many oil-related wars in this century...

13) Has meaning, just a very meaningfull game.

What do you mean exactly?

14) Pretty to look at and awesome animations

Well, that was written in 2006, so now we have a different point of view, but the game is still kind of blocky, it could have been more beautiful if made in 2D, and would have not required a dedicated graphic card to run (IIRC that was a major gripe back then...)
Though I agree that the "leaderheads" are really great and especially cute.

I think we all know what I am getting at so feel free to add to this list...

Now, the reason I still play Civ 4 a lot are the mods (Caveman to Cosmos right now, but that's not for everyone, so complex this mod is...). Civ 4 has an absolutely HUGE modding community with dozens of mods and mods that spawn other mods that spawn other mods (C2C is a mod of A New Daw which is a mod of Rise of Mankind). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it might even have the biggest modding community of all the video games (maybe after Half-Life).

[wodan11]

Best ever? Hardly...

First I think that you can't really compare games in different genres like Civ 4 and for instance Crysis, so it actually bears down to personal preferences...

Agreed.

You just haven't played it enough, after a while you will start employing a limited number of strategies, because they're the most effective. (and no one likes losing... )

Actually, I think it's the other way around. You haven't played it enough; after a while you start employing more, different strategies. Yes, when you first try a new strategy it is less effective. That's because it's new to you, and you haven't perfected it yet, whereas your old strategy, you've played many times. But, as you play a new strategy more, it becomes more effective. Thus: you haven't played it enough.

Most strategy, and especially TBS games demand few resources. And I had to buy 8 Gb of ram because modded Civ 4 would crash with 2.75.

Agreed... Civ4 has some fundamental engine / memory issues.

Are you kidding me? AI is absolutely awful, especially in combat, it needs a big boost to even hope to compete with a human player. But this is true for all Civ games. I'm not an AI programmer so I don't know if this is due to the inherent design of the game, it's complexity or just having been decided that coding a decent AI wasn't worth the trouble.

Agreed here as well. The AI has huge problems. Even with the BetterAI mod (which is a huge step in the right direction), the AI really needs a lot more improvement.

And this goes double for mods... Modders don't seem to comprehend at a base level that when you add new rules/complexities to the game, you have to program the AI to use those new rules. Almost all mods completely fail at this. Thus, they promise an exciting new game but the experience falls completely short.

Now, the reason I still play Civ 4 a lot are the mods (Caveman to Cosmos right now, but that's not for everyone, so complex this mod is...). Civ 4 has an absolutely HUGE modding community with dozens of mods and mods that spawn other mods that spawn other mods (C2C is a mod of A New Daw which is a mod of Rise of Mankind). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it might even have the biggest modding community of all the video games (maybe after Half-Life).

FFH, Fall Further, and Rise from Erebus; Planetfall; and others really revitalized by Civ4 experience and added a lot of enjoyable play. Yet they still suffer in varying degrees from the concern I voiced above. I tried C2C but couldn't get it to run on my present machine; I just ordered a new Dell and will probably give it another shot.

Another concern with mods is that modders, as any hobbyist will, tend to spend their time on the "fun" stuff and ignore what makes for a truly professional product: the AI is just one such item. Added to that is designing balanced gameplay, updating the civilopedia, writing good game text, actually testing in a robust manner and doing bugfixes, etc.

So, they keep adding more and more new features to their mod, more and more new units and art, and more and more civs, each with their own new gameplay. All of it thrown in there without much comprehensive attention, and then throwing in yet more still without comprehensive attention, so at the end you end up with patch upon patch and it's a huge mess (from a design standpoint). All this comes out in the end product by the AI not knowing how to play the mod, with features that are too powerful or not powerful enough, by the civilopedia being little help, by the game text not being intuitive and consistently worded, by constant crashes, etc.

[bluetemplar]

Why would I want to play Planetfall when I can just play the original Alpha Centauri?

[wodan11]

I suppose some people would ask the same question of CIV4. "Why would I want to play CIV4 when I can just play CIV3?"

If you can't answer the question, I suppose you'll be just as happy playing the original SMAC, yes.

[PLATO]

I love Civ IV because it is just challenging enough to take my mind off of RL, but not difficult enough to make my head hurt.

[alecs76ro]

There are some computer games which will never die:

- Civ I, II, III, IV
- Starcraft (I+II)
- Diablo II
- Rome TW, Medieval II TW
- Settlers II,III,IV
- Age of Empires I, II
- Empire Earth (only I)
- Master of Orion / Galactic Civ II

What do you think?

[jackboyz]

CIV4 is awesome. I never get bored by it. It is for all kids and adults and it helps to increase their IQ.

[mrp]

It is way better than the others. Civ 4 is the STIG of the Civ series
the ones before don't have upgrades and have tanks being killed by militia which is just rubbish
Civ 5 gameplay is just rubbish and don't give a damn about Steam
the great people usage in 5 is just rubbish
I am not into nuke fights
get that nuke bomber every turn crap out of here
only thing is I l wish all civ 4 could be like Napoleon Europe 1.3 fighting site
where the infantry line up in 2 lines
civ 5 has way too much sit on duff peace build up time and not enough on unit production
if they had a mod that made civ 5 play like civ 4 I'd play otherwise to hell with it
the only thing i do like about 5 is the bombard mode on 5
put planes system is just rubbish. I won't let is fly our planes across an ocean

[hommystyle]

Attacking on other countries is not necessary

[Dinner]

I suppose some people would ask the same question of CIV4. "Why would I want to play CIV4 when I can just play CIV3?"

If you can't answer the question, I suppose you'll be just as happy playing the original SMAC, yes.

Because Civ4 is a great while Civ3 has always sucked. Next question.