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The Civilizations

Each of the 18 civilizations in the game starts with two technologies and possesses a unique unit. In addition, each empire has one or two leaders, each of which provides special bonuses. (You get one or the other if there are two to choose between, of course.) Each leader also has a preferred civic that dictates how they like to govern their people. That type of information is very useful when negotiating with other leaders during the game.

Civilization	Starting Technologies	Unique Unit	First Leader	Second Leader
American Empire	fishing (leads to pottery and sailing) agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry)	Navy SEAL (strong against artillery units, as well as those with machine guns)	Roosevelt (industrious, organized) Preferred civic: universal suffrage	Washington (financial, organized) Preferred civic: universal suffrage
Arabian Empire	mysticism (leads to meditation, polytheism, and masonry) the wheel (leads to pottery)	Camel Archer (immune to first strikes and has a 25% chance to withdraw from combat)	Saladin (philosophical, spiritual) Preferred civic: theocracy
Aztec Empire	mysticism (leads to meditation, polytheism, and masonry) hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry)	Jaguar (+10% city attack and +25% jungle defense)	Montezuma (aggressive, spiritual) Preferred civic: police state
Chinese Empire	agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Cho-Ko-Nu (two first strikes; also offers a 50% bonus when fighting melee units and causes collateral damage while fighting)	Mao Zedong (philosophical, organized) Preferred civic: state property	Qin Shi Huang (industrious, financial) Preferred civic: police state
Egyptian Empire	the wheel (leads to pottery) agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry)	War Chariot (immune to first strikes and doesn’t receive defensive bonuses, although it can withdraw from combat)	Hatshepsut (spiritual, creative) Preferred civic: hereditary rule
English Empire	fishing (leads to pottery and sailing) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Redcoat (25% bonus against mounted and gunpowder units)	Elizabeth (philosophical, financial) Preferred civic: free religion	Victoria (expansive, financial) Preferred civic: representation
French Empire	the wheel (leads to pottery) agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry)	Musketeer (a gunpowder unit that replaces the musket man)	Louis XIV (industrious, creative) Preferred civic: hereditary rule	Napoleon (aggressive, industrious) Preferred civic: representation
German Empire	hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Panzer (doesn’t gain defensive bonuses but picks up a 50% bonus when attacking armored units and always starts with a blitz)	Bismarck (expansive, industrious) Preferred civic: representation	Frederick (philosophical, creative) Preferred civic: universal suffrage
Greek Empire	hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry) fishing (leads to pottery and sailing)	Phalanx (+25% hills defense, +100% vs. mounted units)	Alexander the Great (philosophical, aggressive) Preferred civic: hereditary rule
Incan Empire	mysticism (leads to meditation, polytheism, and masonry) agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry)	Quechua (+25% city defense, +100% vs. archery units)	Huayna Capac (aggressive, financial) Preferred civic: hereditary rule
Indian Empire	mysticism (leads to meditation, polytheism, and masonry) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Fast Worker (improves tiles faster than normal worker)	Asoka (spiritual, organized) Preferred civic: universal suffrage	Gandhi (spiritual, industrious) Preferred civic: universal suffrage
Japanese Empire	fishing (leads to pottery and sailing) the wheel (leads to pottery)	Samurai (two first strikes, +50% vs. melee units)	Tokugawa (aggressive, organized) Preferred civic: mercantilism
Malinese Empire	the wheel (leads to pottery) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Skirmisher (one or two first strikes; +50% city defense, +25% hills defense)	Mansa Musa (spiritual, financial) Preferred civic: free market
Mongolian Empire	the wheel (leads to pottery) hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry)	Keshik (One first strike, doesn’t receive defensive bonuses, ignores terrain movement costs, +50% attack vs. catapult)	Genghis Khan (aggressive, expansive) Preferred civic: police state	Kublai Khan (aggressive, creative) Preferred civic: hereditary rule
Persian Empire	agriculture (leads to pottery and animal husbandry) hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry)	Immortal (can withdraw from combat, +50% vs. archery units)	Cyrus the Great (expansive, creative) Preferred civic: representation
Roman Empire	fishing (leads to pottery and sailing) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Praetorian (a more powerful swordsman)	Julius Caesar (expansive, organized) Preferred civic: representation
Russian Empire	hunting (leads to archery, animal husbandry) mining (leads to masonry and bronze working)	Cossack (doesn’t receive defensive bonuses, can withdraw from combat, +50% attack vs. cannon, +50% vs. mounted units)	Catherine the Great (creative, financial) Preferred civic: hereditary rule	Peter the Great (philosophical, expansive) Preferred civic: police state
Spanish Empire	mysticism (leads to meditation, polytheism, and masonry) fishing (leads to pottery and sailing)	Conquistador (immune to first strikes, +50% vs. melee units)	Isabella (spiritual, expansive) Preferred civic: police state

Leader Traits Explained

Aggressive: Free promotion of melee and gunpowder units to combat level one; barracks and dry docks double their production speed.
Creative: Plus two cultures per city and double the production speed of the theater and the Colosseum.
Expansive: Plus three health per city and double the production speed of granaries and harbors.
Financial: One extra gold piece on tiles that show two units of commerce.

Industrious: Wonders are produced 50% faster and forges are built twice as fast.
Organized: Civic upkeep is 50% less, and lighthouses and courthouses double their production speed.
Philosophical: Double the birth rate and double the production speed of universities.
Spiritual: No anarchy when switching civics, and temples double their production speed.

Civics Explained

There are 25 civics in the game, covering the government, legal, labor, economy, and religion categories. You can decide which of the five choices you want under each category, but be prepared for one turn of anarchy in your cities after you implement a change. The following is an explanation of the civics preferred by various civilization leaders; obviously, there are more civics available in the game.

Free Market: This medium-upkeep form of economy requires economics and grants one extra trade route per city.
Free Religion: A low-upkeep state of affairs that requires liberalism. Once implemented, it needs no state religion and increases happiness by one point for each non-state religion in a city. All cities also gain a 10% research bonus.
Hereditary Rule: A low-upkeep form of government that requires monarchy and offers plus one happiness per military unit stationed in a city.
Mercantilism: A medium-upkeep form of economy that requires banking. It gives the civilization one free specialist per city and doesn’t allow trade routes with foreign cities. This protects wealth but also risks economic health on the ability of the few to make good business decisions.
Police State: A high-upkeep form of government that requires fascism before it can go into effect. It gains a 25% bonus for military units in production and cuts the unhappiness created by war by 50%.

Representation: A medium-upkeep form of government that requires a constitution. It gains three extra research points per specialist as well as two extra happiness points in the five largest cities.
State Property: A low-upkeep form of economy that needs communism before it can be enacted. Its effects include the elimination of extra maintenance costs when a city is farther from the capital and one extra unit of food production from workshops and watermills.
Theocracy: A form of religious rule that requires theology to implement and offers plus two experience points in cities with the state religion, as well as the prevention of a non-state religion from spreading.
Universal Suffrage: A form of government that requires democracy and offers medium upkeep, with its benefits including one extra unit of productivity per town and the ability to spend gold to finish a city’s production schedule.

Six Ways to Win

Not every game session has to end in all-out bloody warfare, as you can see below. During the game, you can check the victory conditions screen to see how close you are to the winning the various scenarios compared to your competitors’ efforts.

Time Victory: When the game reaches a specific year, usually 2050 A.D., the civilization with the highest score is declared the winner.
Conquest Victory: Slug your way to the top by capturing all the other civilizations’ cities.
Domination Victory: Control two-thirds of the land, as well as 25% greater population than your nearest rival, and you’re the winner.
Cultural Victory: Build three of your cities to “Legendary Culture” status and the game will be over.

Space Race: Construct all of the components needed for a spaceship and blast off for Alpha Centauri, which is the setting for another strategy game created by Sid Meier.
Diplomatic Victory: Any civilization can build the United Nations, but any leader in the game can become its Secretary-General, which means they can call for votes on various resolutions. One of those resolutions declares a diplomatic victory for them.

Mod it Up

“We also learned from Civ III that the mod community for these games gets bigger all the time,” explains Caudill. “Clearly, being able to mod Civ is very important to our community, so we decided to make Civ IV the most moddable version of Civ ever. We spent quite a bit of time creating modding tools that have been widely used by fans and our own internal developers.”

The easiest way to change Civ IV is to press the Escape key while playing the game and select “Enter WorldBuilder,” which will allow you to modify the map with units, buildings, and technologies belonging to any civilization in any era. It’s a fun way to turn the tables on your AI opponents by, for example, massing Panzer tanks on his border and going on a blitzkrieg when he has nothing but archers defending his cities.

You can also save those changes and send the map to a friend or make it available at a website such as Civilization Fanatics, where you can discuss the game with other players and dig through piles of resources. You can also download maps and other content created by fellow gamers for your amusement.

If you really want to tweak the game and you’re comfortable with the technologies involved, Civilization IV also features support for changes made via XML or Python. More in-depth information about modding the game can be found in the Civilization Fanatics archives.

You Are Here. Use your scroll wheel to see the map up close or zoom out for an extreme aerial view.

System Requirements

Mac OS X version 10.3.9 (10.4.6 or higher recommended)
1.8GHz PowerPC G5 or Intel processor (2GHz or higher recommended)
512MB of RAM
64MB video RAM (128MB recommended; ATI Radeon 9600 or Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 or better)
3.5GB hard disk space
DVD drive
Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported. Internet play requires broadband connection.

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