Continue reading Avoid society with this great Civilization IV + V bundle deal

Avoid society with this great Civilization IV + V bundle deal originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Civilization 4 and 5 marked down for Amazon Deal of the Day

Civilization 4 and 5 marked down for Amazon Deal of the Day originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Christopher Tin wins Grammy for Civ 4's 'Baba Yetu' originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Civ IV theme nominated for Grammy, first game music ever nominated originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Direct2Drive lights a fire sale on 2K titles this week

Direct2Drive lights a fire sale on 2K titles this week originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

'Civilization 4: The Complete Edition' for $10 on Games for Windows Live originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Direct2Drive's Spring Sale: Star Trek Online, Civ 4, Torchlight and more discounted

Direct2Drive's Spring Sale: Star Trek Online, Civ 4, Torchlight and more discounted originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading April Fools: Civilization V to feature 'Extreme Diplomacy'

April Fools: Civilization V to feature 'Extreme Diplomacy' originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Direct2Drive discounts Civilization IV, Supreme Commander this weekend

Direct2Drive discounts Civilization IV, Supreme Commander this weekend originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Week Two: Action Games
• Week Three: RPGs & MMOs
• Week Four: Indie Games
• Week Five: War Games

Continue reading Direct2Drive celebrates 5-year anniversary with 50 games for $5 each

Direct2Drive celebrates 5-year anniversary with 50 games for $5 each originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Direct2Drive hosting huge 2K Games half off sale originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 24 May 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Civilization IV 'Complete' releases May 12 for $40 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 05 May 2009 23:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Civilization IV: Colonization

Continue reading Joystiq E3 eyes-on: Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization

Joystiq E3 eyes-on: Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Big Versus compares Civilization Revolution to PC predecessors originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Civilization IV: Warlords (Windows) - The expansion to Civ IV. There are also several scenarios in Warlords to try out if you're not looking for the full-blown world conquering experience.
• Descent 3 (Windows) - Shoot everything in 360 degrees of blasting awesomeness (for a third time).
• American Deer Hunting (Windows) - PETA will thank you for playing this game instead of being a real man and killing yourself a big ol' buck.

Continue reading GameTap Thursday: Civ IV Warlords, Descent 3 and American Deer Hunter

GameTap Thursday: Civ IV Warlords, Descent 3 and American Deer Hunter originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Civilization IV: Colonization

Civilization IV: Colonization announced, no Civ IV required originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Readers pick best Civ IV webcomic: Ctrl+Alt+Del

Readers pick best Civ IV webcomic: Ctrl+Alt+Del originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword unleashes July 23 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 11 May 2007 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From Firaxis to Maxis: Civ IV designer leaves to work on Spore originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Firaxis to revisit X-COM in Civ IV: Beyond the Sword originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword announced originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Yahoo! Games (90/100) likes the diverse settings: "There are scenarios for all tastes, from combat-oriented conquests like Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, to diplomacy heavy episodes like Chinese Unification or The Rise of Rome. These scenarios provide new and distinctive experiences no matter how many times you've played Civilization IV."
• GameSpot (86/100) notes the bias toward ancient warfare: "These new scenarios are engaging, though they do skew a bit toward ancient-world settings and conflicts. Still, the campaigns here are interesting, and each features a unique challenge. These scenarios are essentially modifications of the core game, and they feature rewritten tech trees and unique units that are appropriate for their settings. There are also a number of new wonders of the world."
  
  
• GameSpy (70/100) questions the value of this expansion with so many free mods available: "The biggest problem with Warlords is simply one of value. For all the fun the scenarios, new units, and new civilizations add to the game, they simply don't push the game far enough. The only really new gameplay element added in Warlords is the vassal state. This is a gameplay dynamic that allows a player to offer political subservience to another empire."

• Metareview - Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV
• Metareview - CivCity: Rome

Metareview - Civilization IV: Warlords originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

New Civ IV patch won't melt your Mac originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• 2K's Firaxis trifecta for 2006
• Apple's new portable gaming beast

Mac Civ 4 shipping soon, trailer released originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 04 Jun 2006 13:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Warlords! Civ IV expansion in development originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sid Meier, Soren Johnson on state of games originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mario Party, Civ IV help give Amazon.com record holiday season originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Dec 2005 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The two went head to head in a metareview showdown: Civilization IV versus Age of Empires III. AoE III won in sales, but got edged out in overall rankings, but then it was revealed that Civilization IV was playing injured. Reports of buggy software flooded the nets, and then it was AoE III's game to lose. Then today, a reader informed us that AoE III suffered from a plentitude of bugs as well. The forums are buzzing with comments like:

• vodka-mike: Ensemble's devs and brass should feel ashamed [of] this release.

• Vincedia: OK, so we bought this game, get it home, start to play, and find out we are paying to Beta test? I've had the game for a bit over 2 weeks now and I still can not stop the crashing to desktop.

• gman: What I haven't seen is a response from ES at all.

There are hundreds of posts just like this one, on this forum alone! Is this a case of two competitors both rushing their competing titles out the door only to have them compete against another rushed product? Or was the lucrative holiday season looming, so the "patch it later" mentality kicked in. We love Sid Meier, but we want him to know that the DS doesn't work that way. Now, if Microsoft brings AoE to the 360, maybe they could patch it... but let's not even think about that.

Rematch: AoE III vs. Civ. IV, who's buggier? originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 01 Dec 2005 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Civilization IV has been winning accolades from game critics, but customer experience with the title has not been quite as positive, with widespread reports of buggy software behavior piling up at Amazon.com and at other sites that accept user feedback (MetaCritic, too). We're talking roach infestation here.

In sum, gamers complain that the game simply overpowers even gaming rigs with multiple gigs of RAM. Here are some typical complaints:

• "Even after a clean uninstall/reinstall of Civ4 and the updated ATI drivers, I continued to get the increasing (and ultimately fatal) number of late-game crashes on my Sony VAIO desktop (3.6GHz P4, 1GB RAM, WinMCE SP2, RADION X600)." (Bruce Webster, on Amazon.com)

• "2+ minutes game load time, 1+ minute between turns (large pangaea) and circa 1999 graphics which lag and sputter make this game unplayable for all but the most devoted of Civilization fans." (Duane Pye, on Amazon.com)

• "I think the game itself is pretty interesting, but what does it matter since I can't play a game all the way through? Once I get to the 1800s or so, the game crashes every 2 or 3 turns." (Lawrence Wisne, Jr., on Amazon.com)

• "I installed this on two computers. On one, the graphics completely don't work. While there are ways to fix this, they basically involve cheating and revealing the whole map. No no no. On the other computer, the game runs at a snails pace. I have to wait 3 minutes between ACTIONS. ACTIONS, not TURNS. It took me 7 hours to advance 20 turns. This is NOT an acceptable rate." (S. Wong, on Amazon.com)

Chance are, the game can be quite fun and is worth $50, but we can't encourage anyone to buy a game that was released in such a raw state. It's a shame to see a game with such giant promise taken down by a Lilliputian army of defects.

[Thanks, Jake]

Civ IV needs fumigation and delousing originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Whilst Age of Empires III and Civilization IV are classed in the same genre as strategy games, they have very different styles. AoE is real time and has a permanent "down with the troops" view and feel. Civilization IV, on the other hand, is turn based and features a lot of micromanagement. Rather than trying to represent one age as best as it can, it tries to cover the whole of civilization; from cavemen to spacecraft.

The two games took the 1st and 2nd place on the PC games sales chart for the week ending November 13th. So we thought it'd be very appropriate to write up a versus metareview of the two games - in the style of our previous F.E.A.R. vs Quake 4 metareview. Take the jump to find out what reviewers thought of these two strategy game behemoths.

Continue reading Metareview: Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV

Metareview: Age of Empires III vs. Civilization IV originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 24 Nov 2005 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For the week ending November 13th, here's the best sellers list for PC games in the U.S.

1. Age Of Empires III
2. Civilization IV
3. Call Of Duty 2
4. Star Wars Battlefront II
5. World Of Warcraft
6. The Sims 2
7. City Of Villains
8. The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack
9. Battlefield 2
10. Call Of Duty 2 Collectors Edition

As is obvious from the list, Civilization IV and Age of Empires 3 are deeply involved in a strategic battle for getting the most cash out of gamer's wallets. Age of Empires 3 has been out over a month now but is still topping the chart. With Civ IV being out just under a two weeks, has it already lost the momentum required to knock AoE 3 off the top spot?

Best selling PC games: AoE 3 and Civ IV battle for top spot originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Nov 2005 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Firaxis went ahead and released a demo of the fourth game in the Civilization series. The 314MB demo features a tutorial and 100 turns of a demo level. It's a good way to check out how the game will run on your machine but - let's face it - if you're a Civilization fan you'll already have the full version. First thoughts: whilst this game's no Age of Empires 3 (in terms of graphics) it's certainly very pretty. You can get the demo via Gamershell at the "Read" link below.

[Via GameGossip]

Civilization IV demo released originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Nov 2005 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The house that Sid Meier has built, and made successful, is now officially a part of Take Two Interactive.

The notorious publisher has been publishing Firaxis-developed titles for a long time now, including Pirates! and the Civilization series via its subsidiary 2K Games, so do not expect anything to really change other than some minor business-related shifts - no worries, Sid Meier is staying. In his own words, "2K Games has already been a tremendous partner to Firaxis...we're excited about all of the possibilities ahead of us as we work together to explore new ideas, new products and new consumer markets."

Take-Two buys Sid Meier's Firaxis Games originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you were a fan of Civilization IV, you were already giddy by yesterday's announcement that Sid Meier's precious baby would be arriving on store shelves a month early. Now you have even more reason to be excited: if you pre-order the game, you will receive the aptly titled Civilization IV Pre-Order Edition. On top of a very nice game box - which looks very much like the Gideon Bibles one finds in hotels - you will also receive "a CD soundtrack, a keyboard template, a tech tree poster, and a spiral-bound manual." Very nice, indeed - and the best part is that there is no additional charge to you, the strategy-loving fan.

Civ IV pre-order deal gets fancy originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 09 Sep 2005 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Who needs trick-or-treating when you can conquer the world? Take-Two, in reporting losses of $28.8 million this quarter, has announced a couple of changes to the shipping dates of its upcoming games. Civilization IV, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and The Warriors will all ship before the end of October, but Bully has been pushed back to sometime after February 2006. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, whose hidden sex minigame caused it to be pulled off the shelves (and likely the big reason of Take-Two's quarter losses), will return to stores sex-free next week.

Also announced for 2006, though in vague references, were two PSP games, a sequel to a Rockstar game, a brand new franchise for the Xbox 360, and of course "extensions of the Grand Theft Auto franchise." Because, honestly, what would 2006 be without some Grand Theft Auto controversy?

Take-Two takes a hit in revenues; Civ IV to ship before Halloween originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 08 Sep 2005 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's another screenshot of Civilization IV, and some more dope about the game that Firaxis games promises will be even more addicting than the original.

• faster pace: remember how the early years of a Civilization map tend to blow by, but the years approaching 2050 can take what seems like hours? Firaxis promises "streamlined" gameplay for a "faster" experience.

• easier interface: Firaxis promises an interface that will be familiar and easy for veterans and newbies alike. The screenshots we've seen look a little chaotic, but they're not showing the city interface yet.

• more flexible tech tree: Flexibility and "open-ended gameplay" are the buzzwords of the moment, so there's no surprise that every game is touting this.

• new multiplayer options: There will be a persistent, turn-based server option, and it could be huge. It'd be great to be able to line up a game with someone over the net and have some trusted server somewhere store the information. Saving game information client-side (with the players' machines) exposes it to shenanigans.

• team-play: "team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options"

The game's marketing team has also produced a funny little guide to help players of the game overcome their debilitating addictions to it. The brochure they're handing out on the show floor shows gamers in AA-like settings saying things like, "By the time I got to the Industrial Age, I was a full-blown junkie," and "The addiction just takes over. One more turn, one more turn, one more turn..."

E3: More on Civ IV originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 May 2005 21:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

IGN has posted an interview with Civilization IV's producer Barry Caudill, who provides more detail on the what's changed since the last Civilization title

• 3D engine

• still covers the 4000 BC to 2050 AD timeframe

• revamped movement and combat mechanics

• animated, dynamic landscapes (moving cows, flowing rivers)

• 18 civilizations

• better AI

• additional resources for trade

• new "religion" system for theocratic governments

• addition of the touchy (but historically accurate) topics of slavery and emancipation

• elimination of terrorism options (poisoning a city's water supply has become a taboo topic since the last Civ game)

• the most moddable version of Civilization ever

Visit the folks over at CivFanatics.com for great commentary and analysis on the IGN interview linked below.

Interview with Civ IV Producer originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 18 May 2005 00:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sid Meier, the ultimate in Game Gods, the peak of game design gurus, the upper crust of digital cake, etc. sits down with Eurogamer to give his two Euros on Pirates! The newly released game is getting the kudos it deserves. Anytime you follow up on one of the most beloved titles of all time, you have to be a little nervous. But now is his time to relax, and work on the Xbox version of the game, and, of course, Civilization IV. The interview is short, but we should be grateful for every word we get from this man of mans, this gamer of legends, etc.

Sid Meier sits down with the Europeans originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 07 Dec 2004 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the "Hmm..." department, Infogrames has sold it's rights to the Civilization franchise. The video game behemoth seems to have a few financial problems at the moment and sold off the rights. See? This is what happens when you anger the ghost of Atari.

The news is early in the article. The rest is all tedious financial stuff. Well worth reading if you can't sleep. You'll be out like a light.

So, with the Civilization franchise having split in recent years, and now this, I guess we'll be seeing yet another company put out a Civilization game. If this goes on much longer, every company in the business will have put one out by the year 2020.

Infogrames sells Civilization franchise originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's the gift that keeps on giving. The next Civilization game is now official. The new screenies already prove that it will be a generational leap in the eye candy department. Spong says the game may be developed for consoles, as well as the PC. This is a good idea for a number of reasons. One, bigger audience. Duh. Two, there's nothing else even close to it in the console area. Three, a lot of the original fans who aren't playing games anymore may see it's available on their kid's Xbox and jump back in. Any chance to bond with the kid is a good idea, right?

Civilization IV updates an old favorite originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.