Civilisation IV

Even if you've had a bad day at work, you can hop on Civ IV and conquer another civilization. Best played with headphones / earplugs for total immersion gameplay. I have the Mac version for a new iMac and it plays brilliantly and has never missed a beat. I moved straight from Civ II as I found Civ III a little frustrating. I went through the tutorial and found it relatively easy to play the game afterwards. There is not the extreme control you have in Civ II but it is more realistic comptitively, and you can ramp it up for greater challenge.If you are twitchy from too many shoot 'em ups, Civ IV is a nice change of pace that engages different parts of your cerebral cortex. Thoroughly recommend it!

Better balanced than Civilisation 3, although the same problem of cheating by the NPC is still there. The AI isn't good enough to give us a lash without cheating.

Initially, I found Civilization 4 somewhat over-rated. And even while I played my first tutorial game, I felt disappointed, especially because of its intensive system requirements. But, as I played it longer, I could not help but be addicted to my game -- as in previous versions. This 4th version is worth the wait.

It purports to be multi-player capable, but I haven't tried it yet.

I really looked forward to the release of the Civilisation IV PC game. I am pleased with the graphics and the navigation, especially the zoom in to the city level.

I also like the new leaders, and love that I can be either Washington or Roosevelt in the US category.

I like the religion aspects of the game. I like that you can send an Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish or Christian missionary to spread religion across your world.

Additionally, I enjoy choosing different aspects of government, from free religion and speech, to despotism or monarchy.

Civilization IV is one of THE classic PC games. The gameplay is practically unchanged since the original version (10+ years ago), except for gameplay tweaks (such as a winning through 'culture'), and major graphics and sound improvements.

The latest version includes multiplayer support out of the box, so you can play with your friends over the internet.

Civilization may devour your time, so don't be surprised if you start a game, then look up and 4 hours have passed :-)