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Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Very Interesting but Very Slow

Written by HR from Paris

Feb 8, 2007

I love this game (very addictive indeed) and you can collect or refresh your memory on many historical facts and/or events (I also love the quote feature each time you make a technological improvement).
I'm running it on a G5 iMac with 1 gig RAM with all the graphic options set to the minimum but on a 1280 resolution: TOOOO Slow :(

32 of 58 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Works Fine, just Got to Tweak It!

Written by RC from Wichita

Jan 29, 2007

The video processor on the mac book uses the memory from the cpu to run graphics. My answer? Upgraded it to 2gb and I can run this all day on medium graphics without a hiccup. Love the game, love my new Apple, why did I ever want a PC?

35 of 56 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Great Fun but Poor Performance

Written by WG from SAINT PETERSBURG

Jan 22, 2007

This game is very very fun. If you're a fan of the series or even just curious, you probably won't be disappointed. There is a slight learning curve, but reading the manual helps alot.

The game does run somewhat poorly on my 2.0ghz MacBook Pro, even with graphics set to lowest. It is definitely still playable though.

29 of 55 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

QUIT LYING!

Written by SC from Shoreline

Jan 18, 2007

Im tired of all you jokers saying that the game wont run on your computers. I have an iMac G5 that is almost 2 years old, and I run the game on mostly medium settings. Guess what? It runs great. Why the 3 stars then? Graphics are nice, there was obviuosly alot of thought put into it, BUT You cant get far in the game unless you follow Mr. Meiers idea of what a great civilization should be. I wouldnt recommend this game, but I will admit that I did spend hours playing it.

35 of 80 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

freaks out on civilization

Written by JR from Atlanta

Jan 17, 2007

i had this problem too you need to turn off your two finger scrolling on the track pad.. after i did this it ran perfect.

26 of 63 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Great game! But not for Intel Macs.

Written by AK from Boulder

Jan 4, 2007

Okay, don't get me wrong. This is a spectacular game, but there's one huge issue.

It just freaks out in Intel Macs. I've got a Macbook Pro with upgraded memory, which runs next-gen games really well. This game should run, but it doesn't. It freaks out.

If you've got an Intel Mac, don't get this game.

43 of 97 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

civ 4 is the best civ yet

Written by CP from Mission Viejo

Nov 29, 2006

everybody stop saying bad things about civ! it's not true. I have a mac mini and it works perfect!great graphics everything.A little confusing at the beggining but do the tutorial and youll be a master in hours.

43 of 83 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

disapointing

Written by SS from london

Nov 20, 2006

I bought this having salivated over it for weeks, only to find it is the most buggy game ever. It wont run very well on my PowerPC G5 even with all the setting smacked down. I've patched it but all the publishers say is "put your settings down". WHY then when I have MORE than the recommended specs do I have to play the game in basic-cant-really-tell-whats going-on mode? Anyone know how I could improve the gameplay?

48 of 106 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Best version of civ, hands down.

Written by JZ from New York

Nov 16, 2006

Civ fans, rejoice! Civlization IV is by far the most addictive addition to the series yet! New modes of interaction with your subjects and your opponents bring a new dimension to the game, allowing you to govern your people in more interesting ways. New civics, new improvements, new units, religions, promotions all fit right in to the gameplay you know and love.

You won't be disappointed!

43 of 82 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Steep Learning Curve

Written by TP from Round Lake

Nov 1, 2006

Civilization IV is a clever, intelligent and addictive game that is difficult to learn. I understand why so many people have tried it for 30 minutes and given up. But DON'T GIVE UP! Once you get over the steep learning curve it is a truly great game. I run smooth and stable on my G5 iMac, but a little slow.

75 of 109 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Poor performance on intel macs

Written by AP from Atlanta

Oct 18, 2006

Go to the aspyr.com website and look in their support section. There are some knowledge base articles about Civ 4 and how to speed it up as well as a patch to the game.

I'd post the link here but this form won't let me.

Look at the min requirements if you have a macbook before buying. Macbooks have a 64mb intel video card and aspyr recommends 128mb and an nvidia or radeon card.

57 of 87 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Many game features improved, but new UI/graphics suck

Written by SM from Vancouver

Sep 24, 2006

I have been a Civ junkie since the original. There are a lot of exciting and interesting new game play features in this release. With all that they have added it should be the best Civ ever; but, the UI and excessive graphics get in the way of the strategy. I wonder if they are trying to appeal to wider audience and just not making anone happy. I was rather disappointed. Three major complaints: 1) No popup window at the start of the turn to notify you of world events. 2) The graphics are just too busy, it's hard to notice when an enemy is close by -- until they attack. 3) The way the zoom our "feature" works is just stupid -- not to mention buggy, globe view always places the wrong image on the screen.

As for speed comments: on my 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 256MB of VRAM and 4GB of RAM. Everything plays very smoothly even with all the resoultions and graphics quality turned up as high as they go -- even with tonnes of other apps in the background or windowed. I wish it would play nicer with dual monitors -- why can't it use both of my 23" cinema displays? At a minimum it shouldn't turn the other one black and unusable.

Civ III proved that turn based strategy games will always top real time strategy games. I wish it ran on my Mac Pro.

58 of 95 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Civilization IV

Written by AK from New York

Sep 15, 2006

Civilization: Call to power is great. I want Call to power for OS X. Civilization IV is disappointting.

40 of 130 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Great Game!!!

Written by SP

Sep 6, 2006

This game is great once you get a hold of the controls. The graphics are great and its really fun. There is some really great features that make it much better than the 3rd.
I really recomend it to anyone who likes turn based games.

49 of 80 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Not good

Written by DM from SALEM

Sep 6, 2006

I wanted to get civ 3 but it wouldn't run on my Intel mac book. I got civ 4 instead, expecting it to be like civ 3. But it's not the same. It takes to long to tell everything exactly what to do every turn but if you put them on automate then I don't really feel like I'm playing, I'm just pressing "next turn". I was very disappointed with this game, it wasn't at all what I was expecting.

52 of 95 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Disappointed

Written by LB from alexandria

Sep 4, 2006

The new civ 4 performs horribly on the intel imac. Movement is jerky, sound cuts in and out and at a certain stage in the game the graphics go black. I was also disappointed with the graphics, the game seems like a throwback to pre civ 3. I eventually uninstalled civ 4 and reinstalled civ 3(the classic version of the game). Civilization is my all time favorite game for the pc, so you can imagine, after the long wait for civ 4, the disappointment of being offered shoddy goods. I hope. if there is a civ 5, that everyone involved in the project, will take a little pride in themselves and prove to us that they have the ability to continue to develop quality successors to civ 3.

38 of 81 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Not a Good Game

Written by BC from BELLINGHAM

Sep 2, 2006

I bought this game recentley at a local gameshop. When I browsed through the manual i saw that it was a turn based game. I started playing and i relized how stupid it was. You can only do a few things before the end of your turn. I quit after 30 minutes

18 of 128 people found this useful

Sid Meier's Civilization IV

lousy

Written by MC from Edmonton

Aug 24, 2006

I have an 17in macbook pro, with 2gig of ram, runs slow, crashes a lot, and is full of bugs. Patch helped very little. Nothing but an exercise in frustration. Don't waste your time.

58 of 89 people found this useful