Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

The best version of Civ still. There are so many fantastic Mods out there that keep things fresh and interesting and allow deep and complex game-play. Realism Invictus remains my favourite after many years of playing. Well worth a return visit if you've been disappointed by more recent games.

There is no better Civilization game that has "Civilization" in its title. The sequels tried to improve many things, but in doing so, they only made matters worse. Use it with current mods and enjoy a masterpiece. May the Civ7 disaster make the developers realize that what they really need to do is remaster Civ4... or—better yet—create a true successor to the best Civ game overall: one that doesn’t have "Civilization" in its title and is called Alpha Centauri.

Often imitated, never surpassed. This is one of the greats. Countless mods extend what was already a fantastic game!

Hands down my favorite of all the SM Civ iterations. Looking very much forward to trying different games/mods with friends in coop, particularly Caveman2Cosmos & Final Frontier Plus, but also my own solo games (the Astral Gate just looks so wickedly cool!) As far as vanilla BtS goes, I find OCC particularly interesting w/perm. alliance enabled and I will scramble my 1st worker like a madman to beat out all AI to the Pyramids first (must have representation early). Despite this profile of mine being brand new, over 15 years I've put over 1,300 hours into this game, and am still learning new things about it as well as how to play different strengths/weaknesses as different leaders/civs. 5/5 will recommend over III, V or VI any day. If I had any complaint, its that only 2 had live-recordings of your advisors which was the most hilarious feature of any Civ game. Maybe there's a video-mod to add them...

Loved this. Best Civ game/DLC I've played to date. Not sure how it would feel playing it for the first time now though, as it does look dated. Great gameplay.

Epic, addictive... not for people with lives / responsibilities!

I still think this is the best edition of the Civilization franchise. Recent iterations have all vacillated between overly complicated and overly simplified. This one is so very near to perfect.

oH NOT ONLY HAVE YOU STUMBLED UPON THE BEST GAME EVER, YOU HAVE STUMBLED UPON YOUR will to live. choose civ over everything peace

Yeah, I've played the basegame, as well as mods like Realism Invictus and Ashes of Erebus, and I have to say: it's not great. I have a strong suspicion that all the people who say it is play Civ not like a 4X but as a turn-based RTS. The game is fundamentally from the ground up intended for you to be a constantly expanding warmonger. All other systems and victory types are ancillary. There's simply not enough beyond just warfare to make it satisfying.

Still the best civ game out there. And some fun mods are available.

The game defines the old yet forgotten effort of the gamedev.

best Civ installment ever I still play it in 2025.

2K has added spyware to all of their games, don't buy.

The best, forget the rest.

Updated EULA. Spyware.

Just hit 1000 hours on Steam over the last 10 years, with probably ~250 more of playing when I was a kid on a physical copy. I keep coming back to this iteration of Civ in a way that 5 and 6 could never come close to. I'm not the first person to make this observation, but I think the original vision for Civilization peaked here - there was nowhere else to go from this peak, thus the total revamp of the series in 5. It's aged remarkably well and with the BAT/BUG mod it's very easily approachable for modern players. The AI is leagues more threatening and challenging than in later iterations, and the game is just paced better than later civs too - with 5 especially you can get a very clear snowball going by 1500 and easily win the game then and there. There's certainly a snowball effect at play here too but the AI can catch up to you if you're not careful. Each AI has a distinct personality, and learning their proclivities for war, trade, and expansion is engaging. Spawning next to Shaka and Monty is like seeing Attila in 5, but far, far worse. Something else I haven't seen mentioned much is how balanced the civs are compared to later iterations. Civs don't have unique abilities - each leader has two traits from a pool of eight, and each civ gets a unique building and a unique unit. That's it - no massively different playstyles like Venice from 5. Obviously some units and buildings are wildly OP (lol @ the fast worker), but this leads to a more balanced experience. The music is also excellent. The largely orchestral works really help you get sucked in to the game. The entire modern era soundtrack is drawn from minimalist composer John Adams, which is a ballsy move from the developers - it's for sure an esoteric choice, and it creates a really compelling atmosphere in the late game when you're nuking the planet or building a spaceship to alpha centauri. Overall: buy this game! It's super cheap on sale, and well worth it for playing, in my opinion, the peak of the series.

Very enjoyable.

Rootkit Spyware

Get it

Spyware

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