Some games are there for you to have fun. Some, to make you think. Others, like in Civilization IV, are both fun, and stretch the old noodle, in addition to being highly addictive. Warning: If you have an addictive personality, and have not already played a Civilization game, play this at your own risk. I feel it has to potential to eat up thousands of hours of my time, as well as yours.

I used to play Starcraft over 10Mbit LAN with my uncle when I was 7, him on his Sony Vaio, and I on an old 66Mhz Pentium MMX. Those were my first dabbles in the foray of the Strategy genre. I liked it, but I liked just spending time with my uncle more than playing the game. I didn't understand all the concepts either, which explains why I always lost. A while back, I found a download for a converted to run on OSX copy of Civilization II. Again, I liked it, but not a whole lot. It was primitive to me, and it didn't capture my attention.

However, recently, I was lent a copy of Civilization IV: Complete, and installed it on the XP side of dual boot. After getting through the tutorial, I was impressed. Very impressed, I might add. Instantly hooked, too. After only playing the tutorial, I was hooked. Now, if that isn't addictive, I don't know what is.

In Civilization IV, you can lead one of 18 different civilizations, and even more with expansion packs such as Beyond the Sword. You begin the game at the dawn of man, in the year 4000BC, to found your civilization. As the game progresses, you can learn new technologies, found new towns, built world wonders, form armies, and conquer the world. To win at a game of Civ, you either have to 1)have an immense amount of culture (Cultural Victory), 2)Take over all other Civilizations (Conquest/Domination Victory), 3)Build a space ship to Alpha Centauri (Space Race Victory), 4)Have the other players vote you into office in the United Nations (Diplomatic Victory), 5)Having the most points by 2050AD (Time Victory).

One of the reasons why I like it so much is because of the attention to details. Many people can recall that in the Sims franchise, the charaters don't actually talk. They speak in a babble, unintelligible dribble. The same goes for Civilization Revolution. However, in Civ IV, if you are the Russians, they speak Russian, Chinese speaks Chinese, and so forth. AND, if you zoom into one of the ethnic cities, you hear sounds of that type of city in real life. That kind of detail really made me feel as though the designers behind the game really wanted to give the gamer the full experience. Not many games make you feel in such a way, and it made me realize that a video game can still, to this day, be made in an artful and beautiful way. I highly encourage anyone who likes Strategry video games or board games, or even those who don't, to try this game.

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