Sid Meier's Civilization IV

Sid Meier's Civilization IV expanded the turn-based strategy series about building a civilization from prehistory to the space age, and is still described by many players today as one of the best-balanced entries in the entire series. The player leads a chosen nation across millennia, develops technologies, founds and manages cities, negotiates with other civilizations, and wages wars as well as peaceful competitions for scientific, cultural, or military supremacy over rivals on the map. The fourth installment moved the series to fully three-dimensional graphics and introduced a new religion system, in which the spread of faith among civilizations affected diplomacy, the inner contentment of the population, and the emergence of religious conflicts between rival faiths.

The game also simplified and streamlined city micromanagement compared to previous entries and added so-called civilization traits, unique bonuses for each led nation based on its historical leader, which increased the strategic variety of individual playthroughs. An unforgettable part of the presentation was the theme music Baba Yetu, a choral piece sung in Swahili composed for this game, which was later even nominated for a Grammy — a rare achievement for a piece of music from a video game. The game's extensive moddability also allowed renowned community mods to emerge, such as the vast fantasy mod Fall from Heaven II, which gained its own loyal player base.

Civilization IV received excellent reviews both at launch and years later for its depth, balance, and near-endless replayability, amplified by the expansions Warlords and Beyond the Sword, which added further civilizations, units, and game mechanics. To this day, many series fans consider it the pinnacle of the 4X strategy genre, and a number of players maintain an active community despite the existence of several newer entries that followed it. The balanced ratio between system depth and control clarity still makes it a title that new players of the series often return to as a reference point.

Why play it: For fans of turn-based 4X strategy looking for depth and clarity at once, Civilization IV with the Warlords and Beyond the Sword expansions remains the pinnacle of the genre.