History

7 Civilization 4 pages in History.

• Baba Yetu"Baba Yetu" is Civilization 4's main theme, composed by Christopher Tin with lyrics from the Lord's Prayer in Swahili; on Feb 13, 2011 it won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), the first piece of music written for a video game to win a Grammy.
• Civilization 4 vs 5, 6 and 7Civilization 4 (2005) plays on a square grid with unlimited stacks of units; Civilization 5 (Sep 21, 2010) moved to hexes and one military unit per tile, Civilization 6 (Oct 21, 2016) let support units share a tile and units merge into Corps and Armies, and Civilization 7 (Feb 11, 2025) groups units under Commanders and splits each game into three Ages. Critics scored Civ 4 highest on Metacritic (94), and press still calls it many fans' favorite, but which is best is a matter of taste.
• Development HistoryFiraxis Games made Civilization 4, led by Soren Johnson as lead designer and AI programmer, with Barry Caudill as senior producer and Sid Meier as Director of Creative Development; 2K Games published it on Oct 25, 2005 after Take-Two bought the Civilization franchise in Jan 2005, and Take-Two bought Firaxis itself in Nov 2005.
• Patches and UpdatesBeyond the Sword's last patch is 3.19, released on Steam on Jun 11, 2009; the base game's patch 1.61 (out by Apr 2006) came with the SDK and the Pitboss server, Warlords reached 2.13 by Mar 2008, and the Steamworks update of Jun 5, 2014 replaced GameSpy for online play.
• Reception and AwardsCivilization 4 has a Metacritic score of 94, won GameSpot's Best PC Game of 2005 and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Best Strategy Game, and sold over 1 million copies by Mar 2006 and 3 million by Mar 2008; its expansions score 84 (Warlords), 86 (Beyond the Sword) and 83 (Colonization).
• Release HistoryCivilization 4 came out for Windows on Oct 25, 2005 in North America and Nov 4, 2005 in Europe, followed by a Mac version in 2006, Warlords on Jul 24, 2006, Beyond the Sword on Jul 23, 2007, Colonization on Sep 23, 2008 and the Complete Edition on May 12, 2009. Its last patch, Beyond the Sword 3.19, reached Steam on Jun 11, 2009, and online play moved to Steamworks on Jun 5, 2014.
• Soren JohnsonSoren Johnson was the lead designer and AI programmer of Civilization 4, having co-designed Civilization 3, and worked at Firaxis Games from 2000 to 2007; he later worked on Spore and in 2013 founded Mohawk Games, whose Offworld Trading Company and Old World are the subjects of his later GDC talks.

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