Pages

With both expansions Civilization 4 has 34 civilizations and 52 leaders: 18 civilizations in the base game, 6 added by Warlords and 10 by Beyond the Sword. Each has its own unique unit and, since Warlords, its own unique building.

Every Civilization 4 leader has two of 11 traits: Aggressive, Creative, Expansive, Financial, Industrious, Organized, Philosophical and Spiritual from the base game, and Charismatic, Imperialistic and Protective from Warlords. Each gives a standing bonus and builds some buildings at double speed.

Civilization 4 has 52 leaders with both expansions (26 in the base game, 10 from Warlords, 16 from Beyond the Sword), each with two of the game's 11 leader traits and, in the base game, a favorite civic that shapes how the AI treats you.

Every Civilization 4 civilization has one unique unit that replaces a standard unit, such as Rome's Praetorian in place of the Swordsman, and since Warlords one unique building that replaces a standard building, such as Rome's Forum in place of the Market: 34 of each with both expansions.

Beyond the Sword is Civilization 4's second expansion, released Jul 23, 2007 in North America at $29.99. It added 10 civilizations, 16 leaders, five wonders, corporations, espionage, random events, the Apostolic Palace, colonies, Advanced Start, a reworked space race and 11 scenarios and mods, includes Warlords' rules, and with its final patch 3.19 (Jun 11, 2009) is the version most players run today.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization, released Sep 23, 2008, is a standalone remake of Sid Meier's 1994 Colonization built on the Civilization 4 engine; it does not need Civ 4. You lead England, France, Spain or the Netherlands in the New World, trade with Europe, deal with native nations, win Founding Fathers and finally declare independence and defeat the King's Royal Expeditionary Force.

The Civilization 4 Complete Edition (the base game, Warlords, Beyond the Sword and Colonization) costs $29.99 on Steam as package 4323 and is sold DRM-free for Windows on GOG, as of Oct 21, 2026; it was 80% off on Steam from Sep 3 to 17, 2026. On Steam the parts also sell alone: the base game $19.99, Warlords $4.99, Beyond the Sword $9.99 and Colonization $19.99.

Warlords is Civilization 4's first expansion, released Jul 24, 2006. It added six civilizations (Carthage, the Celts, Korea, the Ottomans, the Vikings and the Zulu), 10 leaders, the Charismatic, Imperialistic and Protective traits, a unique building for every civilization, Great Generals, vassal states, three wonders and a set of scenarios; Beyond the Sword includes all of its rules.

Civilization 4's buildings add yields, happiness, health, culture, defense and specialist slots to the city that builds them, such as the Granary (60 hammers, keeps half the food after growth), the Library (90, +25% research and 2 Scientists) and the Courthouse (120, halves the city's maintenance). The base manual's early order is a Warrior, an explorer, a Worker and a Settler, then Barracks and Walls.

A Civilization 4 city works the 21 tiles of its fat cross (a 5-by-5 square without its corners) for food, production and commerce, and grows when its food exceeds 2 per citizen. Its happiness and health limits, 6 and 3 on Chieftain and 3 and 1 on Deity at the start, decide how big it can usefully get.

Civilization 4 has 25 civics in five categories (Government, Legal, Labor, Economy and Religion), and you run exactly one from each category at a time. New civics come with technologies, each has an upkeep in gold, and changing them usually costs turns of anarchy unless your leader is Spiritual.

Combat in Civilization 4 compares the attacker's and the defender's Strength after modifiers (terrain, fortification, city and culture defense, promotions, bonuses against unit types); equal Strength means even odds and double Strength 2 to 1, and the loser is destroyed unless it withdraws. Any number of units can share a tile, the best defender always fights, and siege units' collateral damage is the answer to the stack.

Beyond the Sword added seven corporations to Civilization 4 (Aluminum Co., Cereal Mills, Civilized Jewelers, Creative Constructions, Mining Inc., Sid's Sushi Co. and Standard Ethanol). Each is founded by spending a specific Great Person after the Corporation tech and one more, spreads by Corporate Executives to cities with its resources, and yields food, production, gold, culture, research or a new resource in return for maintenance.

Civilization 4's difficulty runs from Settler, the easiest and the tutorial level, through Noble, the default, where the AI plays under the same rules as you, up to Deity. Above Noble the AI gets discounts and free units while your cities start with less health and happiness; below it the AI is slowed down.

In Civilization 4 every AI leader holds one of five attitudes toward you (Friendly, Pleased, Cautious, Annoyed or Furious), with the reasons shown when you hover over its name, and trades techs, resources, gold, maps, cities and agreements such as Open Borders, Defensive Pacts and Permanent Alliances. Warlords added vassal states, Beyond the Sword colonies and the Apostolic Palace, and the United Nations can award a Diplomatic Victory.

Civilization 4's economy runs on commerce, which a slider splits between research (100% at the start), gold, culture after Drama and, in Beyond the Sword, espionage; gold pays city maintenance (rising with the number of cities and their distance from the Palace), civic upkeep, unit support and inflation. Courthouses halve a city's maintenance, and trade routes, cottages and Markets raise income.

In Civilization 4's Beyond the Sword, espionage opens with Writing: an espionage slider and some buildings earn espionage points against each rival, passive missions such as seeing their research unlock as points build up, and spies spend points on missions like stealing technology, sabotage, poisoning water or inciting revolt. Great Spies, counterespionage and a No Espionage option complete the system.

A Civilization 4 game is set up by choosing a map type, a map size (Duel to Huge), a climate, a sea level, a difficulty, a game speed (Quick, Normal or Epic in the base game, with Marathon added later) and a civilization; the Custom Game screen adds rivals, teams, the starting era, victory types and options such as Beyond the Sword's Advanced Start.

Great People in Civilization 4 are powerful one-use units born in a city once it collects enough Great People points from specialists and wonders: the first costs 100 points, the second 200. The base game has five kinds (Prophet, Artist, Scientist, Merchant, Engineer); Warlords added the Great General and Beyond the Sword the Great Spy.

Civilization 4 is played online through Steam (Steamworks replaced GameSpy in June 2014), on a LAN, in Hot Seat on one PC, by e-mail, and on Pitboss servers for long games; the Steamworks update removed Direct IP, which survives only in an unsupported beta branch of the original release, and Steam no longer supports the Mac version's online play.

In Civilization 4 every civilization can build each national wonder once (Heroic Epic, National Epic, Wall Street, Oxford University and the rest), and each city can hold only two of them. Projects are big one-time builds: the Manhattan Project enables nukes for everyone, the Apollo Program unlocks the spaceship parts, the Internet grants techs and SDI intercepts nukes.

Civilization 4 units earn experience points (XP) by winning battles and spend them on promotions such as Combat I to V (+10% Strength each), City Raider, City Garrison, Drill, Medic and Blitz. The first promotion comes at 2 XP, then 5, 10 and 17, attacking earns twice the XP of defending, and Barracks and other buildings give new units free experience.

Civilization 4 has seven religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Taoism) with identical effects; each is founded by the first civilization to discover its technology, in a Holy City that can later build the religion's shrine. Religions spread on their own and by missionaries, and a shared or rival State Religion shapes how the AI leaders treat you.

Civilization 4 has 35 resources in three groups: strategic resources that units and buildings need (copper, iron, horse, oil, aluminum, coal, uranium, plus stone and marble for wonders), health resources such as wheat, corn, rice and fish (+1 health each), and happiness resources such as gold, silk and wine (+1 happy each). A resource works once improved and connected by road, river or coast.

Civilization 4's scenarios are self-contained games with their own maps, rules and goals; the base game shipped with a few (Firaxis's Crusades and Alexander the Great among them), Warlords added eight historical and alternate-history scenarios, and Beyond the Sword added 11 scenarios and mods, from Final Frontier, Next War and Afterworld to the fan-made Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations and Fall from Heaven.

Civilization 4 has 86 technologies in the base game by Firaxis's count, from Agriculture and Fishing to Fusion and Future Tech, and Beyond the Sword adds six more. Each one costs research and unlocks units, buildings, civics, religions or abilities, and the tree lets you reach most techs by more than one path.

Every Civilization 4 tile yields food, production and commerce by its terrain (grassland 2 food, plains 1 food and 1 production, coast 1 food and 2 commerce), and Workers raise those yields with improvements such as farms, mines, cottages that grow into towns, workshops, windmills, watermills and lumbermills.

Every Civilization 4 unit has one Strength value, a number of moves and often bonuses against other unit types, in 11 categories from recon and melee to armored and air. Strength runs from 1 or 2 for the first units to 40 for Modern Armor and the Battleship, and Firaxis counted 89 units in the base game.

Civilization 4 has six ways to win: Conquest (eliminate every rival), Domination (two-thirds of the land and 25% more people than any rival), Cultural (three cities with Legendary culture), Space Race (reach Alpha Centauri), Diplomatic (win the United Nations vote) and Time (the highest score when the last turn ends, usually 2050 AD).

Civilization 4's world wonders are buildings only one civilization can finish in a game. The base game's chart lists 26 of them plus seven religious shrines, from Stonehenge at 120 hammers to the Space Elevator at 2,000; Warlords added three and Beyond the Sword added five more plus the Apostolic Palace. Each adds culture and Great People points, and many lose their effect when anyone learns a set technology.

New Civilization 4 players should play the tutorial, start on Settler or Chieftain difficulty at Normal speed, build a Warrior, an explorer, a Worker and then Settlers, found cities on rivers and coasts about 4 to 5 tiles apart, and watch city maintenance on the Financial Advisor (F2).

Civilization 4 has two main ways to pay for research. Cottages grow into Hamlets, Villages and Towns that make more commerce the longer they are worked (faster with Emancipation, richer with Free Speech and Universal Suffrage); specialists give fixed output plus Great Person points (unlimited with Caste System, +3 research each with Representation).

A Civilization 4 culture victory needs three cities with Legendary culture, 50,000 culture points each on Normal speed. Get there with religions and their buildings, culture wonders, Artists and Great Artists' Great Works (+4,000 each), the Hermitage and Free Speech (+100% each), and the culture slider late in the game.

Civilization 4's manual opens with a Warrior fortified in the capital, a unit to explore, a Worker once its techs are known, then Settlers with escorts to cities on rivers, coasts and resources about 4 to 5 tiles apart, expanding only as fast as city maintenance allows.

Civilization 4 still runs on Windows 10 and 11 PCs from Steam (the Complete Edition, patched to Beyond the Sword 3.19) or GOG (DRM-free); Kotaku said in 2025 it "will run easily on any modern PC". Aspyr stopped selling its 32-bit Mac version in 2019, so it does not run on macOS Catalina or later, and Linux and Steam Deck players use Proton, which fixed a crash on world creation in 2022.

In Civilization 4 the Slavery civic (Bronze Working) lets a city sacrifice population to finish its current build, which players call whipping, and Workers can chop down forests for production, 20 hammers per forest after the 1.61 patch, less the farther the tile is from the city, and 50% more with Mathematics.

To win Civilization 4's space race, research Rocketry, build the Apollo Program, build every spaceship part (13 in the base game, unlocked by Rocketry, Satellites, Fusion, Robotics, Fiber Optics, Ecology and Genetics) and launch to Alpha Centauri; in Beyond the Sword you may launch early with fewer parts, the ship takes time to arrive, and losing your capital dooms it.

To take a city in Civilization 4, march one stack with siege and attackers: bombard the city's defenses to zero, attack first with Catapults or Cannons for collateral damage on the defenders, then finish with City Raider melee or armored units. Defend with archery or gunpowder units with City Garrison, fortified on hills and behind walls.

"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 (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.

Firaxis 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.

Beyond 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.

Civilization 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).

Civilization 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 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.

Caveman2Cosmos is a free community megamod for Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword that runs from the Prehistoric era to a Galactic era with 734 or more technologies, made by more than 100 modders since 2010; its latest release is v44 (July 2025), its code was still being changed in August 2026, and its team warns a single game can take almost 100 hours.

Fall from Heaven 2 is a dark fantasy total conversion of Civilization 4 by Derek "Kael" Paxton and a team of volunteers, with spellcasters, heroes, 21 civilizations and an Armageddon to hold back; its final version, 0.40, came out on Dec 16, 2008 for Beyond the Sword, and Firaxis shipped its "Age of Ice" scenario inside Beyond the Sword.

Civilization 4 was built to be modded, with XML, Python, the World Builder and a Game and AI SDK, and its biggest mods are still updated: Realism Invictus 3.81 (2026), Dawn of Civilization 1.18.4 (2026), Caveman2Cosmos v44 (2025) and AdvCiv, while Fall from Heaven 2, BUG, Better BTS AI and K-Mod are finished classics. Almost all of them need Beyond the Sword patched to 3.19 and go in its Mods folder.

Rhye's and Fall of Civilization is Gabriele "Rhye" Trovato's historical mod for Civilization 4, played on an Earth map where civilizations appear at their historical dates, chase unique victory conditions and can collapse in civil wars; Beyond the Sword shipped it, its final patch came out on Jun 2, 2010, and Dawn of Civilization (version 1.18.4, Apr 21, 2026) is its maintained successor.

Civilization 4 (Sid Meier's Civilization IV) is Firaxis Games' turn-based strategy game, published by 2K Games for Windows on Oct 25, 2005, in which you lead a civilization from 4000 BC to the space age. Its expansions Warlords (2006) and Beyond the Sword (2007) and the standalone Colonization (2008) are sold together as the Complete Edition, $29.99 on Steam.