Sid Meier's Civilization® IV

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 92%Very Positive · 92%2006

$19.99

US Steam price, checked 2 h ago

The verdict

A classic 4X many call the best Civ, with deep systems, great music and Nimoy's narration. Skip it if you want modern UI or need it to run flawlessly on Windows 10/11.

Great for

Civ fans and strategy veterans who want a deep, replayable turn-based classic with a great soundtrack

Main risk

Crashes or fails to launch on Windows 10/11, plus dated UI compared with Civ V/VI

What players love

Considered the best game in the series

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“After 1,000+ hours across Civ IV - VI, I can happily say that IV is the best in the series.”
Steam review · 0.2 h played ↗

“The last really good Civilization game, in my opinion.”
Steam review · 260.7 h played ↗

“Gorgeous game! For me personally, the best part of all the games in the series!”
Steam review · translated · 134.5 h played ↗

Deep, balanced and highly replayable gameplay

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“They really nailed some of the satisfaction that drives that "One more turn..." feeling.”
Steam review · 5.1 h played ↗

“Units can be promoted, and your have choices to make the unit better for city or out of the city, for defence or offensive. Amazing.”
Steam review · 4.8 h played ↗

“There are plenty of gameplay aspects that make you come back here for a long time.”
Steam review · translated · 7.8 h played ↗

Nostalgic and holds up today

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews

“I grew up on it best game in 2005 still holds up in 2025”
Steam review · 47.4 h played ↗

“Good strategy game - has met the test of time.”
Steam review · 18.7 h played ↗

Iconic soundtrack and Leonard Nimoy narration

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“Christopher Tin's opening track, 'Baba Yetu' became the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award, it's that good.”
Steam review · 445.2 h played ↗

“Classic. You can't beat Leonard Nimoy doing the voice-over.”
Steam review · 15 h played ↗

Addictive 'one more turn' time sink

Mentioned in ~1 in 11 positive reviews

“this is like hard drugs. You can't stop playing it.”
Steam review · 11.5 h played ↗

“I lose a weekend every time I start this game”
Steam review · 53.9 h played ↗

“Four hours of sleep is plenty. ONE. MORE. TURN.”
Steam review · translated · 155.7 h played ↗

Challenging AI and tough decisions

Mentioned in ~1 in 17 positive reviews

“The AI is brutal even on normal difficulties and can't be walked over easily like in V and VI.”
Steam review · 0.2 h played ↗

“The combat is where it shines the most.”
Steam review · 0.2 h played ↗

What players complain about

Crashes, won't launch on modern Windows

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“This game will crash to desktop (CTD) once your game file gets around 2GB.”
Steam review · 26.7 h played ↗

“Crashes constantly. Alt-tab locks up my computer and forces me to manually restart it.”
Steam review · 15.5 h played ↗

“I WOULD recommend this amazing game to others if it didn't crash half the time it is trying to save game.”
Steam review · 40.7 h played ↗

Dated and clunky UI, superseded by Civ V/VI

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“massively outdated if you come from civ 5 or 6. just play those.”
Steam review · 0.3 h played ↗

“You can barely see what improvements are already there or what unit is where.”
Steam review · 1.6 h played ↗

“First of all, the interface is inconvenient.”
Steam review · translated · 1.7 h played ↗

Boring, slow and tedious

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“The game play is slow and very boring.”
Steam review · 0.8 h played ↗

“I found the game to be painstakingly tedious.”
Steam review · 27.8 h played ↗

Unfair combat and cheating AI

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews

“all my millennia newer units fall to 1 freaking Archer.”
Steam review · 4.8 h played ↗

“often when you have a 90+% chance of victory you lose anyway, killing you soldier.”
Steam review · 32.8 h played ↗

“It just creates S***LOAD of units for AI in single turn.”
Steam review · 26 h played ↗

2K EULA and publisher concerns

Mentioned in ~1 in 17 negative reviews

“their EULA/TOS changes grant 2K (and associates) access to parts of my PC that are not okay”
Steam review · 0.6 h played ↗

“2K changed their EULA to make all of their games become literal spyware.”
Steam review · 1.7 h played ↗

Better to buy Beyond the Sword instead

Mentioned in ~1 in 30 negative reviews

“What are you doing here, just buy "Beyond the sword" instead.”
Steam review · 1.4 h played ↗

“Vanilla version of CivIV:Beyond the Sword. Play that instead for better covert ops, quest lines and more.”
Steam review · 98.2 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OS10.12 (Sierra)

ProcessorIntel chipset

Memory512 MB RAM

Graphics(ATI): Radeon 9600 Video Card (NVidia): GeForce FX 5200

Storage3.5 GB free disk space

OS10.12 (Sierra)

ProcessorIntel chipset

Memory512 MB RAM

Graphics(ATI): Radeon 9600 Video Card (NVidia): GeForce FX 5200

Storage3.5 GB free disk space

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