User Guide

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Sid Meier's Civilization IV
®
, the game in which
you match wits against the greatest leaders of all time in a bat-
tle of warfare, diplomacy, religion, commerce and technology.
If you fail you will be destroyed, your empire just a pathetic
and sad footnote in the annals of history. But if you succeed,
your glory will live on forever, and you will build a civilization
to stand the test of time!
Civilization IV is the latest iteration of Sid Meier's Civilization,
first released in the early 1990's. From its inception the
Civilization series has been acknowledged as the first and best
world history simulation, lauded for its incredible depth of play
and its extraordinary addictive nature.
We believe that Sid Meier’s Civilization IV lives up to the qual-
ity of its predecessors. Herein you'll find greatly-enhanced
graphics and sound, new technologies, units and other game
elements, improved multiplayer capacity, and increased “modd-
ability” (gamer modifications).We hope you enjoy it!
NEW PLAYERS:
WELCOME TO CIVILIZATION IV!
In Civilization IV, you start with a tiny group of settlers in the
middle of a vast and unexplored world. From these humble
beginnings you will build a new city, creating workers to
improve the land, scouts to explore the world, settlers to build
new cities, and warriors to protect what's yours.
Soon you will meet other civilizations. Some you will coexist
with peacefully, trading goods, wealth, and even new advance-
ments in technology. Others you will fight – perhaps to the
death!
A game of Civilization IV can span the entirety of human his-
tory. You begin at the dawn of the Stone Age, your people
primitive hunter-gatherers armed with stone weapons and clad
in the skins of animals, on the verge of extinction from starva-
tion, animal attack, or from the encroachment of hostile tribes.
It's your job to see to it that they prosper and grow: expand
their territory, build and mold mighty cities, discover new
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technologies, found religions, dominate their neighbors, and so
forth.
Under your guidance your citizens will learn how to construct
tools and weapons of bronze and how to domesticate wild ani-
mals. They'll learn how to read and write, how to sail on the
oceans, how to harvest metals from beneath the earth. Your
cities will begin to expand, filled with barracks, libraries and
temples.
Eventually your people will discover the compass, the printing
press, and gunpowder. Their railroads will cross the country,
while their mighty frigates dominate the world's oceans.
Eventually their military will battle with their neighbors not
with muskets and cannon, but with rifles, artillery, bombers and
battleships - and perhaps someday with tanks, stealth bombers
and nukes! By game's end they'll have achieved all of the won-
ders of the 21st century – and more!
If they survive, that is. And that's up to you.
In fact, pretty much everything is up to you. Civilization IV is
a game of choices.There are always decisions to be made, rang-
ing from grand strategy to day-to-day city-management. And
they’re all important. That’s one explanation for the game’s
addictive quality.You are in charge – not the computer. Your
civilization rises or falls according to your wisdom or folly.
It’s good to be ruler!
Good luck, and enjoy.
FANS OF PREVIOUS
CIVILIZATION TITLES:
WELCOME TO CIVILIZATION IV
We’ve made a lot of changes in this version of Civilization.In
addition to the dramatic improvements to the game's audio
and graphic components, we have added many cool new tech-
nologies, units, buildings and wonders.We have improved and
expanded the ways you control your cities and government.We
have streamlined or removed many time-consuming elements
of the previous games, especially in less enjoyable areas like
pollution control and civil disorder.
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