Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: War of Two Cities
[rating:8]
Link: Berryreview Store
Price: $14.99
I have been a long time fan of Sid Meier games, dating as early as Commodore 64 (I can hear some people saying what on earth is that 
). I spent countless hours playing Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and of course Civilization.
Now comes a mobile version of Civilization IV comes to your Blackberry from Concrete Software. The game is very fresh and designed in such a way that you can quickly pick it up and play. Unlike the original Civilization, where you build a civilization up over several centuries, it focuses down to a single city of a civilization and its war against neighboring cities.
Initially, I was curious if this new concept plays well. To tell you the truth, on my first run of the game I played over 2 hours. I just couldn’t put it down. The game starts by asking if you want to enable sounds.
After that you can quickly start a new campaign or quick play:
You can pick one of the 4 civilizations, Rome, Japan, Russia or USA. Each come with its own advantages/advances in technology:
Then you are offered with 3 difficulty levels:
A short tutorial gets you started really quick. Top green bar shows your food resource and it gradually increases. It allows you to create infantry, ranged and mobile units. There is shortcuts for each one of them assigned to keyboard, 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Each unit has certain abilities, for example infantry can capture mines and farms. They have strengths and weaknesses against same or other types of units. So you will have to balance out which units you build.
The orange bar is your catapult’s readiness. Once it is ready you can use it to attack enemy walls, forts and city.
Once your units reach to the enemy city, you win that battle.
At the end of each battle, you choose which technology you want to acquire. Each technology brings you new features, such as stronger forts, cheaper infantary, etc. As levels progress, distance between cities increase and also more walls and/or forts are added. This adds additional complexity to the game.
During a campaign, you go through 5 wars against a civilization. Then you advance an era and fight with next civilization. The game also keeps track of your achievements via high scores and statistics.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun, easy to play and does not require any knowledge of previous Civilization games. I highly recommend it.
Pros:
- Easy to play, keyboard shortcuts for every action.
- Very fun
- No prior Civilization game knowledge required
Cons:
- Can become repetitive
- Only 4 civilizations
