Civilization IV - Development

Development

See also: Music in Civilization IV

• The game's soundtrack features compositions of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Minimalist origin, and contemporary by Jeff Briggs. The 2011 Grammy Award winning song "Baba Yetu" was composed specifically to be played at the start of the game. The title means "Our Father" in Swahili, and the song itself is a rendition of the Lord's Prayer. It is performed by Stanford University's Talisman A Cappella and was composed by Christopher Tin.
• Each leader has a unique piece of music played during diplomacy (with the exception of Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan who share music).
• Narrative voice acting is provided by Leonard Nimoy, who reads a quotation related to a technology when it is discovered. Land-based units also offer short phrases in their culture's native language when selected. If the player's view is near a city, they will hear sounds related to the nation which owns that city.
• Great artists visually resemble famous people, such as Elvis Presley and William Shakespeare, even when they are not given those names. The "create great work" button for the Great Artists is a picture of the Mona Lisa.
• Sound effects are played when certain buildings or improvements are built, such as coins jingling when a bank is completed. Ambient sounds can also be heard near different terrains when zoomed in. For example, near the ocean or on its shore, waves splashing and breaking up can be heard.
• Civilization 4 uses a 3D engine which allows zooming smoothly from world map levels down to individual squares. There's a set of overlays for world map levels.
• Wonder movies have returned after being absent in Civilization III.
• As game time passes and the player enters new eras, pictures of devices that measure the passage of time are shown. When the player leaves the Ancient era and enters the Classical era, a picture of a sundial appears. The player is shown a picture of an hourglass upon entering the medieval era, an armillary sphere upon entering the Renaissance, an analog clock upon entering the Industrial Age, a digital clock upon entering the Modern Era, and, in Beyond the Sword, an identical digital clock upon entering the future era.

• The Three Gorges Dam has replaced the Hoover Dam, which was a Wonder used in previous versions.
• Spaceship journeys to Alpha Centauri are always successful in games prior to the second expansion, Beyond the Sword, after which the chance of success once again varies depending on how complete the spacecraft is; it is possible, by fully constructing the spacecraft, to guarantee success.
• Civ IV is the first in the franchise not to feature SETI as a wonder.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV included some bonus content, released with mainly the purpose of showing modding capabilities:

• Earth – This is the world map of the game. 124x68 tiles big, it features just 9 ancient civilizations. It is based on the Robinson projection of the Earth in order to optimize its size. Later, an 18 civilizations version was released, and being reckoned "flawless", it won the first prize at GameFlood modding contest.
• Earth Ice Age – This map is set in the world during the last ice age (20,000 years before present). 11 randomly-picked civilizations are contained in this map.
• Earth 1000 AD – 13 civilizations populate the world in this recreation of the Earth at the time of the Crusades.
• Greek World – To reenact the classical Mediterranean, a special map was made, based on Hecataeus' map of the world, as it was known by the Greeks. Extra detail is borrowed from other ancient sources such as Homer, Ptolemy, and Herodotus.
• Desert War – This scenario represents the Mediterranean theater of World War II. Axis and Allies have different cities as objectives. They can win the game by holding them for 10 turns.
• American Revolution – This scenario begins in 1775 AD. Player can side with American colonists or with the British Crown.
• Rhye's and Fall of Civilization – This scenario offers the "closest-to-reality" experience with much of the core settings of the game having been changed to ensure historical realism. Includes a dynamic rise of civilizations and other features like stability, plagues, congress and different Unique Historical Victories for each civilization. The player can decide to begin at the dawn of humanity (3000 BC) or at the beginning of the Middle-Ages (600 AD). It is currently one of the three user-made mods to be officially included with the game.