A new Civilization game is upon us, as always looming over you and threatening to suck thousands of hours from your life like some sort of weird digital vampire.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the second expansion pack for Civilization IV - the 2005 PC Game of the Year that has become a world-wide hit. The expansion will focus on the time periods after the invention of gunpowder and will deliver 11 unique and challenging scenarios created by the development team at Firaxis as well as some esteemed members of the Civ Community. Civ IV: Beyond the Sword will also include ten new civilizations, sixteen new leaders, five new wonders, and a variety of new units that will offer even more fun and exciting ways for players to expand their civilization's power as they strive for world domination

You can check out some screenshots as well.

warlords was a solid expansion adding many nice features to the original, i'm just worried by the focus on scenarios.

i've always struggled with the latter parts of the game which is what this is meant to be enhancing, i'm just not sure I want computer opponents competent with paratrooper.

fk yes, best games ever

sid meier is the best game developer eva

sid meier is the best game developer eva

Hell, I'm still playing Pirates.

The only game, other than the Sims, which was consistently able to keep me up until 4am playing.
Except that I didn't even like the Sims, but it was just like crack and you couldn't walk away.

i could never get into pirates, never really understood wtf was going on. u cruise around in ur ship, get fellow ships, then wat? get some treasure? wat was the goals?

Pirates! was one of the best adventure games on the C64 after Seven Cities of Gold.

You get a big ship with guns, you go rob other ships. If you want to, because pillaging ships isn't your thing, you look for your family, the spanish flotilla thingie, attack and sieze towns, search for hidden treasure or just trade in goods.

f19 stealth fighter ftw

Looks like an embargo ended today. 3 hands on previews are on the net:

IGN
GamesRadar
GameSpot

I read the gamespot one as it has 40+ new screenshots, which reveal a lot of detail about the random events. Really looking forward to this now. Getting released in July.

Having never played any of the civ games I have no idea how they work...

Someone explain cause the visuals are not impressing and whats with having giant people and animals all over the place... is that supposed to represent an army or a food source etc?

It's representative.

Here's the demo of Civ4: http://www.ausgamers.com/files/details/html/19673

There's also an opensource port of Civ1 called FreeCiv, which could give you a quick feel for the original games. I've not tried it, but at only 20MB it'd be a much cheaper way to test if you like this type of game than the 300+MB demo above. Note that the game has moved on significantly since civ1/2, but at least you'll know if you could possibly like 'the best turn based strategy game for the PC ever' :-)

i think that without a doubt the civ series have the best replayability of all games ever. No game is the same, or even remotely similar. There are multiple ways to win, and therefore multiple ways to play. Expand your empire and win the conventional conquest way, build beautiful cities and win the cultural way, advance in science and win the space race or even get elected as the UN secretary general and win the diplomatic way. All have their pro's and cons. by the way, what is the hardest difficulty anyone has won on here? I've won on the 3rd hardest before, emperor or wateva it is. But have never come close on Deity .