internationalbooks from MD, United States offers this stuff for:

Price : $216.16 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

What our customer's say!

"Great strategy guide - we need one for our own civilization!", to sum up other reviews....
* Full of strategic hints that I've found very helpful to game play. It's well written, and has information that I believe should have been included in the game manual.
* Lists units, cultures, improvements, etc.
* covers basic strategies
* reproduces tech tree and unit descriptions
* gives strategy and tactical advice for each unit and resource
* includes tips from the game testers
* doesn't assume reader is familiar with previous games in the series
* is good for people who don't want to read the Civilopedia online any more than they have to


"The Second Part of quality strategy comeback.", The first part being Age of Empires III in my opinion which has done for the real-time-strategy (RTS) what Civilization 4 has now done to turn-based-strategy (TBS).
What the developers have done is the most sensible thing - they were not afraid to innovate and they were not afraid to throw out the stuff that was rubbish. Essentially this is not a direct but a innovative advance of the series. I feel sorry for those people who think that the newer games in a series should keep the sacred ideas and just keep making them bigger and bigger, because that way the game does not improve, it merely grows (and you get Civ3). Instead good ideas are put in and bad ones taken out and the game works and is a joy to play. At the end of the day the game AS IT IS, should be good, whether it panders to imaginations of die-hards of what it should be like... well that's them not the developers.

Basically, if you like anything vaguely related to strategy Civilization will fail to disappoint. Enjoy.



"Little more than a reprint of the game's online help", I expect a guide like this to pick up where the instruction manual leaves off. But this book spends 3/4 of its pages just reproducing what is already included with the book's online and printed help. The rest provides some very abstract ideas on strategy. It does not tell you what units or buildings to build or when to build them. Civ 4 is a great game, but you won't get much here. Stick to the game's manual and visit some of the fan sites for helpful hints.

"A Dissenting Point of View", After reading all the pans of this book, I thought I would put in a dissenting point of view. I am completely new to the Civilization series and need all the help I can get. I think generally the book is doing a good job getting me up to speed. I do agree, though, that the drawbacks of the book are significant and make the book frustrating to use.

First, what works about the book:
* covers basic strategies
* reproduces tech tree and unit descriptions
* gives strategy and tactical advice for each unit and resource
* includes tips from the game testers
* doesn't assume reader is familiar with previous games in the series
* is good for people (like me) who don't want to read the Civilopedia online any more than they have to

What doesn't work about the book:
* text is too small! Much of the joy of reading the book is squandered by having to squint -- and I don't wear glasses.
* no index. Publishers that release books with no indexes might be trying to save money, but they really reduce the book's usability
* screenshots are so small (some are 1.5" x 1.25" -- what were they thinking?) and are in black and white, so they are mostly too frustrating to bother trying to understand. Whoever tried to save money by printing in 9 point text made the same decision with the screenshots.
* screenshots have no caption beneath them. What is the screenshot attempting to demonstrate? Text only sometimes can be counted on to refer to the screenshot. The combination of smallness, lack of color and no captions makes the screenshots mostly useless to this reader. Pretty quickly I learned that they add no value to the book.

Final assessment: I paid a grand total of $13 for the book and definitely am getting my money's worth. The thing is that, given the option, I would have gladly paid $20 for the above drawbacks to be rectified.

"Basic", If you have ever played a civ game before, this guide is basic. It does lay out the tech's though and puts you on the fast track. It is a real quick read, with half of the book dedicated to the civilopedia.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Fire the editor!", Oh my good god, this book is so full of typos and typesetting errors it's physically hard to believe. Nevertheless, there is some good information here. The strategy info is marginal, nothing eye-opening if you've played games much. The crunchy bits like the tables of units and improvements are nice to have. In the end, I would probably recommend you skip this guide just to punish Brady for allowing it out the door in such primordial condition. You can always get the same information (and way more besides) on fan sites like Apolyton or CivFanatics.

"I disagree", I disagree with the earlier reviews. I read them before purchasing, but for some reason decided to buy the book anyway. Much to my surprise, it was full of strategic hints that I've found very helpful to game play. It's well written, and has information that I believe should have been included in the game manual. In any case, I'm very pleased with it, and recommend it to other players.

"should've read the other reviews before buying", I agree with the other reviews. This book isn't worth the price.
It's marginally useful only insomuch as it gathers civilopedia info into a print book that is just a step above the game manual. The strategy stuff is minimal, seems to concentrate on multiplayer strategies, and is rather basic, especially for anyone who has played any civilization game before. The screenshots don't add much and in some cases look more like space-filler. I'm not even sure what some of the shots are intended to convey to the reader.
This book certainly doesn't come close to previous guides for earlier versions of Sid Meier's games.

"Marginally useful", This book is better than the manual that comes with the game, and the lists of units, cultures, improvements, etc. are easier to navigate. That's where the good points end. Like the manual, there is no index. The strategy and game basics sections will add no value for anyone who has played Civ 3 or read the pre-release reviews on the furums. If you are completely new to the Civilization series, this will get you a bit further than the manual. Otherwise, save your money.

"Don't waste your money", This book was a complete disappointment compared to the strategy guides from previous Civ games. Almost half of info in the book can be obtained from the Civlopedia. There are some game strategies included that can be usefull but there is no game mechanic information. The bigest items missing are the Combat mechanics (of which there is NONE) and the customization information (NONE also) on how to customize the game or make maps using the included map maker. This book is basicly a print version of the Civlopedia.