The publisher has announced today the impending release of Civilization IV: Complete Edition, which will be out next week and which will combine the main game along with its two expansions (Warlords & Beyond the Sword) and recent spin-off title, Colonization.

The pack will sell for $40 and, if this kind of thing makes your day, will ship entirely without DRM.

Breaking away from the typical year's long delays that mark a game's commute from PC to Apple, it looks like the Apple version of Civilization IV might be rounding third base. I couldn't find any word on a ship date, though Apple is proud to tout the availability of Civ III, but there is a trailer of the game up on their site. Brian Crecente

Civ 4 Trailer [Apple]

Granted, they haven't denied that he's in it... but where's Hitler? It seems to us that if you're going to include one of the 20th century's most inhuman mass murderers, you might as well go the whole hog and include Hitler. Hitler's scarcely more distasteful than Stalin — in fact, Hitler killed less people than Stalin.

We know, 2K Games: you've got the profitable German market to consider, where Hitler references are, as they might say, verboten. Still, do what all other game manufacturers do when they run afoul of German anti-Nazi censorship laws: replace Hitler with a robot for the German release. We recommend the sensuous German robot Maria from the 1927 Fritz Lang film, Metropolis.

Civ IV: Warlord Screenshots [Gamespot]

The new expansion will concentrate on military campaigns with six new scenarios, powerful new "warlord" units, plus the usual expansion pack staples of new civs, more leaders, more resources, more wonders, more stuff!

Full press release after the jump.

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—March 16, 2006—2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO - News), and the Company's world-renowned development studio Firaxis Games, today announced Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords, an expansion pack for the critically acclaimed Sid Meier's Civilization IV for the PC.

Since its October 2005 release, Sid Meier's Civilization IV has sold over a million units worldwide and was named both PC and Strategy Game of the Year by GameSpot. An all-new expansion pack, Warlords pays homage to some of history's greatest military leaders, delivering six new scenarios, giving players the chance to change the course of history with the help of their new powerful "warlord" unit. The expansion pack is loaded with new civilizations, new leaders and more units, resources and wonders that can be used in both single and multiplayer games.

"Civilization IV has been a great success for us," said Christoph Hartmann, Managing Director of 2K Games. "We believe Warlords will exceed the extremely high demands of gamers worldwide with new additions to its already successful formula."

Created in 1991 by industry legend Sid Meier, the Sid Meier's Civilization franchise has been internationally recognized as one of the greatest PC game franchises of all time. Each Civilization is a turn-based strategy game that challenges players to build and expand an empire throughout all of human history in order to become the most powerful ruler in the world. As the latest game in the series, Civilization IV has won countless Game of the Year awards from print and online publications around the world, including North American publications such as PC Gamer, Computer Games, IGN, GameSpy and GameSpot. Most recently, Sid Meier's Civilization IV was named Best Strategy Game in the Ninth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards held by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

"We're very happy with the success of Civilization IV," said Sid Meier, Director of Creative Development for Firaxis Games. "Within days of its release, gamers around the world were fully addicted, staying up late at night and just hoping for 'one more turn'...what could be better! Warlords will feed that addiction with more of everything gamers want."

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords will require the full version of Sid Meier's Civilization IV and will be released for PC this summer. For more information please visit http://www.civiv.com/.

About Sid Meier's Civilization Franchise

Created by industry legend Sid Meier in 1991, Civilization instantly set the standard and defined a new genre of empire-building strategy games. An addictive blend of building, exploration, discovery and conquest, the original Civilization is still recognized as one of the greatest games of all time. Sid Meier's Civilization IV was released in 2005 for the PC to critical acclaim, receiving numerous Game of the Year awards from outlets around the world.

About Firaxis Games

Firaxis Games is one of the world's premier game development studios, and home of legendary designer Sid Meier. Firaxis has developed some of the most successful and award-winning computer and video games on the market today including; 2005 PC Game of the Year - Sid Meier's Civilization IV , Sid Meier's Pirates! (PC and Xbox), the blockbuster Sid Meier's Civilization III series, and Sid Meier's SimGolf . Firaxis legacy titles include the Sid Meier's Civil War Series! (Gettysburg!, Antietam!, and South Mountain), and the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri series. In 2005, Firaxis Games was acquired by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., joining the 2K Games publishing label, a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive.

About Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an integrated global developer, marketer, distributor and publisher of interactive entertainment software games and accessories for the PC, PlayStation game console, PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, PSP(TM) (PlayStation Portable) system, Xbox and Xbox 360(TM) video game and entertainment systems from Microsoft, Nintendo GameCube(TM), Nintendo DS(TM) and Game Boy Advance. The Company publishes and develops products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games, 2K Games, 2K Sports and Global Star Software; and distributes products in North America through its Jack of All Games subsidiary. Take-Two also manufactures and markets video game accessories in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region through its Joytech subsidiary. The Company maintains sales and marketing offices in Cincinnati, New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Munich, Madrid, Vienna, Milan, Sydney, Breda (Netherlands), Auckland, Shanghai and Tokyo. Take-Two's common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.

All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. Such forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them. The Company has no obligation to update such forward-looking statements. Actual results may vary significantly from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of factors. These important factors are described in the Company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 31, 2006 in the section entitled "Cautionary Statement and Risk Factors."

Contact:

2K Games
Jay Boor, 646-723-4253
jay.boor@2kgames.com
or
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
Jim Ankner, 646-536-3006
james.ankner@take2games.com
or
Bender Helper Impact
Derek Musso, 212-689-6360
derek_musso@bhimpact.com
or
Firaxis Games
Kelley Gilmore, 410-891-3001, ext. 131
kgilmore@firaxis.com

Source: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

EXCLUSIVE chat with Firaxis, the development team of Civilization IV!" [Xfire]

All of our fanfare and our excitement over Civilization IV is well documented. Finally, with just a simple exchange of cash for goods at your local game store, you can walk home with Civilization IV today. As sequels tend to be, this one is loaded with upgrades from the previous iterations. My favorite new addition are the new religions you can find - these can increase how much gold you earn. Religion makes you money? Who would've thought.

Sid Meier Answers Slashdot Queries
Civ IV Site Launches

Slashdot played a game of "Ask Sid Meier," where they took questions from their readers and passed them along to the visionary game maker. Well, Meier's answers are in (just in time for the Oct. 25 release of Civilization IV). The Slashdot readers come up with some great questions, asking about playability versus graphics, the advantages and disadvantages of PC gaming and Meier's speculations on the future of gaming. It's a good read.

Sid Meier Responds [Slashdot]

With just a few weeks before Civilization IV hits, the game s official site has gone live. The site includes a rundown of various civilizations, screenshots and art from the game.

I like that the site has a Mod Central, where you should be able to get some sweet user-created stuff for the game after its release.

Civilization IV [Official Site]

Six new screens taken from movies in Civilization IV arrived in my email box today. The screens are from the movies that play when winning conditions are met. God, Oct. 25 can't get here fast enough. More hotness after the jump.

In Firaxis upcoming, hugely anticipated, oh-my-god-buy-on-day-one title Civilization IV there's the usual basket of new features. Firaxis is promising unprecedented level detail, revamped doohickeys and extra wutzits. Sequels always do. On the feature list, however, the Takeover AI function for multiplayer stands out.

In multiplayer, if someone is going to leave the game, a player can turn on Takeover AI, this allows the computer to pick up where that player left off. So if the wife has a quick chore for you, your opponent can turn on Takeover AI while you're refinishing the bathroom floor and when you are ready, you can reassume control of your armies.

Takeover AI could be a prewview of AI that actually learns from players. The NFL 2k series experimented with adaptive AI by constructing unique player profiles based on playcalling tendencies. These profiles were supposed to replicate player behavior, but overall, they didn't function too well. Maybe Firaxis is looking at the future of multiplayer gaming, with AI that learns, adapts and scales according to who it is facing.

This all sounds very Terminator I'm going to see if John Connor is OK.

It doesn't get much better than new screenshots and information leaking to my email box about Sid Meier's Civilization IV. The contents of these latest tidbits concern Civ IV's deep customization and modification options.

Simply building an empire from the ground up wasn't enough this time around. Sid Meier and Firaxis built in-game toolsets that will allow players to customize almost every aspect of the game. Want to play God and reshape the world? Does a city need an additional river flowing to it for resources? Need to decide who the Aztecs should be at war with? It's all going to be customizable in Civilization IV.

Conquering the world was never really enough for me anyway, maybe playing God will be. More heavenly images after the jump.

More screens and details about Civilization IV arrived today. This round senior producer Barry Caudill talks about the game's promotion system, a much more intricate affair than most games. In Civ IV players can choose from 20 different bonuses for individual characters as they climb the ranking system from green to veteran to elite. Here's the scoop from Caudill along with a bunch of fresh screens:

In Civ III, unit promotions involved rising in level from green to veteran to elite and each level added a hit point and a small combat bonus. For Civ IV, we decided to build on this system and make promotions much more intricate and customizable by allowing players to choose from over 20 different bonus types (many with multiple levels, for a total of over 40 available promotions). The numbers and types of available bonuses differ per unit type and only land and sea military units can acquire them (air units are different).

Here s how it works: Units can gain experience points in several ways. Successful combat is the primary means (note: you get more points from attacking than you do from defending) and the units must be victorious in a unit-to-unit combat, therefore there are no XPs (experience points) from bombarding fortifications or if the opposing unit withdraws. Units can also gain experience from a Barracks (land units), a Drydock (sea units) or a goody hut. In addition, some wonders, civic choices, and leader traits can give units extra experience or even certain promotions. As you might expect, the first promotion comes rather quickly, while each subsequent promotion requires more XP.

The promotions take on many different forms. Some are simple like Combat (5 levels), which gives progressive strength bonuses with some extra healing at the top levels, or City Raider/City Garrison which gives the unit bonuses only when attacking/defending a city. Others give bonuses against a certain type of unit. For instance, Cover gives a bonus against Archery units and Formation gives a similar bonus against Mounted units, while Shock does the same against melee units. Some promotions give bonuses based on the type of terrain in which the unit resides. If your opponent has a lot of woods or jungle, you might choose Woodsman, or if your opponent is surrounded by hills you might choose Guerilla.

All in all, the new promotion system in Civ IV offers players a plethora of interesting new decisions, excellent customization options, and an extra layer of strategy. That s how we spell fun at Firaxis Games.