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Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization cover
Developers
Firaxis Games
Publishers
2K Games
Engines
Gamebryo
Release dates
Windows September 22, 2008
macOS (OS X) January 1, 2010
Reception
Metacritic 83
IGDB 77
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Turn-based
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Point and select
Genres 4X, TBS
Themes Historical
Series Civilization, Colonization
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization on HowLongToBeat
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization on IGDB
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization guide on StrategyWiki
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization on MobyGames
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization on Wikipedia
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Sid Meier's Civilization IV 2005
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Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization 2008
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Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth 2014
Sid Meier's Civilization VI 2016

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.
GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization' is a remake of the 1994 4X turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Colonization using the same engine as the 2005 game Sid Meier's Civilization IV. Despite the name, it is a standalone release and does not require Civilization IV itself to play[Note 1].

The game received a single patch which fixed bugs and removed the DRM for the retail version.

In 2014, the Steam release was updated to replace the GameSpy multiplayer infrastructure with that of Steamworks and removed LAN, but it can be downgraded to the older version through a beta branch to re-enable compatibility with retail and GOG.com releases.

The game has no notable issues with running on modern systems as of August 2023.

General information

Official Downloads page (patches, SDK, etc.)
Civilization Wiki - A detailed wiki for all Civilization games and their spin offs
Civilization Fanatics' Civilization IV Colonization section
Civilization Fanatics' Civilization IV Colonization Forums
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
SecuROM 7 DRM (removed with patch 1.01)
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Amazon.com
DRM-free
macOS (OS X)
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Complete Edition.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
GOG.com
DRM-free
Complete Edition. Bundled with Civilization IV.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Default version uses Steamworks multiplayer, with a beta branch that restores the GameSpy/LAN version.[1] Windows and OS X builds appear separately in the library.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Amazon.com (unavailable)
DRM-free
Windows
GamersGate (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Standalone.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Mac App Store (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
macOS (OS X)
Steam key exchanging service was discontinued on June 4, 2017.[2]

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest retail patch is 1.01f. This removes the SecuROM 7 DRM from the game's installation, allowing for playing the game without the CD-ROM. The game can be installed with a CD-ROM backup prior to patching. The Steam version is already patched.

Skip intro videos

Instructions[3]
  1. Go to the configuration file(s) location.
  2. Open CivilizationIV.ini.
  3. Change NoIntroMovie from 0 to 1.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\My Games\Civilization IV Colonization\Profiles\
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Civilization IV Colonization\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/16810/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Civilization IV Colonization\Saves\
macOS (OS X)
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/16810/pfx/[Note 2]
Saves can be stored anywhere; the default locations are listed above.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Video settings.
Video settings.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio settings.
Audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music, Sound Effects, Speech, Ambience, Interface.
Surround sound
Up to 8.1.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
EAX 4.0.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian
Retail only, download here.
Italian
Japanese
Retail only
Polish
Retail only
Russian
Retail only
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
Local play
28 Hot seat
LAN play
28 Removed from Steam version after the Steamworks update.
Online play
28 The official GameSpy service has been shut down; Steam version has been updated with Steamworks support.
Asynchronous multiplayer

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP
Removed from the Steam version.[1] Install the beta to regain access.[4]

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 1.1
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
32-bit only.[5]

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Audio Miles Sound System
Interface Scaleform
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer GameSpy, Steamworks All versions except Steam use GameSpy services that have been shut down.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, XP, Vista
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 1.2 GHz or AMD Athlon or equivalent
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 900 MB
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 1.1 support
macOS (OS X)
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 10.5.8
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1 GB
Video card (GPU) ATI Radeon X1600
Nvidia GeForce 8600
128 MB of VRAM
Supported ATI chipsets: X1600, X1900, 2400, 2600, 3870
Supported Nvidia chipsets: 7300, 7600, 8600, 8800, 9400, 9600, GT 120
Intel integrated video chipsets are not supported[6]


Notes

  1. However, the GOG.com release installs both alongside each other automatically.
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/16810/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (16810) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References