Its title song, "Baba Yetu", was the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award.

Civilization IV follows some of the 4X model of turn-based strategy games, a genre in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate", by having the player attempt to lead a modest group of people from a base with initially scarce resources into a successful empire or civilization.

[5] Initially, most combat takes place on land, but further advancements in the game's technology tree can allow the player to build ships and planes with which to fight battles on sea and in the air.

Other than combat, military units can also be assigned to fortify a specific space, perform sentry duties, destroy enemy city improvements, or explore the game world.

Assigning inhabitants of cities to work as 'specialists' (scientists, engineers, artists, spies, merchants or priests), building certain wonders or discovering certain technologies can improve the rate at which Great People are generated.

The rate of construction is determined by the amount of material collected from the surrounding spaces; players can also choose to speed production by sacrificing gold or population if they adopt the required governmental policy; called civics.

Also, in order to produce some units or buildings, certain resources must be collected within the empire and connected to the empires trade network by roads or harbours (for example, horses are needed for mounted units, and iron for swords, while stone or marble increase production of certain Wonders.).

Most notable are World Wonders, which can be accessed through research nodes in the technology tree and construction through the worker unit.

[10] More game attributes are stored in XML files, which can be edited with an external text editor or application.

[2] This decision resulted in a full 3D immersion of the game, which was the first in the series,[13] and which allowed easier readability[5] and smoother, more in-depth zooming capabilities.

[5][7] The soundtrack for the game features compositions of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque origin,[1] and design for the title music was influenced by The Lion King.

[1][7] Composer Christopher Tin wrote the opening theme song "Baba Yetu" (Swahili "Our Father"), a rendition of the Lord's Prayer, which was performed by Stanford University's Talisman A Cappella.

The song, when rereleased, became the first piece of video game music to be nominated for and to win a Grammy Award.

[14] Sid Meier's Civilization IV also released some bonus content, mainly to show modding capabilities: The game had a viral marketing campaign, revolving around a fictitious self-help organization known as Civilization Anonymous (shortened to CivAnon), the intention being to satirise how addictive the game was.

[21] Various characters were created, and their scenarios were included in various trailers showing the "inside [of] a Civanon meeting for [Civilization] addicts,"[22] the first of which being played during E3 2005 once an hour at the 2K Games booth.

[23] These "video testimonials of supposedly recovering Civilization addicts"[24] also featured cameos by Sid Meier.

[25] Destructoid shared this view, saying the support group campaign is "a clever marketing tool", but wishing it existed as "we all know there really are people who suffer from one-more-turn-itis".

[26] VantureBeat said the campaign was "incredibly clever and funny", adding "what made it so powerful was not the near-flawless execution and fine detail; it was the fact that it could have been real".

'Ctrl-Alt-Play: Essays on Control in Video Gaming' noted the spoof highlighted the series' "hyper-addictive turn-based gameplay".

[26] The 2010 version was "updated for modern concerns, like the franchise's broader audience and iPhone editions of the game acting as a gateway drug.

Critics such as GameSpot's Andrew Park praised not only the improvements in the turn-based strategy genre that carried over from other installments in the series, but also noted the game's more advanced 3D computer graphics, difficult AI opponents, and multiplayer feature.

[7] The Times praised the improvements of the 3D engine used to generally build the game,[44] and GameGuru appreciated its ability to zoom onto individual squares.

Steve Butts from IGN suggested that in-game announcements about enemy achievements should be displayed more prominently, and that the multiplayer feature could have included "an option to save my username and password.

"[5] Likewise, GameSpy's Dave Kosak pointed out other flaws of the multiplayer interface, stating that it "is a little rough in places.

"[9] GameSpot also noted the lack of a "religion-based victory condition", which downplayed the influence that the revamped religion system was supposed to have on the game.