Despite the hopes of many, the words "Civ" and "multiplayer" have never really clicked together. Ever since Civilization in 1991, fans have wanted to play against others in the great race to see who could guide their primitive civilization through history. That dream sort of became a reality with Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold in 1998. However, players quickly discovered that translating an epic, single-player, turn-based strategy game into a multiplayer affair wasn't as easy as hoped. Simply put, it took a very long time to play a multiplayer game. Meanwhile, things didn't get any better with 2001's Civilization III. First, multiplayer was stripped out of the core game to make sure it shipped on time. Then a broken version of multiplayer shipped with the Play the World expansion, and it didn't get fixed until the Conquests expansion a year later. So, yeah, you can probably see why multiplayer Civ remains an elusive dream to this day.

Archers and longbowmen make excellent city defense units in the early part of the game.

That is, until now. We recently flew to Firaxis' Maryland offices to participate in some multiplayer matches of Civilization IV, the upcoming chapter in the storied franchise. In the span of only a few hours, we played two multiplayer games of Civ, an impressive feat considering a single-player game of Civ can easily take upward of 10 hours or more. And, yes, both games were exciting and nail-biting affairs that came down to the finish to determine which side would win. How was this possible? Read on.

The first thing to keep in mind with Civ IV is that it represents a whole new chapter in the franchise in many ways. Not only does Civ IV rewrite many of the underlying rules of the series, but also it represents a new approach to creating a Civ game. Previous Civs were all designed as single-player games, with multiplayer modes uneasily tacked on to them, which was why they didn't work as multiplayer games. Determined to create a multiplayer Civ experience that not only worked but also was fun and fast to play, the designers went about creating the multiplayer game first for Civ IV. This let them not only get an early jump on play testing, but also it let them experiment and build new types of modes never before seen in a Civ game.

To make a multiplayer experience that works, Firaxis has taken several approaches. The traditional Stone Age-to-Space Age game now has an innovative, persistent server mode--called pit boss--that should let a group of players play the epic-length game at its leisure. However, we didn't get a chance to test out the pit boss or the epic-length game in multiplayer. We played one of the multiplayer modes which is specifically designed for fast-paced play--it was actually limited to 100 turns. And despite the fact that it limits you to the early eras of the game (basically the Stone Age to the Bronze Age), it's an amazingly effective mode. You know that you don't have a lot of time to waste, so the early-game emphasis is on expansion and conquest rather than defensive "turtling" for the long haul, which might occur in an epic-length contest.

We played in teams of two against each another, and this afforded us a chance to explore the new team dynamics. Basically, when you're teamed with another player, you get to share everything, from great wonder effects and resources, to research. For example, you share line-of-sight information with your teammate, so you can see what he or she sees. When you research a technology, you can choose to research the same technology together (thus cutting the research time in half), or you can have one person handle, say, all military technologies while you handle the economic technologies. And, of course, you can come to each other's aid during war. Unfortunately, we came to this realization too late in the first game, when we failed to expand our empire quickly enough and the opposing team threw wave after wave of units at us, isolating and whittling down our defenses. We did, however, learn some valuable lessons about combat.

Get workers started on building improvements to your land ASAP.

In Civ IV, your best city defense unit early on isn't the spearmen unit, like it has been in every other Civ game to date, it's the archer unit. Spearmen are only really useful against cavalry in Civ IV. Meanwhile, warriors occupy the bottom-most rung of the military ladder, like they have in previous Civs. Warriors do have an important role, though, especially in the dangerous new world of Civ IV. That's because in addition to roving bands of barbarians, there's a new threat to keep in mind: wild animals. The Stone Age was a dangerous place for man, as wolves, lions, bears, and more roamed the land. The presence of these beasts in Civ IV means that sending out any unescorted settlers or workers can be a very dangerous proposition, especially since the animals seem to home in on easy prey. Thankfully, you can group a warrior with a worker or a settler, thus ensuring that the worker or settler is protected. The need to build escorts for each of your civilian units alone will drastically slow your rate of expansion, as you can't afford the risk of sending out droves of unprotected settlers and workers.