(P)REVIEWS - Civilization IV Preview by Solver
Health, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll
To further spice things up, CivIV has a completely revamped pollution model, and the added concept of health. Previously, the one basic variable that you had to keep track of in your cities was happiness. Now, you can have both unhappiness and unhealthiness in cities. Unhappy citizens refuse to work, but unhealthiness slows down the growth of your cities as citizens are unable to do as much work.
There are still numerous ways to deal with these problems. Many resources are available that increase either health or happiness in your cities. Likewise, there are buildings that do so - the traditional Temples and Coliseums for happiness, and Aqueducts or Hospitals for health. Of course, some of the civics choices can also help you with these problems.
While the reasons for unhealthiness are pretty simple, such as the presence of air polluting factories in a city, the reasons for unhappiness (and happiness, too) are many and different. For example, your citizens might get upset at wars in general, and more so against wars against people that share their religion. Any draft or forced labor will also upset your people, just as the lack of military in a city will.
Another new thing in CivIV are some of the late game Wonders, such as Broadway or Rock'n'Roll. These Wonders will essentially give you a number of happiness resources such as Movies and Singles respectively. You can also trade these resources. What's better than exporting your movies and pop music to other countries?
The changes to happiness and the introduction of health are, in my opinion, some of the best things about CivIV. They remove the need for tedious micromanagement where you must make sure that no city is on the verge of disorder each turn. At the same time, managing your resources for health and happiness is also a fun part of the game, and another reason why it is good to have nice trade relations with others.
Finally, it's just impossible not to say that the whack-a-mole pollution cleanup from CivIII is gone for good!
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