Civ IV Complete

[Kenai]

I grabbed Civ IV complete in the Steam sale and I was wondering whether I ought to play through the vanilla game first, or install all the expansions before I play it?

Colonization is seemingly a different game, so i'll ignore that for the time being but should I be playing with or without the expansions first time out? I'm wondering if adding both then diving in will be hugely overwhelming, it has been a long time since my 'experience' with Civ3

 

[Treebiter]

Install the whole shabang IMO. Each expansion adds depth to the main game without changing it drastically. The 'Complete' part of the name has never been more true.

As for Colonization, brilliant game. Played the original on the Amiga first and then on the PC ever since. The Civ4 version is a worthy remake and for me at least, almost more fun than Civ4. It's a very different game though despite the graphical similarity and should be treated as such.

 

[Kenai]

Just set off Beyond The Sword to install... 3.5GB! That's twice the size of the base game!

Warlords is similarly large! I guess they add a pretty huge amount of content!

 

[Kosmiche]

If youre wanting to play online then BTS is the most popular, the base game slightly less while no one plays warlords.