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Saturday, April 9, 2011

How to Update Civ4 MAC and PC

Problem Statement:
Civilization 4 Beyond the Sword is a game that many of us know and love. However, Firaxis & 2K Games capability to distribute and communicate how to patch these games is limited. My finacee and I tried updating her MAC using the ingame tool only to find that they had downloaded a .EXE file (comical laugh). When I tried to upgrade from my 3.03 PC version using the ingame tool it downloaded and then promptly did, nothing at all. Here is a walkthrough which will allow you to update to the most recent patch level manually, and avoid the two hours of frustration that we experienced.

Problem Solution:
Patch Civ4 for PC
Open Civ4 Beyond the Sword and select Advanced / About This Build. They list the Civ Version number without periods so if you have build 303 that means you are patched up to 3.03. Once you know which patch level you are currently at, download each patch above that and install sequentially from the Firaxis website. That is to day, if you are at 3.03, you need to download and install patches in this order: 3.13, 3.17, and finally 3.19.

Patch Civ4 for MAC
(I think the MAC version was initially released at 3.17 so you need to upgrade to 3.19 and beyond but you don't have to start as low as 3.03.) Follow the instructions for Civ4 for PC but you need different patch files (.exe files don't play well with MACs). One site you can download your files from is Atomic Gamer:

Final Comments:
Please comment with any updated links to MAC and PC patch content. And as always, before you download something from the internet, make sure it is coming from a trusted source.