Yes, I would suggest buying the game. I enjoyed Civ III and find Civ IV to be even better. But if you didn't like III then...

I'll put myself in the No camp. I've played all the games you mentioned above except EU3 and I have all the same opinions of them.

I've played every version of Civ and I find the SMAC/Civ II versions to still be the best. The game/play style things I didn't like about Civ III seemed to just get a touch worse with Civ IV...Plus it's a memory hog.

Civ IV was a pretty decent game. I played it for a couple of months, then GC2 happened and it hasn't seen the light of day since   . I have II-IV and found them all worthy of the purchase. IV should be discounted by now which only sweetens the deal   

I prefer Civ 3 better, but you may want to get Civ 4 if your looking for eye candy.

I think civ 3 is better than civ 4.

Four is just eye candy and un necessary complexity.

I'd go with recommend, although I would wait until the most recent expansion comes out (Beyond the Sword), as I'm sure there will be a gold edition out (with the other expansion as well).

I've played all the civs and smac, and 4 is by far the best. They stripped out the non-fun stuff (corruption anyone?) and concentrated on the good stuff (combat, resources, diplomacy). I find it hard to agree with anyone who says 4 is more complex. Sure there's more stuff, but its a whole lot easier to handle than some of 3's weirdness.

It is a memory hog, but the graphical update is worth it (zoom capabilities, on map descriptions of what cities are doing, etc). Plus it has amazing mod support and an amazing mod community. Check out Fall from Heaven II, an original fantasy TC that just has to be played.

I've enjoyed civ4 more than gc2 actually, as it seems a bit more repetitive. But I'm playing gc2 now since I got civ first

Gee, I sound like a PR guy. Hope that doesn't throw you off.

Civ3 isn't really better than civ2 by very much. However as somone who loved being able to bombard incomming enemy units with artillery in civ3, i was very dissapointed with civ4. Just try bombarding ground units outside cities in civ4 and see what happens

What do you mean by game engine? If i remember correctly the AI probably dousn't put up much of a fight once you get strong in civ 2 and 3. However i will credit the AI in civ 4 as being a tough competitor right through the whole game. It is especially funny to see a stupid AI cavalry unit manage to kill one of your tanks! A bit unrealistic but it keeps you on your toes.

I thought Civ 4 was a pretty good game except for the memory leak. I would basically have to set the game to auto save every 3 or 4 turns because it would lock the entire computer and need to be rebooted to clear the ram.

Since then, I have 16gig of Page file and 4gigs of ram, so it doesn't really bother me now. I don't have much time so it can't fill the memory up.

Anyways, the game play was great, despite the revamp of the combat system.

Civ IV have the same CIV II "feel" witch CIV III lacked.

CIV III was actually a quite modest and simple little game witch offered very little variety or depth.

In CIV IV matters are entirely different. Entirely and fully.
If you enjoyed CIV II then you will probably be most pleased with CIV IV.
You will have tons of options in how to deal with your empire and theese options are actually all valid and working! (compared to CIV III were you in fact had nothing beneath the clothes)
In fact, CIV IV will feel even better than CIV II as the A.I this time around is really able to play the game and thus make up for a real challenge.

In short, I have been around since the time of CIV I and can honestly say CIV IV is the best of them all while CIV III beeing the worst in the serie.

Compared to CIV II and III, CIV IV plays out a little bit differently (for instance due to changes in how combat works) so it will take some time to get used to how to use military effectively for offense and defense.

Also, since cities are more specialized and buildings less effective and more expensive, not all buildings should be built everywere witch changes the game quite a bit for the builderminded player who needs to decides what a city will be used for before starting improving it.

The changes made to how the game plays, are not all nessesary appealing the first time you play the game! Once you get used to it, however, the game will just continue to grow on you.

My biggest gripe with Civ III and IV is it's so SLOOOOOOOOOW. I can play Rise of Nations:Thrones and Patriots, and the game's over in 30 minutes. In Civ IV modern age, that's one turn. And Rise of Nations is basically a RTS version of Civ, that's all. I pounded my RoN game to bits, but Civ4 has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

Galciv has that same problem with being slow, but it's not as bad. You don't have to play on Gigantic/Abundant/Abundant settings all the time.

Civ 4 is a great game. Compared to Civ 2 and Civ 3, Civ 4 got rid of some exploitable and micromanagey tactics, and replaced them with new features that allow a wide variety of different effective strategies. For example, in previous civs, to make a lot of money you'd build roads everywhere and switch to republic, but in Civ 4 there's a big debate about the relative effectiveness of specialists, cottages, trade routes, and religious shrines for making money and research. Each of these methods can be a strong way to drive your economy, even at the high levels.

I think Civ 4 and GC2 are both good in different ways. GC2 has more in-game customization, especially with the ship designer. It gives you more freedom in picking your civ's abilities, in your path through the tech tree, and in diplomacy. And GC2 makes it easier to create and control a large empire. But I think Civ 4 is balanced better, and more challenging. The rules are more restrictive, but there really aren't any easy tricks you can use to run circles around the AI; you really have to play all parts of the game well to win on the higher levels. The strategy can be subtle, but there are lots of tough decisions where each options has pros and cons and no easy answers. Civ 4 also has more potential for modding, and there are already some good mods that drastically change the game. I haven't had any technical problems since the first patch.

Different?? but they both run on computers rite? and all computers use electricity... so they must be the same rite??

hehehe, sorry, just havin a bit of sarcastic fun.