Apple forgets to ask Civ creator about Missing Mac version

I have to admit that even though I occasionally play computer games on my computers, almost always Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, I had no idea that Apple had started a dedicated web site about gaming on the Mac until I caught this link over at Inside Mac Games. Three cheers for Apple for encouraging and nurturing the Mac as a gaming platform, since we’re all too often the neglected, second-tier market in the eyes of many game publishers. And another hearty round of applause to Apple for an interesting if brief interview with legendary game designer Sid Meier himself, which revealed a few things about the origin of the Civ series that I’d never heard before.

But minus one round of applause or two out of my three cheers to Apple for failing ask Sid the burning question on the minds of all Mac-owning Civ fans: where the heck is the Mac version of your latest game? The original Civ IV came out for Windows around the end of October, 2005, and for the Mac about eight months later. The first follow-up, Warlords, hit the Mac after just a four month delay. But the second, and far more fun follow-up, Beyond the Sword, came out for Windows back in July, 2007, and reached these Mac shores…well, would you believe never! We’re still waiting. In fact, this is about the only reason I have a 50 gigabyte partition on my hard drive to dual boot into Windows Vista– just to play Civ IV: Beyond the Sword. How lame is that? Sid, where’s our game? And Apple, time to turn up the heat before giving the guy such a sweet profile.