Sid Meier's Civilization series

You can download the demo of Civ4

http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=19303

and try it yourself. As long as your Intel Mac does not have the Intel integrated graphics, it should run fine.

Civ3 is a PowerPC-based app. However, it should run on an Intel Mac through Rosetta. It's graphics hardware requirements are much much less. It will even run on an old Mac running Mac OS 9 running the Mac OS 9 version of the app.

Earlier versions are for Mac OS 9, so they will not run on an Intel Mac.

If your iMac is a 20-inch Core 2 Duo, then it does not have Intel graphics. You can run System Profiler to find out which ATI or NVIDIA graphics it does have.

Can I play all sid meier's games on my imac

No. If you are running an intel iMac.
Civ4-OK
Civ3-OK
Civ2-No
Alpha Centauri-No such a shame as it is great.

I would max out your RAM too as it will greatly increase the speed of the games too.
M.

Message was edited by: musashi88

Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire - There are unofficial carbon versions for each that run natively on PowerPC Macs. Therefore, they run on Intel via Rosetta. (I was not able to find any active links) I have played the Alien Crossfire expansion under Leopard, but it is sometimes buggy and would crash, requiring a restart of the game to the previous auto-saved turn. But the worst bugginess was when the game would freak out and delete all my cities from one turn to the next; if that happened, there was no way around it. That's one reason I keep a Mac OS 9 direct boot machine around, so I can play this outstanding game - better than any of the Civ games, in my opinion.

Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire - There are unofficial carbon versions for each that run natively on PowerPC Macs. Therefore, they run on Intel via Rosetta.

I have Rosetta installed on my Intel. Alpha Centauri will not even install. I wish I kept an old PPC Mac.
M.

Yes, that is one major problem. If you don't already have an installation of Alpha Centauri, you cannot use the Carbon version of the game. The game's installer is a Mac OS 9 program, so it will not run on an Intel Mac. I basically copied the installed game folder from my old Mac that runs Mac OS 9 to my Intel iMac. Then you place the Carbon version game application file into the folder and run it instead of the Mac OS 9 version. You can also make a disk image of the game disc, and mount the disk image instead of inserting the valuable original disc.

I just tried it in Snow Leopard, and it still runs. I haven't played a game, so I don't know how stable it will be.

I wish I kept an old PPC Mac.

You should get an used iBook G3. Probably pretty cheap. I believe all the G3 models of the iBook can boot Mac OS 9 directly. All the Power Mac G4 models, except for the last revision with FireWire 800 can boot Mac OS 9 directly.