But unlike Warlords, Civ IV’s second expansion is looking to live up to its name by taking it beyond general expectations for an expansion pack, and more importantly a worthy purchase for the fans. In terms of new features, fans can expect to find 11 new scenarios, 10 new civilisations, 16 new leaders, 25 new units, 18 new buildings, new late-game technologies, 6 new Wonders of the World, and a few key gameplay changes that make the game that much more exciting to play.
The first new feature worth a mention is the new civilisations. There are ten new civilisations that include Babylon, Byzantines, Ethiopia, Holy Roman Empire, Khmer, Mayans, Native Americans, The Netherlands, Portugal and Sumeria. Australia still hasn’t been featured, which is a little bit surprising considering some of the lesser nations that have been featured in the past. Regardless, a few of the new civilisations add a new sense of style to the game, and having a healthy range of 10 new civs to choose from is pretty darn generous. Each of these civilisations have one leader each, as well as 6 new leaders being added into pre-existing civilisations, such as Abraham Lincoln for America and the influential Pericles for Greece.
Don't let the imagery fool you, this is still Civ.
The new feature that we managed to play around with was some of the new scenarios that are available in Beyond the Sword. We played a scenario set a little in the future, where there’s a focus on clone armies and mechanical units, and it played out extremely well. Admittedly, while some of us are not huge scenario players, the 11 scenarios that are being added into Beyond the Sword not only play well from our experiences, but some of the them are also just sound downright fascinating. There are some scenarios that dip right into the future and have players trying to colonising entire star systems; meanwhile others focus on more modern or past scenarios, such as the Second World War. Probably the most intriguing new scenario that we unfortunately didn’t have the opportunity to play is 'Afterworld'. This new scenario appears to be a X-Com-styled game, where you must fight zombies and control human robots. It plays as unbelievably cool as it sounds.
Besides all of these handy new scenarios that add a lot of new longevity, there are a bunch of new gameplay tweaks and additions that make the Civ IV experience so much better. The game now implements new gameplay features such as 'Corporations', 'Espionage', random events and a few new game modes. Corporations is a new gameplay feature that is sort of similar to how religion works in the game. Players are able to build corporations and eventually spread their influence around the world such as mining companies, cereal brands and even a 'Sid's Sushi Co.'. Espionage has been drastically reworked for Beyond the Sword, where players can now devote money towards improving espionage activities. Also to add to the unexpectedness of the game, Beyond the Sword implements random events that can change the tide of the game quite drastically. Some of the random events we ran into during our playtime were bushfires, tsunamis, earthquakes and even diplomatic marriages, often leaving our cities in ruins.
Additionally, there is also the inclusion of a few new game modes to extend space and diplomatic victories, and a few other game altering options. Beyond the Sword sets out to do just that from the start, making the later years of the game more appealing and longer lasting. To fill out these eras, the game introduces new units such as paratroopers, attack submarine, stealth destroyer and even great spies. Additionally, components such as new buildings and wonders help to extend the appeal during the later stages of the game.
More Civ = less sleep.
Beyond the Sword doesn’t particularly look any better than Warlords and the original core Civ IV, and as such, the game is slowly beginning to slow its age. Of course, graphics are such a minor aspect of Civ games, so the developer’s ability to focus the new expansion on groundbreaking new additions and added features is handy. Beyond the Sword is a massive expansion, and actually adds content that fans have long been waiting for, with improvements that are actually worth using; a definite positive contrast compared to the first expansion, Warlords. There are a few other additions we aren’t entirely sure how will improve in the expansion, such as multiplayer changes, new civics, and balancing issues, which have been in need of addressing since the original.
The build we’ve been playing over the last week or so was about a month old, so the kinks still needed a bit of polishing and some areas of the game weren’t completely implemented just yet. In any case, all signs are certainly looking absolutely golden for Civ fans, and more Civ is never a bad thing by any means.
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