In Beyond the Sword, there are plenty of new additions to discuss, the most exciting of which is the new and improved Espionage system. Espionage has always been one of the staples of the franchise since it was introduced, and it’s been expanded here to great effect. The dedicated system now gives your spy units new techniques and ultimately allows you to earn Espionage points by diverting the income from opposing cities into your own civilizations. The new skills range from being able to steal technologies and destroy enemy buildings, as well as incite revolts in other cities which, if done at the right time, can leave them open and vulnerable to your attacks.
The other big addition to the gameplay is the introduction of corporations, which are very similar to religions in terms of how you manage them. They allow you to turn a Great Person and some researched technologies into a gold bonus, and will help you greatly in terms of influencing the world to your wicked (or not so wicked) ways. They can be used offensively to negatively affect a rival's economy, and founding a business in a rival's territory is going to have them squirming under the pressure. Corporations are a great idea to update the game world to something more modern and provide plenty more attacking possibilities.
"WE BUILT THIS CITY..." Ok, I'm really sorry about that one.
Another interesting new feature of Beyond the Sword is the addition of random events. These events can take place at any time, and can come in a variety of forms, both positive and negative. Natural disasters such as a hurricane can severely damage a city, or Barbarians may decide to invade your civilization. A plane crash also could drastically affect the way you play, and these random events certainly keep you on your toes. They also add a sense of balance, as it’s likely that if you’re doing a little bit too well in comparison to your enemies, something disastrous may be just around the corner to make the game more competitive, which is a good thing.
The AI in Beyond the Sword has also been significantly tweaked, and is much more difficult than previously. The gameplay decisions made by the AI now make more sense and provide you with the feeling that they are really thinking through their strategies, which means that the entire competitive experience has been refined. It’s quite shocking when a war is waged on you, and defending against it now is much tougher, as the AI really seems like it wants to demolish your cities. The default difficulty settings have also been specifically bumped up a notch or two, so that now if you want to play on Prince, you’re going to have to work really hard just to survive.
What are you waiting for? Smash something already!
Apart from the gameplay tweaks, there are new modes on offer that will let gamers jump right into the busy parts of Civilization IV. The game usually takes a while to build up to the more exciting features, so if you wish to skip the initial slow setup of establishing your civilization, you can select the Advanced Start option, letting you get straight into an era of your choice and receive some gold which can be used to establish a civilization in 10 turns. So those people that thought Civilization IV took too long to get involved in now have a way to get to the important bits of the action without requiring the long build-up period.
The game also comes with a bunch of scenarios for you to play through, all very different in terms of what is required of you to complete them successfully. Tweaking the rules in different ways, these scenarios will have you battling zombies and lions, surviving in space with no contact to the Earth and taking part directly in World War II. While some scenarios certainly do work better than others, it’s good to see a variety of readily available options in terms of gameplay, and add even more to what is already an attractive looking package.
After all the great things they’ve included in this expansion, there are still a few flaws within the gameplay. Although not major, they do affect the experience and they’re certainly worth a mention here. There are some balancing issues with the corporation and espionage elements of the games, where sometimes they are too powerful for their own good, or in some cases, nowhere near as effective as they should be. There are once again also some performance issues with the game once it gets towards its final stages; with so much going on it’s inevitable, but it does detract from the overall game somewhat when for the most part it is such a smooth ride.
The expansion continues ithe game's trademark style.
In terms of graphical presentation, Civilization IV continues its trademark visual style with flair and expertise. Although not much different than what we’re used to with the series, it does add a lot of new elements to the overall look of the game with new buildings and units suiting the game quite well. The sounds are also very similar, except for the notable exception that Leonard Nimoy hasn’t offered his vocal talents this time around. Sid Meier steps in to do the voiceover work in his place, but it does take some getting used to for veteran players.
When we heard Beyond the Sword was going to be the biggest expansion to Civilization ever we were a little skeptical, but make no mistake about it, they have crammed so many new features and strategy options here that it definitely holds that claim to truth. There are the inevitable issues including specific tweaking, and the presentation is basically the same, but Beyond the Sword offers so much new that it could be considered a sequel, and expands the Civilization IV universe in such a way that it will keep fans of the original game busy for an extremely long time.
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