If you remember the first Civilization IV expansion Warlords, you will know that outside of adding military “hero” units and doing some tweaks across the board, the expansion didn’t change the way the game played in any major way. That is not the case this time around as Beyond the Sword introduces some drastic changes that alter the entire fabric of playing. In fact, the title of the expansion can be interpreted in two completely different ways. Let’s have a closer look at each of the two meanings:
“Beyond the sword” as in laying down weapons and talking it out.
There are several new features that allow all the pacifists out there (myself included) to actually win the game without resorting to violence along the way. First on the list of changes is the espionage system. Unlike before, where spies were just units on the field, capable of gathering intelligence around the map the authors decided to go with a similar approach to Galactic Civilizations 2, where espionage has its own allocated resources bar (making espionage an equal to science and religion). To prevent spying from becoming an entirely passive feature the developers also added “Great spies”, units that can be used to build specific buildings in your cities, start golden eras and can infiltrate enemy cities, giving you a lot of extra intel.
But while spying can only give you the edge when you have the military strength to act on the gathered intelligence, the new Apostolic Palace enables you to use religion to destroy entire nations without lifting a finger. Similar to the UN wonder available later on in the game, you can gain a huge amount of leverage over all the nations who follow the same religion as you do, but only as long as you are voted the leader of the religion. While playing with the AI having the wonder built helps you gain votes, but it is in multiplayer matches that the Apostolic Palace really shines. Alliances gain a whole new aspect in the early ages and you will often be massaging the back of an ally player several turns in advance, hoping he will return the favor with votes. Best of all, the AP finally gives players the chance for an early pacifistic victory, something that was until know possible only in theory.
In later ages, when religion like before starts to lose its power Corporations kick in. They work in a similar manner to religion but instead of awarding your cultural points you actually can earn money by taxing the cities into which your corporations have spread. You can also use corporations to turn all the excess resources into stuff you need, such as food, production, happiness or even some of the materials you might need.
The other “Beyond the Sword” meaning
Corporations are also the biggest feature of the other “Beyond the Sword” meaning. Civilization IV fans will agree that while long games where players reach the modern ages are a lot of fun, the game does lose a lot of its momentum once the industrialism era is reached. The game basically turns into a more militaristic version of the earlier ages. With Beyond the Sword most of these issues are void. As said, corporations bring a religion like gameplay element into the later ages, something that was heavily needed. New units also come in to play obviously, making some of the previously overpowered units such as tanks a little bit more tamable.
The Space Race also received an overhaul. Previously you had to be the first to complete the spaceship to be sent to Alpha Centauri in order to win the race. Beyond the Sword makes a small but crucial change to the whole formula – it makes reaching Alpha Centauri the object of the race. To suit the changes players no longer have to “complete” the spaceship before it can be launched. You can launch the ship with only one rocket booster, but if another nation launches their ship with 3 boosters a few turns later you can be sure as hell that their vessel will reach Alpha Centauri first. Launching a barebones ship still works, but only if you make sure the competition won’t get the chance to focus on the space race exclusively. As before nukes, tanks and submarines serve this purpose quite well.
The final change the authors made is the new “Advanced Start” feature. If you loathe playing in the dark ages you probably tried starting games that began in the medieval ages for example. The problem with this was that you always started with a single settlement. This made sense in the early ages, but having just one city in the middle of the 20th century sure as hell didn’t cut it. Advanced Start is intended to fix the said issue. You get a predetermined amount of funds which you can then use to purchase new cities, units and techs before the game actually starts. The feature is a blessing for people who are tired of always starting in ancient ages, but it does take some of the fun out of the initial terrain exploration.
Scenarios – the meat of the expansion
Surprisingly enough all of the new features mentioned above pale in comparison to the meat of the expansion – scenarios. The vanilla version of the game as well as the Warlords expansion focused mainly on military situations. Sure, there were some changes made to the rules of engagement, but deep down the game was still Civilization IV. Not this time around. Sure, some of the scenarios only alter the rules a bit if at all, such as the Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization. Others go into uncharted waters however, changing the game into a Galactic Civilizations or even a Heroes of Might and Magic clone.
I’ll be honest here and admit that I only gave some of the scenarios more than a few minutes, and even then I didn’t have the time to explore all the nuances of the space or fantasy settings. If I did, you’d be reading this review sometime in the middle of winter. Yes, the new scenarios change the gameplay that much. You could say that the Final Frontier scenario is nothing more than a cosmetic mod of the classic Civilization IV core. The space ships are the old units, star systems sort of represent continents. Fire up the Afterworld scenario however and you will have severe problems finding any tie-ins with the vanilla Civilization IV game. To give you an idea, the scenario puts you on a post-apocalyptic planet and pits a squad of units against zombies. The game plays as a turn-based squad game and is at times as good as if not even better than some of the commercially released squad games. I’m barely scratching the surface here and it will take literally months before you get tired of all the different approaches the expansion takes.
On a more technical note, the game made huge leaps forward as well. The graphics haven’t changed much (outside of the scenarios), but for some reason the game just feels more polished. The animation system is improved, as are the pathfinding routines. Best of all, the game runs better than it ever did. That’s right – with Beyond the Sword installed the game performs better than it does in its vanilla state. The audio system obviously received some minor tweaks as well, but for the most part it works the same way as before. I rarely get to say this, but the music in the game is just amazing. As with the original Civ 4 it feels like the game was designed around the music and not the other way around.
Conclusion
Big games deserve big expansions. Blizzard know this, and apparently so do Firaxis. Warlords brought new things to the table and refined the original formula. Beyond the Sword doesn’t settle with that. It delivers enough new content to dwarf stand alone games and makes some drastic changes to the way the game is played, making this more of a Civilization IV.5 than just an expansion. With months-worth of new scenarios, refinements done to the core gameplay and a ton of polished applied to the engine this expansion is just amazing. If you have Civ 4 you must buy it. If not, you must buy Civ 4 just so that you can buy the expansion as well!
