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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Review

With nearly enough features to qualify as a sequel, this is one expansion you can't pass up.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV has already enjoyed one solid expansion pack, but this week's release of Beyond the Sword brings so much new stuff to the table that it nearly qualifies as a sequel. Adding in a comprehensive new espionage system, a political element to religion, new options for colonies and corporate competition, the expansion energizes an already lively strategy game. Add in improved AI, more combat options, and nearly a dozen scenarios and mods and you've got an expansion that you won't be able to put down for months.

As expected, the expansion includes a whole bundle of new toys: leaders, units, buildings, technologies and wonders. The 16 new leaders (and one reshuffle for Rome) almost bring us up to covering all the trait pairings. Some of these new trait pairings make for exciting strategies. Joao's Expansive and Imperialistic traits make him a powerhouse in terms of quick development while Pericles' Creative/Philosophical combination gives him a definite edge in terms of research. There are other combos that are just as interesting, especially when combined with the new unique units and buildings for the new civs.

The naval units benefit from some gap filling between galleys and battleships but aside from privateers and ships-of-the-line, most of the new sea units arrive very late in the game. On land, siege engines have been taken down a bit in terms of effectiveness but that just means you'll have to plan your assaults more carefully. Fortunately, by the time you'll start planning tank invasions, you'll have much more mobile artillery and cruise missiles that can keep up with your advances. The new air mission system makes air combat a bit more realistic, but you'll need to worry a little more about land and sea units intercepting your sorties.

Firaxis promised us that they'd improved the AI considerably with Beyond the Sword and after playing more than a few games, we have to admit that they've succeeded. Those of us who usually play on Prince have had to step down to Noble just to preserve our pride. Even so, the AI is much better at waging war now in terms of using the right number and mix of units on attack and defense. We've also seen some truly terrifying stacks appear right on our borders with little to no warning. More than once the AI has offered us peace only to gain time to rebuild their army for phase two of the conquest.

The espionage system is one of our favorite additions to the series. You can set aside part of your budget each turn for espionage spending against each of your rivals. The more points you spend, the more you'll find out about your rivals and the more opportunities you'll have for your spy units to perform espionage missions. Knowing just what your opponents are researching or being able to investigate their cities whenever you want is a huge benefit.

Beyond that, the espionage system allows players an opportunity to really hamper their enemies' success without relying on warfare. In one particularly peaceful game we were several turns away from a space victory when we discovered that the English were going to beat us by winning a cultural victory a few turns sooner. All we had to do was send a few spies down to one of their cities and instruct them to start sabotaging any buildings that were producing culture. Sponsoring a quick city revolt kept them from being able to replace the buildings quickly enough to beat us to victory. Of course, espionage can be a vital arm of your military strategies as well. Throwing a city into revolt just before your forces attack is a nasty surprise for your enemy.

The best thing about the espionage system is that it works perfectly well for players who don't want to take much of interest in its finer points. Just by adjusting your new espionage slider, you'll accumulate points that will allow you to spy on enemy cities and will increase the cost of their own espionage missions against you. To get the full effect of the new espionage elements, of course, you'll have to tinker with the balances and use your own spy units to perform missions but players can get as involved as little or as much as they want without seriously jeopardizing their success.

Ever since the first Civilization was released, fans have been asking for ways to split empires up through war or revolution. While we're still not quite to the point where we're likely to see the Confederate States of Egypt or the People's Republic of Portugal, there's now an option for players to liberate large portions of their empire and make them vassals under the AI's control. The only hitch is that the colony has to be on another continent. You can then liberate individual cities and have them join your existing colonies.

Liberating colonies on another continent can definitely help stave off the crippling effects of early expansion but it's also useful to avoid the small maintenance fee that you now incur for any cities you have that aren't located on your home continent. The only real downside to the colony system is that it winds up costing you more in commerce and production than you'll save in maintenance costs. By the time you're ready to develop a substantial overseas colony, you're likely to prepared to produce the courthouses and banks necessary to make it a profitable endeavor.

Ultimately, the best argument for creating a colony is that you'll save the time you would otherwise spend managing it. Since the newly liberated colony starts with a significant bias towards you (+10 just for being granted their freedom, plus bonuses for open borders, etc.), you're bound to have a solid vassal for the rest of the game. If you can manage to spin them off so they share your religion, so much the better. This can be particularly useful if you're head of the Apostolic Palace.

At first glance, the Apostolic Palace seems like one of the more significant additions but its influence is going to vary quite a bit from game to game. It seems like its overall effectiveness is increased when you have lots of different civs that share your state religion and plenty of war between different religious groups. It works a lot like the United Nations, both in terms of passing resolutions and allowing diplomatic victories, but the resolutions require very specific circumstances so you won't be voting on new measures every few turns like you are with the UN.

We like the way that the Palace's powers are balanced. While it's great to be able to declare war against the infidels or to reassign city ownership now and then, the extent of the palace's powers depends on the strength of its members. Of course, the more members you have, the less your own vote will count when passing resolutions. Whatever the extent of its influence, it pays off by adding more interest to the religion system and offering up an earlier (but not easy) shot at a diplomatic victory.

We're less happy with the way Corporations work. In their attempts to model the international aspects of modern business, Firaxis have basically turned corporations into offensive weapons you can use to stifle a rival's economy. Much like religions, corporate influence is spread by non-combat units. You'll want to establish branches in other cities to offset the corporation's maintenance cost and to pass some of that cost on to your rivals. In this way, corporate executives become like chain letters or pyramid schemes between cities. Found a business in a rival's territory and he or she will have to screw somebody else in order to make up the penalty.


It seems weird that you can cripple an opponent's economy simply by selling them cereal or sushi. We can't argue against the benefits that some corporations provide in terms of resources, but it seems like their maintenance penalty is too severe. Granted, you can always rely on State Property to keep rival companies out of your borders but by the time that's an option you'll probably need the extra health allowed by Environmentalism more than you'll need the gold corporations will cost you.

Our only other objection here is the convoluted requirements to establish these companies to begin with. Never mind having to gain access to the right resources and the appropriate technology, the fact that you have to sacrifice a specific kind of Great Person for each corporation you want to build makes the system more complex than is justified by the potential profits. Admittedly, by the time the corporations become available you should be pumping out a regular supply of Great Persons, but as often as not you'll find yourself with an artist or scientist when what you really need is an engineer or a merchant.

The last significant change to the core game is the addition of random events. We've already covered a few of our favorites in earlier previews, but the more we play, the more impressed we are that the events seem to reflect the circumstances we're in. Sure, things like hurricanes and plane crashes are a bit unpredictable, but the game capitalizes on religious friction or lengthy wars to come up with some very specific and relevant events. We're also seeing more and more of them that have lasting effects on the productivity of certain tiles or buildings.

The Advanced Start is a great feature for players who dislike the slow build of the early game, or for those who begin in a later age with a little more control over their starting position. A point system allows players to purchase cities, cultural influence, units, improvements, techs, buildings and pretty much anything else they want for their empire. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't seem as capable of purchasing a setup that allows for early expansion so if you spend more points on workers than population and also load yourself up with galleys and settlers, you can definitely get out to an early lead.

There's not much to talk about in terms of presentation. The new flavored units and buildings add a lot to the visual style of the game, and the new units and leaders are, for the most part, very well done and fit the style of the game nicely. We were definitely disappointed that Leonard Nimoy wasn't used for the new technology quotes. Sid Meier himself provides the new readings but it just isn't the same.

Sadly, the game still suffers from some performance problems, particularly towards the end of the game. There are also, not surprisingly, some definite balance problems that need to be addressed. A few of the values need to be tweaked, particularly with regard to the effects of espionage missions in Marathon games. Luckily, it seems like some of this stuff can be solved with some simple number substitutions.

Beyond the Sword also ships with a number of scenarios and mods. For us the appeal of the expansion is more in the additions to the core game than in the scripted scenarios or non-historical mods. Nevertheless, there are a number of intriguing mods here that are worth trying even for fans of the vanilla game. Rhye's and Fall's unique historical timeline and civ-specific victory conditions make it a lot of fun for players who want to play a slightly more "realistic" version of Civ, while the Next War mod extends the experience into the otherwise ambiguous realm of Future Tech. Final Frontier is a very attractive mod for those who want to experience Civ in a more Gal Civ style setting.

In terms of scenarios, the appeal here will depend on your tastes. Longtime fans will be happy to see a brand new series World War II scenarios focusing on Europe or the Pacific. It's certainly not for impatient or inattentive types but you have to respect the scale and detail of the scenarios. Things get a little weirder with the game's lone fantasy scenario, Age of Ice, and downright perplexing with the X-COM inspired AfterWorld.

Closing Comments
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword makes an already phenomenal game even better. The new espionage elements and the Apostolic Palace work together to make the game's diplomatic system more interesting and a lot more flexible in terms of projecting your will on your enemies without resorting to open warfare. An improved AI wages war much more effectively this time around which can drastically increase the drama and tension of your games.

Still, it's not without problems. The espionage system is far too effective on Marathon speed, and the way that corporations work doesn't seem to make much sense. The overall presentation or interface of the game hasn't been improved by the expansion either. Additionally, there are undoubtedly small balances and tweaks that are sure to be coming down the pipe over the next few weeks. In the meantime, the new options and increased difficulty of Beyond the Sword are more than enough to justify its purchase by every hardcore Civ fan.

As for the scenarios and mods, some are definitely more interesting and polished than others but your mileage here will vary according to your interest.

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