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Taking over the flavour, one event at a time
BtS Random events Pros: Excellent overall flavour, a greatly different range of triggers. Quests are a very good novelty. Good for modding.
BtS Random events Cons: Not enough difference between some quests. Bad for competitive play.
BtS Random events Tips: Having some extra money might give you access to better choices.
Beyond the Sword includes random events, which can almost be considered a new feature in the genre. Random events have been seen before (as far back as Civ1, in fact), but they have never come in such numbers and with such flavour.
First things first, there are two things that everyone needs to understand about events. First, they are not for the most hardcore strategists and not for challenge games. In such games, every little move matters, and players will probably not want random events affecting them. Second, events are mainly a flavour feature – you won’t be building strategies around them and their effects are usually fairly minor.
The system itself is simple. Events are triggered at random times, with more of them happening in the late game. Some events will not give you any choices, others will give you some. There are about 150 unique events in the game.
The best thing about events is that their triggers are tied to in-game conditions, and thus events reflect what happens in the game. The triggers are quite wide-ranging. One event might require that you have a source of Gold, another will require the presence of a religion in a city, and yet another requires a Laboratory and the Free Speech civic. There’s good diversity all around.
Events are generally minor boosts or penalties, which may include choices between two rewards or the choice of investing something (like money) for a chance of greater returns. For example, there’s an event where you discover some valuable information in ancient ruins (how ancient ruins can contain information leading to a breakthrough in the research of electricity is another issue). You can just put the information to good use, or you can spend gold to fund additional exploratory efforts, which will give you the chance of having the research bonus doubled.
A more refined version of events is quests. There are not too many of these, but they are interesting. When a quest starts, you will be given a task to complete with a certain time limit – such as building a number of Stables before you reach a certain level of technological advancement. Completing quests gives you rewards, often with the ability to choose between several rewards. Quests could use a bit more diversity (most just require you to build enough of X before you get tech Y), although there are also exceptions to this pattern.
Random events should be enjoyable to the vast majority of players. If you are a hardcore strategist who just doesn’t like the chance of some minor boosts or penalties, you won’t like events. If you’re less hardcore than that, however, you will probably enjoy events.
They are, in my opinion, an excellent flavour feature. For example, the notification messages you get as events happen worldwide do bring the game world alive. In the late game, you may be reading things such as “French elections results were so close that a court had to rule on the outcome” or “A German passenger aircraft has crashed in Russian territory. Neither side is providing details on the incident” – I feel that these messages add to the feel that you rule one civilization in a world where there are others, and things are happening in them, as well.
Part of the fun definitely comes from the fact that it will take a long time to see all the events. Given the diversity of triggers and their sheer numbers, you’ll probably keep seeing new events for quite some time. It also depends on your playing habits. For example, if you rarely run Free Market, you’ll probably not be seeing the event that requires it for a long time, and so on.
I also have to give praise to the technical execution of events. They are pretty straightforward to modify, you can do a lot with just XML and Python once you get the hang of it, leaving the road open for player-created event packs that can add events and quests. This should become really interesting, as there are easily possibilities for many more events and quests.
On the balance side, I would also say the events are pretty well-done. Of all the events in BtS, there are only a few I have an issue with balance-wise – such as events that can grant all Axemen a free Shock or Cover promotion. These two events may just make warfare in their time a bit too easy. The event that gives you a free Great Artist also leaves me in doubt as to its balance. I am pointing this out only for lack of bigger flaws, however – with only a few events that seem a tad too powerful, the system is definitely well-balanced overall.
Above all, the event system is an extremely solid framework for something introduced in an expansion. I am sure that we will see it being used to take the concept to new heights through modding and hopefully also in Civ5. A great framework for modders and addition of diversity for regular players, the random event system is truly a worthy addition to Civ4.
Most of you probably already know what's new in Warlords at a glance. Other than six new scenarios, the expansion pack offers six new civs and a total of ten new leaders. These would be the Ottomans (led by Mehmed II), the Koreans (Wang Kon), the Celts (Brennus), the Vikings (Ragnar), the Carthaginians (Hannibal) and the Zulus (Shaka). Additionally, some of the old civs received new leaders – Ramesses II, Stalin, Winston Churchill and Augustus Caesar.