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Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
The Ultimate Civilization Experience
By: Alex Mantzaris, Designer and Lead Programmer, Firaxis Games
Most experienced Civilization IV players have discovered by now that early conquest is one of the most effective paths to victory. Overwhelming your opponents with Axemen, Swordsmen, or Knights is certainly very efficient and a lot of fun, but where does that leave peaceful builders? Or what about those who enjoy meaningful combat in the later eras? In other words, what is there beyond the sword?
In our second expansion, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, we’ve focused our efforts on adding plenty of new peaceful options and late-game combat improvements that will take players beyond the sword like never before. There is an all-new espionage model. There are corporations that can cause the productivity of your cities to skyrocket, and your economy to flourish. There is a new way to win the game through religion and diplomacy. There are on-map ocean trade routes that enhance the importance of your navy. There is a reworked late-game technology tree and a more exciting space race. There are colonies splitting from their motherland to form new civilizations. There are random events and quests that give each game a unique flavor.
Espionage in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword deserves special attention because it has become a more integral part of the game than ever before. Its importance to your empire is now comparable to scientific research, culture, or income from taxes. This is because, through an “espionage slider,” you have the ability to divert part of your income towards espionage activities against other civilizations. Once you have reached certain thresholds of espionage investment, you start gaining some automatic intelligence benefits over rival civilizations, like visibility into their cities, access to their demographics and power graphs, knowledge of their current research efforts, and ultimately the ability to prevent foreign spies from operating within your borders. There are new buildings to support your intelligence strategy like the Security Bureau that make it harder for foreign spies to perform missions in your cities, or the Intelligence Agency that enhances espionage spending.
You may also take a more aggressive approach to espionage, sending your agents into foreign territory to gather further intelligence and to perform various destructive missions, like blowing up terrain improvements and buildings, poisoning water supplies, or stealing gold. Spies can also influence foreign affairs by spreading their civilization’s culture into their target city, or even by coercing their target leader to switch civics or state religions! Finally, spies can provide defense against enemy espionage by performing counterespionage missions. We’re very excited about espionage as it clearly adds a whole new dimension to the game.
Corporations are another addition to Civilization IV that make the second half of the game more exciting. They represent commercial entities, each consuming specific resources in order to provide benefits to their city. The more instances of resources they consume, the more food, production, commerce, or resources they supply. The downside is that any city hosting a corporation has to pay a maintenance fee for its services. It really pays to found a corporation, since the founding city of each corporation gets royalty income for each city in the world hosting a branch of that corporation. Players can block foreign corporations from operating in their cities by adopting the Mercantilism civic, and they block all corporations (even their own) by adopting the State Property civic.
The above mechanics make it advantageous to control as many instances of certain resources as possible - something that was not important in previous versions of Civilization. Therefore, securing resources, one of the most fun elements from the early-game, is now extended into the late-game. Corporations also extend the excitement of founding and spreading entities into your cities, which was previously present in the early-game in the form of religions.
There are a few corporations worth mentioning. Standard Ethanol, for example, consumes corn, sugar, or rice and produces oil. This corporation can be a life-saver in the modern era, where lack of oil can doom your civilization. Similarly, if you lack aluminum but have access to coal, you can aim to found Aluminum, Inc., which will allow you to compete in the space race. Creative Constructions turns obsolete strategic resources like iron, copper, stone, or marble into extra production for your cities.
Another new element in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the Apostolic Palace. This is a Wonder tied to the state religion of the player who built it. Depending on the influence of the palace’s religion on their civilization, players get votes to cast on decrees like holy wars, trade embargos, or peace enforcement. Play your cards right and you could end up with an early diplomatic victory, centuries before the United Nations are due to make their appearance.
The modern era tech tree has been reworked and many new units, like Mobile Artillery, Mobile SAM, Paratroopers, and Anti-tank Guns, make their debut to give more depth to military planning. Space victory is not achieved until the spaceship actually arrives, not when it’s launched, so you may pull out a victory even when you launch late, by building a faster spaceship and overtaking your opponent on the way to Alpha Centauri.
There was only one problem with adding all this new content to the late-game: quite often the game is already over, or at least its outcome has been determined, before the modern era has arrived. However, this problem has been solved by the new option of Advanced Starts. Advanced Starts is a pre-game setup phase players use to purchase cities, improvements, buildings, technologies, and units. The game therefore starts with players controlling relatively balanced, advanced empires with a working infrastructure. This mechanism is ideal for those who want to jump right in and experience a balanced game in the modern era, without having to start with only a few settlers and units.
In conclusion, we see Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword as the ultimate Civilization game. It adds such a quantity of killer new features to the epic game that it really should have been called Civilization 4.5. Our guess is that this didn’t happen because you can’t express 4.5 in roman numerals.
The Ultimate Civilization Experience
By: Alex Mantzaris, Designer and Lead Programmer, Firaxis Games
Most experienced Civilization IV players have discovered by now that early conquest is one of the most effective paths to victory. Overwhelming your opponents with Axemen, Swordsmen, or Knights is certainly very efficient and a lot of fun, but where does that leave peaceful builders? Or what about those who enjoy meaningful combat in the later eras? In other words, what is there beyond the sword?
In our second expansion, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, we’ve focused our efforts on adding plenty of new peaceful options and late-game combat improvements that will take players beyond the sword like never before. There is an all-new espionage model. There are corporations that can cause the productivity of your cities to skyrocket, and your economy to flourish. There is a new way to win the game through religion and diplomacy. There are on-map ocean trade routes that enhance the importance of your navy. There is a reworked late-game technology tree and a more exciting space race. There are colonies splitting from their motherland to form new civilizations. There are random events and quests that give each game a unique flavor.
Espionage in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword deserves special attention because it has become a more integral part of the game than ever before. Its importance to your empire is now comparable to scientific research, culture, or income from taxes. This is because, through an “espionage slider,” you have the ability to divert part of your income towards espionage activities against other civilizations. Once you have reached certain thresholds of espionage investment, you start gaining some automatic intelligence benefits over rival civilizations, like visibility into their cities, access to their demographics and power graphs, knowledge of their current research efforts, and ultimately the ability to prevent foreign spies from operating within your borders. There are new buildings to support your intelligence strategy like the Security Bureau that make it harder for foreign spies to perform missions in your cities, or the Intelligence Agency that enhances espionage spending.
You may also take a more aggressive approach to espionage, sending your agents into foreign territory to gather further intelligence and to perform various destructive missions, like blowing up terrain improvements and buildings, poisoning water supplies, or stealing gold. Spies can also influence foreign affairs by spreading their civilization’s culture into their target city, or even by coercing their target leader to switch civics or state religions! Finally, spies can provide defense against enemy espionage by performing counterespionage missions. We’re very excited about espionage as it clearly adds a whole new dimension to the game.
Corporations are another addition to Civilization IV that make the second half of the game more exciting. They represent commercial entities, each consuming specific resources in order to provide benefits to their city. The more instances of resources they consume, the more food, production, commerce, or resources they supply. The downside is that any city hosting a corporation has to pay a maintenance fee for its services. It really pays to found a corporation, since the founding city of each corporation gets royalty income for each city in the world hosting a branch of that corporation. Players can block foreign corporations from operating in their cities by adopting the Mercantilism civic, and they block all corporations (even their own) by adopting the State Property civic.
The above mechanics make it advantageous to control as many instances of certain resources as possible - something that was not important in previous versions of Civilization. Therefore, securing resources, one of the most fun elements from the early-game, is now extended into the late-game. Corporations also extend the excitement of founding and spreading entities into your cities, which was previously present in the early-game in the form of religions.
There are a few corporations worth mentioning. Standard Ethanol, for example, consumes corn, sugar, or rice and produces oil. This corporation can be a life-saver in the modern era, where lack of oil can doom your civilization. Similarly, if you lack aluminum but have access to coal, you can aim to found Aluminum, Inc., which will allow you to compete in the space race. Creative Constructions turns obsolete strategic resources like iron, copper, stone, or marble into extra production for your cities.
Another new element in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the Apostolic Palace. This is a Wonder tied to the state religion of the player who built it. Depending on the influence of the palace’s religion on their civilization, players get votes to cast on decrees like holy wars, trade embargos, or peace enforcement. Play your cards right and you could end up with an early diplomatic victory, centuries before the United Nations are due to make their appearance.
The modern era tech tree has been reworked and many new units, like Mobile Artillery, Mobile SAM, Paratroopers, and Anti-tank Guns, make their debut to give more depth to military planning. Space victory is not achieved until the spaceship actually arrives, not when it’s launched, so you may pull out a victory even when you launch late, by building a faster spaceship and overtaking your opponent on the way to Alpha Centauri.
There was only one problem with adding all this new content to the late-game: quite often the game is already over, or at least its outcome has been determined, before the modern era has arrived. However, this problem has been solved by the new option of Advanced Starts. Advanced Starts is a pre-game setup phase players use to purchase cities, improvements, buildings, technologies, and units. The game therefore starts with players controlling relatively balanced, advanced empires with a working infrastructure. This mechanism is ideal for those who want to jump right in and experience a balanced game in the modern era, without having to start with only a few settlers and units.
In conclusion, we see Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword as the ultimate Civilization game. It adds such a quantity of killer new features to the epic game that it really should have been called Civilization 4.5. Our guess is that this didn’t happen because you can’t express 4.5 in roman numerals.
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