Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (PC DVD) (Video Game)

Fantastic Civilization add-on packs have for the most part, always been good. Beyond the Sword is by far the best yet. It provides some excellent scenarios, and makes some fundamental changes to the to the main game as well. I am usually not a great fan of scenarios, and as such don't play them that much. There are however, 11 new scenarios included with BTS, and some are fantastic. They include fictional scenarios, as well as historical ones. I play mostly the latter, and have spent many hours on the WW2 scenario. It's the main game though, that I really feel has been improved though. As well as 'cosmetic' changes such as new units and new buildings, some fundamental game mechanics have been altered. These introduction of espionage from nearly the beginning of the game. This can actually be invested in in the same way as research and culture, and the counter sits beneath the two. Another example of this is the space-race victory. The game has gone back to its roots with this- like civ 1, you can pick and choose how to build your ship. If your beaten in launching your ship, you have the option of making yours faster and you may still have a chance. On top of this, there are other smaller changes which none-the-less add to the game. One example is random events (like earthquakes, plane crashes, weddings between civilization), which can have either a negative or positive effect on things. If you have Civ4, Beyond the Sword is an absolute must-have expansion.

Adds so much more to Civ IV This expansion adds so much more depth and playable options that affect how you play. It's what Civ IV should have been! Religion plays a major part and just adds to the playablility of the game. The game also includes some of the better mods, such as a campaign starting in 1939 set on Pacific Ocean Earth map where you can even play as Australia for a change against the Japanese. There is too much to mention, just buy it if you're a fan of Civ IV! Great fun.

Could have been fantastic I bought Civ IV: Beyond the Sword thinking it would be one of the best expansion packs ever. Unfortunately it does fall short of those expectations, but not because of the new features and mod content. Instead, this expansion is let down by, firstly, a number of bugs and glitches - and secondly, because the core game seems to have been tampered with unnecessarily. The game seems much, much harder even on the easier settings. My first game finished with me unable to do much more than wipe out my one rival on the same small continent - and it seemed to take forever just to capture the nearest city. In my second game I kept the same difficulty (I think it was the 2nd or 3rd down in the list) and set about trying properly now that I had understood the new additions. I started off well with about 6 cities established as quickly as possible and everything was going ok. Then my nearest rival swept over my land and took 3 of my cities in about 5 turns. My fight back went on for absolutely ages, with about 100 turns spent just building a massive force to capture one city. In the end my entire force was wiped out by constant waves and I only managed to re-capture 2 cities (one of these was lost again almost immediately). Then the Russians declared war on me despite being a friendly nation and me buttering them up to help fight the Zulus...for no reason at all! All in all it seems that Civ IV has turned into one of those games where you just keep churning out attacking units constantly, which is a shame because I wanted to see the new improved space ship victory, but I couldn't spend much time building anything other than military units just to hold off the enemy waves. The new content is actually ok, and the new espionage features seem just about right without flipping the balance of the game too much. Also most of the mods are good - especially Final Frontier set entirely in space with solar systems replacing cities. They should seriously consider building on this idea in future as this could definitely be turned into a full fledges game of it's own rather than just another Earth based Civ game. It does get boring due to the limited wonders, units, etc, but Final Frontier and some of the others are definitely worth a try. Don't get me wrong Civ IV is a fantastic & addictive game that I would recommend to anyone, but gameplay in Beyond the Sword seems repetitive and boring for the first time since Civ IV was released.

Best Expansion Ever they have outdone themselves this time, being an avid fan of all the CIV games this has to be the best of all of them, i mainly bought it for the additional units, techs and events, its all mostly post gunpowder which is good, it adds units from CIV 3 bac in such as paratroopers, and missile cruisers, also attack subs which are basicly Nuke Subs, the tactical nuke and cruise missiles are back aswell. also they have added a near future line of units, mostly clones, but 2 rather nasty units also but i wont spoil the surprise. the senarios i have only played a couple so far but they are also good, the final frontier is a nice change, along with the ability to play WW2 in europe again, was upset they didnt add that when they released CIV3. on the technical side i have a rather old computer 3-4 years now and it plays fine, slows down in later years but i dont mind, just 1gb of ram should be fine, also played it non stop since the release and have found no bugs yet. i would recomend this game to any CIV or turn based game fan. RULE BRITANIA!!

The best expansion pack in the history of Civilization Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is an excellent expansion pack, bringing many new and updated features to an already great game. It includes 10 new civilizations (Dutch, Portuguese, Holy Roman Empire, Byzantines, Khmer, Sumerians, Ethiopians, Native Americans, Mayas and Babylonians), and several new leaders for existing civilizations. Furthermore, there are many new buildings, wonders, scenarios and technologies. There are several new features, including corporations, random events, an improved espionage system and advanced starts, as well as innumerable updates and improvements to existing features and the game interface. Espionage is now an important part of gameplay, and spies are available from near the start of the game. Espionage points are accumulated against rival civilizations, and spies can perform missions when present in enemy cities and tiles, at the cost of a certain amount of espionage points. City improvements can be built to improve your civilization's espionage output, and the new Great Person - the Great Spy - can accumulate a vast amount of points against a rival immediately. Random events are a great addition to the game, adding variety and more decision-making to games. Each game usually includes a couple of quests, which involve the production of a certain amount of units/buildings to gain a reward for your empire. Forts have now been revamped. They allow city defence promotions to be used when units are defending them, they can house aircraft and can be used to form canals. Air units now can gain promotions to improve their interception or evasion ability and more. Siege weapons now have a limit to the damage they can cause when attacking a unit, which generally increases as siege weapons become more advanced. They can also be effectively attacked using flank attacks. Horse Archers and several other mounted units can perform a flank attack whilst attacking a stack of units in which siege weapons are present. This results in damage being inflicted upon the siege weapons, and sometimes them being destroyed outright. Changes have been made to the graphics, and units will not walk in a straight line to a destination - they run a little more naturally. Units are a little more diverse, and look different for some civilizations. The map fades in and out, and the whole experience is actually smoother and faster than Civ4 or Warlords. There are many more improvements which I cannot list without writing an essay about this expansion pack! Finally, the scenarios (also known as mods) are excellent. I have only looked at a couple, but the feedback from other players about them is very good. Final Frontier is like Civilization in space, and a completely different Civ experience as you battle with spaceships, black holes and radioactive clouds! The Road to War is a World War II scenario, very well built and accurate in its representation of Europe. They are very exciting and very well made. There are some bugs in the game at the time of writing, but having been released for only a few days so far, patches will be written to fix these and to balance the gameplay further if required. If you are a Civ fan, you will not be disappointed with this game! If you are contemplating buying Civ4, get this too! I would recommend that if you are buying from scratch, that you leave Warlords - all the Warlords features, except for a few scenarios that are not worth much, are included in Beyond the Sword. I am very happy with this game, Firaxis have done a great job. I have to agree with what they say on the back of the box, that Beyond the Sword "delivers more core gameplay and scenario content than any other Civ expansion in history".