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Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Info Center

Last updated on July 8th by Methos (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=54475)

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Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: PC
Release Date: July 23rd, 2007
Order Beyond the Sword: Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PCLBE2/civilizationfana) Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PTJHKA/civilizationf-21) Amazon DE (http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PDZBT2/civilizatio07-21)

Overview

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword is the second expansion pack for the award-winning Civilization IV. The expansion pack was first announced on March 28th, 2007 and is being developed by Firaxis Games. The game will be released in the United States on July 23rd, 2007 and at the end of July internationally.

The expansion will focus on the late-game time periods after the invention of gunpowder and will deliver 12 challenging and decidedly different scenarios created by the development team at Firaxis Games, as well as members of the Civilization Fan Community. Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword will also include ten new civilizations, 16 new leaders, five new wonders, and a variety of new units that will offer even more fun and exciting ways for players to expand their civilization’s power as they strive for world domination. The expansion has been in development since the release of Warlords last summer.

Barry Caudill Executive producerI (Senior producer on Civ IV)
Jesse Smith: Producer
Alex Mantzaris: Lead Designer and Lead Programmer
Jon Shafer: Co-Lead Designer

Article Navigation:
Key New Features
Announced Features
New Civilizations and Leaders
New Units
New Promotions
New Buildings
New Wonders
Apostolic Palace
The Scenarios
AfterWorld
Broken Star
Charlemagne http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif
Civ Defense http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif
Crossroads of the World http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif
Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice
Final Frontier
Gods of Old http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif
NextWar
Rhye's and Fall of Civilization
WWII: Road to War
Advanced Start
Colonies
Corporations
Espionage
The Great Spy
Random Events
Space Race
The Technology Tree
New Game Options
Artificial Intelligence
Multiplayer Features
Modding
A Modder's Guide http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/newanim.gif
Revisions
In Regards to Warlords
In Regards to Mac
System Requirements
Official Articles
Previews
Video Previews
Related Links
Screen Shots


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Key New Features


More turns have been added to the game.
Sid will be the voice for the new technologies.
Thanks to Gyathaar, the MAF bug has been fixed.
There are no new UN civic resolutions
Michael Curran composed the title piece
Foreign Advisor Screen (F4): is getting an overhaul.
Graphics are more polished.
There are on-map ocean trade routes that enhance the importance of your navy. They are invisible, but blocked tiles (where your trade cannot go) are visible.
There are colonies splitting from their motherland to form new civilizations.
Addition of 25 new units, 18 new buildings, 16 new leaders, ten new civilizations and eight new wonders.

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Announced Features

Here are the key features mentioned in the expansion pack announcement:

Expanded Epic Game: Firaxis Games delivers a massive increase in new units, buildings, and technologies to the epic game with additional focus on the late-game time periods.
New Game Scenarios: The expansion will deliver 12 new scenarios custom designed by the team at Firaxis and select members of the Civ Fan Community.
New Civilizations: The expansion pack includes ten new civilizations, such as Portugal, Babylon and Netherlands and their associated unique units and buildings.
More Civilization Leaders: Sixteen new leaders including leaders for the ten new civilizations, as well as additional leaders for existing civilizations.
Corporations: A new gameplay feature that allows players to create corporations and spread them throughout the world. Each corporation provides benefits in exchange for certain resources.
Espionage: Now available much earlier in the game, this expanded feature offers players many new ways to spy on opponents, stir citizen unrest and defend their government’s secrets.
Events: New random events such as natural disasters, pleas for help, or demands from their citizens will challenge players to overcome obstacles in order for their civilizations to prosper.
New Wonders: Five new wonders await discovery including the Statue of Zeus, Cristo Redentor, Shwedagon Paya, the Mausoleum of Maussollos, and the Moai Statues.
Expanded Space Victory: Winning the race to Alpha Centauri will now require more strategic planning and tactical decision making.
Apostolic Palace: The United Nations will become available earlier in the game, providing a way for players to win a diplomatic victory earlier. New resolutions will also be added which will expand the available diplomatic options.
Advanced Starts: A major fan request, this new feature will enable players to “buy” components of a custom-tailored empire and begin play in the later part of the game, allowing them to experience many of the new features of the expansion pack in a shorter amount of time.
Enhanced AI: The AI has received many enhancements, making it tougher to beat on the higher difficulty levels. The ways in which the AI will attempt to achieve victory have also been expanded.


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New Civilizations and Leaders

There are 10 new Civilizations, for a total of 34, and 16 new leaders, for a total of 52. There are no new traits, but nearly all the trait combos are filled now. The new civs and leaders are in bold

The 10 New Civilizations
http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/gamespot_bts525_09_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1140&c=24)Babylonian
Leader: Hammurabi - Aggressive, Organized
Starting Techs: Wheel, Agriculture
Unique Unit: Bowman (Archer), grants an additional +50% vs melee units.
Unique Building: Garden (Colosseum), grants an additional health.





Byzantine
Leader: Justinian I - Imperialistic, Spiritual
Starting Techs: Wheel, Mysticism
Unique Unit: Cataphract (Knight), comes with +2 strength but is not immune to first strike.
Unique Building: Hippodrome (Theatre), grants loads of extra happiness, +1 base, +1 more for having access to horses and +1 for every 5% spent on culture (instead of the Theatre's 10%).

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/bts523_8_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1131&c=24)Dutch
Leader: Willem van Oranje - Creative, Financial
Starting Techs: Fishing, Agriculture
Unique Unit: East Indiaman (Galleon), +2 strength and one extra cargo space, can also explore rival territory.
Unique Building: Dike (Levee), grants +1 production from all water tiles.





http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/5/4/4/7/5/ZaraYaqob_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1183&c=24)Ethiopian
Leader: Zara Yaqob - Creative, Organized
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mining
Unique Unit: Oromo Warrior (Musketman), has first-level First Strike and is also immune to First Strikes, begins with Drill I and II promotions.
Unique Building: Stele (Monument), grants an additional +25% culture.





Holy Roman Empire
Leader: Charlemagne - Imperialistic, Protective
Starting Techs: Mysticism, Hunting
Unique Unit: Landsknecht (Pikeman), in addition to the existing mounted bonus, it comes with +100% vs. melee units.
Unique Building: Rathaus (Courthouse), lowers maintenance by an additional 25%, only four are needed to build the Forbidden Palace.

Khmer
Leader: Suryavarman - Creative, Expansive
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mining
Unique Unit: Ballista Elephant (War Elephant), when attacking units in stacks outside of city walls, elephants will automatically target mounted units first.
Unique Building: Baray (Aqueduct), grants an additional food.

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516b_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1119&c=24)Mayan
Leader: Pacal II - Expansive, Financial
Starting Techs: Mysticism, Mining
Unique Unit: Holkan (Spearman), immune to First Strike and can be built without copper or iron.
Unique Building: Ball Court (Colosseum), grants +2 happiness.





http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/SittingBull_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1100&c=24)Native American
Leader: Sitting Bull - Philosophical, Protective
Starting Techs: Fishing, Agriculture
Unique Unit: Dog Soldier (Axeman), has -1 strength but an additional +50% vs. melee units. Also requires no resources to build.
Unique Building: Totem Pole (Monument), all new archery units get +3 experience.





Portuguese
Leader: Joao II - Expansive, Imperialistic
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Unique Unit: Carrack (Caravel), has an additional cargo space, can carry military units, and can explore rival territory.
Unique Building: Feitoria (Customs House), get one additional commerce from all water tiles.

Sumerian
Leader: Gilgamesh - Creative, Protective
Starting Techs: Wheel, Agriculture
Unique Unit: Vulture (Axeman), has +1 strength but suffers a 25% reduction against melee units.
Unique Building: Ziggurat (Courthouse), 20 hammers cheaper than the courthouse, only four are required to build the Forbidden Palace.


New Leaders for Existing Civs
American: Lincoln - Charismatic, Philosophical
Celtic: Boudica - Aggressive, Charismatic
French: De Gaulle - Charismatic, Industrious
Greek: Pericles - Creative, Philosophical
Ottoman: Suleiman - Imperialistic, Philosophical
Persia: Darius I - Financial, Organized

Altered Traits:
Augustus [Imp/Ind]

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Civ4: Beyond the Sword Gallery (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/browseimages.php?c=24)

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New Buildings
Buildings
Corporation Headquarters
Corporation
Custom House [Harbor, Economics]: gain a boost to all foreign trade coming in from overseas.
Industrial Parks: allows engineers and causes unhealthiness.
Intelligence Agency: enhances espionage spending
Levees [Steam Power]: +1 hammers on River tiles 180 hammers
Public Transportation: +1 health +3 health from coal, oil 150 hammers
Security Bureau: makes it harder for foreign spies to perform missions in your cities


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New Units

There are several new units that are available:
Airship: A sub-spotting, navy-busting zeppelin that should definitely help keep your coasts clear.
Anti-Tank Gun: Is an inexpensive early counter to Tanks. You are no longer helpless if your enemy is first to Industrialism and has access to Oil.
Anti-Tank Infantry: They start with the Ambush promotion and have a 100% bonus against armored units.
Attack Submarine: It is ideally suited for combat against other submarines but it can also transport non-combat units pretty much anywhere in the world without being detected.
Cuirassier: Is a new mounted unit that takes the place of the old Cavalry unit in the technology tree. It eases the transition between Knights and Cavalry.
The Executive: [Mv 2] Used to spread corporations
Guided Missile: Can evade interception all together but it lacks the destructive power of the Tactical Nuke or the more intense ICBM.
Missile Cruiser: Can carry up to four missiles that it can launch at enemies far from your own cities.
Mobile Artillery: [Str 26, Mv 2]
Mobile SAM: [Str 22; Mv 2] Serving as a mobile air-defense, this unit can come in very handy for border defense as well as invasion.
Paratroopers: Gunpowder unit, Str 24, Mv 1 Can perform Paradrops [Range=5] 160 hammers It can perform jumps onto strategic spots in enemy territory before an invasion, as might be expected from previous incarnations of the series. They can be shot down en route by other anti-air units. The difference is that the AI now knows how to effectively use it.
Privateers: can blockade ports and plunder trade routes. Since Privateers have no national markings, they can be used by all players without regard for the diplomatic consequences.
Ship-of-the-Line: provides a version of the Frigate for players who prefer something a little stronger at the cost of a little speed.
Stealth Destroyer: It is invisible to almost all other units. It has the ability to shoot down enemy aircraft and bombard coastal cities.
Tactical Nukes: they're like regular nukes, except they're a lot cheaper but they're not as powerful. But they still produce the wonderful mushroom cloud that everybody loves. They have a limited range and can be carried by subs.


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New Promotions

There are several new promotions available:
air unit promotions Range: increases how far a unit can operate Interception: increases the chance that a unit can catch enemy aircraft as they come into range Ace: increases the unit's chance to evade interception
Woodsman III Interception Ace

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New Wonders

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/Mausoleum_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1098&c=24)Five new wonders await discovery. They did their best to make sure that all of these are balanced, so there isn't one of these clearly more powerful than the rest.

World Wonders
Cristo Redentor [Radio]: +5 culture, +2 GP (Great Engineer) No Anarchy No wait between Civics or State Relgion changes 1000 hammers Eliminates anarchy to the player that builds it. The city in which the Cristo Redentor is located is more likely to generate a Great Engineer. Leaders who have the Spiritual trait construct it twice as quickly.
Mausoleum of Maussollos [Calendar]: Though it makes its home city more likely to generate Great Artists, its real benefit is its ability to extend a civilization's Golden Age by 50%. Constructed twice as fast with Marble.
Shwedagon Paya [Meditation, Aesthetics]: Grants access to all religion civics. Its home city is more likely to generate Great Prophets. Constructed twice as quickly with Gold.
Statue of Zeus [Two Monuments, Aesthetics]: +10 Culture, +2 GP (Great Artist) Enemies suffer +100% war weariness 201 hammers


National Wonders
Moai Statues: gives you production in all water tiles of that city.
National Park: +3 Culture; +1 GP (Great Scientist) Removes access to coal in the city No unhealthiness from from population +1 free specialist per forest reserve 300 hammers


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Apostolic Palace +4 :culture: +2 :gp: (prophet)

The Apostolic Palace becomes available when you have researched Theology. You must have also declared a state religion and it can only be built in a city where your state religion holds sway. Once it is complete, the builder may switch state religions later. The Palace allows a religion to play a major part in international affairs, centuries before the UN makes its appearance.

The most basic feature of the Apostolic Palace is that it triggers elections for the head of the Palace. The owner of the Palace is automatically in the running just the same as with the UN. Their rival is the leader who has the largest population living in cities that share the Palace's religion and acknowledges it as their State Religion. The head of the Palace can then set a voting agenda for a variety of context-based resolutions. The Palace also opens up the option for a victory through a diplomatic vote.

Leaders who share the Palace's religion (or who own the Palace) become full voting members. They also enjoy a production bonus to every building of that religion in their cities. Leaders who don't have that as their state religion, but happen to have cities that share the religion don't get the production bonuses but they still get a vote on all Palace resolutions. A full voting member can have their production bonuses revoked and suffer a happiness penalty if they openly defy a resolution. The only way to regain full membership is to then vote on a later measure that passes. (This same sort of concept of demoted membership also now applies to the UN.)

According to a hands-on preview the AI's tend to convert to the religion of the Palace for the eligiblebility of becoming the head of the Palace. This works to the benefit of the Palace's owner as well, because the faith becomes a sort of alliance that can protect its members from attacks from leaders of other faiths. The Palace does balance itself out, as the more you spread your religion to your neighboring civs, the less weight your own votes carry when trying to pass resolutions.

Some of the options available through the Palace are:
forces nations to stop trading with a certain civ
maintain an Open Border's policy
holy wars
trade embargos
peace enforcement (basically say, don't go to war with me)
assigning cities to their "rightful" owner
Possible to win an early diplomatic victory
Is rebuffed by Communism and made obsolete by Mass Media. At this point, the more modern United Nations takes over many of its functions


Some of the new resolutions will also be available with the UN and yes, you can defy them if you choose. The choices available for voting are:
Yes
No
Never (Defy Resolution)
Abstain

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The Scenarios

The expansion will deliver 12 new scenarios, many containing themes never before included in the Civilization series. They range from fantasy to hardcore WWII simulations and range in time from the Renaissance to centuries into the future. One of them is like Civ in space, set waaay beyond the sword. Another is an X-COM type of game but your enemies are creatures of the afterworld. Some have a fantasy setting, and others have a heavily researched historical setting. Some are played on random maps, while others are played on historical maps. And not only do they have their own brilliant game designers working on these scenarios, but they have also recruited the most creative minds of our fan community to design scenarios especially for this expansion pack.


The look of the game has been completely transformed for some of the scenarios.
Firaxis plans to release demos showcasing two of the scenarios.


The announced scenarios are:
AfterWorld
Broken Star
Charlemagne
Civ Defense
Crossroads of the World
Fall From Heaven: Age of Ice
Final Frontier
Gods of Old
Next War
Rhye's and Fall of Civilization
WWII: Road to War


No other information has been released on the remaining scenarios.

AfterWorld

This is a squad-based tactical "thriller" where the player fights undead in the X-com style.

http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/afterworld_2.jpg"Our stage is in the far distant future. In an age where we've accomplished faster-than-light travel, man-made solar systems, and have isolated 'consciousness'. That last feat allows for human robots to work tirelessly, while their persona takes a vacation in a jar somewhere.

As with any story, something goes wrong. Something causes a planet full of the human robots, GoLeMs, to twist into malformed beasts. The universal government sends some scientists to observe what's going on. Yeah....they're eaten. So then the big guns (that's you) are sent in to grab the scientist's untransmitted research. It's a squad of five "Gravebringers" vs. a planet full of nightmares." -Interview with Tim McCracken (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_bts_afterworld.php), QA Manager and scenario designer at Firaxis.

There are no leaders. No cities. No technologies. It's not the typical game of Civ. It's Afterworld.

Basic premise is that scientists went in to research some weird stuff, they haven't been heard back from in a while, and you play as a squad of mechanized soldiers called the "Gravebringers" to find out what happened to those scientists.

With its intimate focus on five units, special abilities and promotions for each unit have been more fleshed out. Examples include the construction of a forcefield to close off passages and force the enemy to funnel down specific halls to you, or the ability to control enemy units for a short time, or a simple detonation aura which blows up anything around you (one of the first times we've seen an individual Area-of-Effect spell in a Civ title). Your Gravebringers get to use all of these neat abilities and weapons on what are essentially space zombies. It's pretty amazing that an X-Com-ish scenario of mechs versus space zombies is a random extra bonus in BtS.

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Broken Star

Russia is divided, and a civil war is upon us! To unite the Motherland you may purchase military units from the U.S. or promotion upgrades from the Chinese Black Market; conscript the Russian people or bribe enemy forces; or even deploy the ultimate in doomsday weaponry, the nuclear bomb.

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Charlemagne http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/Charlemagne_MountedUnits_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1101&c=24)The Frankish Empire has broken up and it's up to the player (and four other leaders) to reunite the scattered pieces of the empire and claim the throne. Of course, there are a number of other civs complicating the matter.

This scenario uses the Advanced Start option to set up your substantial empire. Adding to the diplomacy aspect of Civ4, is the inclusion of the Papacy, which is another way to win the scenario. Each of the Christian civilizations has the chance to gain favor with the Pope through building Christian buildings, donating units and relics, and going to war with enemies of the faith. While the Pope's good graces can grant you some happiness and income bonuses, he can also confer victory on you by declaring you the Holy Roman Emperor.

There are five Christian nations and a couple of the leaders are Charlemagne and Eleanor of Aquitaine, as well as the nations of Lombardy, Burgundy, and Neustria.

One of the new units in the scenario is the Supply Train. Units cannot heal normally in enemy territory, nor are there any healing promotions allowed to them. Instead, healing is achieved through the Supply Train, which are entirely defenseless. Protect your supply trains, while you destroy those of your enemy!

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Civ Defense http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif

This scenario uses the Advanced Start option and continues to do so throughout the scenario. You start off with a small amount of cash that is just enough for a single city. You are than confronted with a wave of enemies who will attempt to capture your city. As you weather each wave of attacks, you will be granted gold. You'll than be sent back to the Buy phase to buy new units, cities, and technology before the next wave of attackers. It will continue like this, with each wave getting more and more difficult over the course of twenty waves. You must survive them all to be declared victorious.

There are some variant rules though. First, units that are stacked together will be weakened proportionally to the number of units in the stack. Plus units are suited better for a certain type of tile, meaning forces will need to be arrayed wisely.

Staying inside your city isn't neccesairly the best thing either, as each new round will include a number of random goody huts that can grant you substantial cash bonuses. Once the attacks start to intensify, you're going to need every dollar you can get just to keep the enemy from overrunning your defenses.

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Crossroads of the World http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif

This scenario takes place during the 13th century as the lands of Turkey, Africa, and Central Asia become hotly contested due to the Silk Roads.

There are five playable civs, as well as some lesser rival powers. Whoever is the first to amass 30,000 gold wins the scenario. You can get gold in all the regular ways -- taxes, conquest, trade, negotiation -- but there are two new avenues of income that are definitely worth exploring.

Raider: Four upgradeable versions, this unit is basically like a land version of the privateer. It has no national markings and can attack freely without regard for diplomacy. It provides a nice gold bonus for pillage attacks but it can't actually conquer cities for you.

Guilds: Similar to corporations. There are five main guilds and a handful of minor ones here that, instead of granting additional resources, merely generate a steady flow of income. You'll use guildmasters instead of corporate executives to spread your guilds throughout the world. The maintenance costs for the guild headquarters is so high, however, that it's almost worth it to try to get them established in towns belonging to your enemy.

Player Civs:
Ottomans
Mamluks
Timurids
Ethiopians
Rasulids

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Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice

How does Age of Ice differ from the basic Civ experience? What does it add to the game?

The focus of the game is more on individual units than in Civilization IV. Units gain more experience from combat, and the promotions they gain are more powerful. Unique hero units cannot be rebuilt if they die, making it dire when they are lost or rewarding to defeat the heroes of your enemies.

It is a brutal world and large portions of the map can't be settled by any civilization, leading to large wild lands and limiting city sprawl. Players cannot afford to build huge stacks of units and must rely on smaller, more powerful groups to explore the wilderness and attack other civilizations.

As to what it adds, the scenario has several new features. One of my favorites is the active climate. Blizzards roll across the map from the west, damaging units, destroying improvements and changing the terrain. Tiles are affected by the blizzards and will begin to change from plains to tundra to snow based on how much snowfall they receive. Trees become covered in snow; lakes freeze over. And it's more than just an art change. All but the heaviest units can travel over frozen lakes, so if blizzards do freeze a body of water, it may open up new areas to explore or new ways for the enemy to get to you.

Players also have the ability to affect the climate through their actions and events. Mountains block the blizzards, creating small habitable regions on their east side that become hotly contested city locations for all civilizations.

Performer and studio vocalist Jillian Goldin will be singing a solo for the soundtrack.

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Final Frontier

"Communications with Earth have gone silent. As leader of one of the few terrestrial colonies scattered throughout the universe, discover the fate of man's homeworld while extending your control over unexplored star systems. Barter or battle with your fellow colonists as you expand to the edges of the universe, into the Final Frontier."

The Final Frontier space scenario is almost like an entire remake of the game all over again. There's a brand new tech tree, loads of new units and a brand new terrain! We wanted to show the community who have been great, how crazy you can be with the scenarios. Final Frontier takes place 100 years after earth - after contact was lost with earth... as you play through the scenario, you'll find small clues about what happened to earth. It's a lot different to the base game of Civ. Instead of conquering the world, you're conquering all of space. Instead of building a city, you're colonizing a star system. You can go into each star system and plant buildings on each planet and assign population to them. Then there's Star Bases - they're kind of like satellite cities, they can harvest resources from an asteroid field, spread the influence of your city and they can also defend against attacking units. There's pop up hints which will tell you all about the new units and there's also the Civilopedia with an explanation on the concepts.

One of the immediate changes noticed is that while solar systems are the heart of your "city", you can designate which planets within a system get which buildings—hence you make an all-military production planet and a farming planet within a single system.

The galaxy is populated with asteroid fields (can provide defensive and resource bonuses), impassable nebulae, dangerous radiation fields, and ultra-dangerous black holes. Additionally, since there are vast reaches of space between solar systems, the way you spread your borders and culture is via starbases; not only do starbases establish borders, but they also house military units to defend said borders. Military units range from battleships, carriers, fighter/bomber squadrons to "delta" or even "omega" level upgrades for each unit. Finally, since you're already in space, the "space flight" victory condition has been replaced with "Human Ascendancy", which translates into creating dimensional warp gates (instead of a space shuttle).

Scenario Features:
Asteroid Belts: reduce transport speed and increase defensive abilit
Black Holes: new terrain type
New Technology Tree

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Gods of Old http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/updated.gif

The religions from the epic game have been replaced with the gods of Ancient Mesopotamia and they are angry! In this scenario you must pick one of the seven Mesopotamian gods (each of them have their own special ability) and you must build temples and monuments to him or her. You can create Inquisitors to purge enemy religions from your cities. Serve your deity well and he or she may smite your enemies with a disaster, such as an earthquake, plague, blight, or meteor strike.

Religions are founded through the normal means of discovering specific technologies, though building a holy shrine is much more important. Once all shrines have been built, the winner is declared when the player has elimated all shrines but his or her own.

Once Theology has been discovered a new unit is available, the Inquisitor. Just as the Missionaries are designed to spread religion, the Inquisitors are designed to stomp it out. You can sacrifice your Inquisitors (of which you can only have three at a time) to eliminate any non-state religion in any of your cities.

Gods of Old also finds a new use for the Great Prophets. Rather than simply spreading your faith, you can sacrifice the prophets to call down terrible disasters on enemy cities. All but two of the religions have a particular catastrophe associated with it. Enlil for instance, sends plagues, while Nanna strikes with a rain of meteors. Of the two who don't provide disasters, prophets of An will be sacrificed automatically to prevent any one disaster from hitting your towns. A seventh prophet doesn't seem to have any specific ability at all but is still useful for all the regular functions of a Great Prophet.

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NextWar

This scenario is set in the near future with futuristic weapons and it may be played in two ways, like a scenario or as a mod.

Scenario

You play a pre-created situation, where Earth is divided into five mega-empires locked in an escalating struggle for dwindling resources.

Mod

You play a typical Civilization game where you have access to the futuristic weapons when you learn the appropiate techs.

Units:
Cyborgs (cybernetic warriors)
Dreadnoughts (huge mega-tanks)
Walkers (human-driven giant walking robots)

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Rhye's and Fall of Civilization

Thanks go to Edungeon for the summary below...

New Civilizations and Leaders

From the 10 new Civilization of Beyond the Sword, RFC is going to use 5.

The 5 New Civilizations

Maya Pacal
Netherlands Willem van Oranje
Portugal Joao II
Plus two more unknown civilizations.


And there is a new non-playable civilization in the 600 Start: The Byzantine Empire.

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516b_thumb.jpghttp://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/gamespot_bts525_09_thumb.jpghttp://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/bts523_8_thumb.jpg

Portugal and Holland


Portugal and Holland are civilizations that are choked in the Europe but develop really well through their colonial empire. They usually have 1 or 2 big cities enough to run a colonial empire, but of course, if Spain takes Lisboa, Portugal collapses :).

The Portuguese AI will focus their colonization efforts in the Brazillian coast and some spots in Africa. In counterpart to this, the Dutch go to a lot of places but mainly for South Africa, Caribbean, New York area and Australia. The colonization efforts of Japan in Indonesia will be halt by the Dutchs.


Unique Powers and Unique Historical Victory

The Portuguese ships have more visibility range, and the Portuguese goal (one of them) is to have the most explored map, this goal is in direct competition with the Dutch who have the same condition.
The Unique Power of Holland is that ships can travel through other territories without open borders, not powerful compared to others Unique Powers but it is a necessity as they are completely closed by the culture of England, Viking and France. If it wasn't for this Unique Power, the Dutch wouldn't be in RFC today ( and you all can thank Elhoim for this ;) ).

Starting Places

All the Starting Places of the new civs were improved, since sometimes the region was very poor, and this is the way to make small civs more competitive. The new known starting places are: Yucatan Peninsula, West Iberian Peninsula and Low Countries.

Late Save Generator

One of the features of the RFC:BTS is the Late Save Generator, if you want to start a game with a medieval or modern civ, you can use the late save generator. The game starts to be generated in 600AD instead of 4000BC, with this you can speed to play as a civ like Britain or America, but the changes in the world will be less dynamic, since all the ancient era will be the same. The beginning playable civs are: China, Japan, Arabia and Vikings.
In the Late Save Generator there is the non-playable Byzantine Empire, with preset cities. This is the same system used in the 1000AD scenario (made by Rhye too).


Beyond the Sword Features

RFC will use all the new units, buildings and features of BTS Epic Game. The only exception is the release of colonial Dominions, instead of some random civ it will liberate all yours city to the independent.
The Holy Roman Empire will be represented in the Germany Civilization, with Charlemagne added to the leader list, renamed to Otto I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_I%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor), the first Emperor. And the only part of the Native American civilization that you will see it their UU wandering around in North America as Natives.

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WWII: Road to War

This mod was created by Dale (http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=14088) and will consist of three scenarios and three modes. Two of the scenarios will be held in Europe with the remaining one will be in the Pacific. The three modes will be Historic Events, Random Historic Events and Open Play. All three modes will be available for all three scenarios. Some of the new features will be:
Enhanced Bombing: There are three different bombing missions. You can now designate whether you are bombing defenses, factories, or civil buildings. This can really hurt production.
The British Isles will have six cities and Germany will have 15 cities.
Religions have been replaced with ideologies.
The mapsize will be larger than your standard continents map.
Dale has modified the AI.


Historical Game
Date: January 1, 1936 to 1950
Cannot declare war, nor can you make peace. These type of events are scheduled and will happen on the historical date.


Random Historical Events

Not much is known about this mode, except it is between the Historical Events and Open Play mode.

Open Style
Date: Starts in July of 1939
It's open season


Later Un-Official Release
Dale has stated he will be releaseing more parts of his mod after the official release of BTS. The official site of RtW will be Apolyton (http://apolyton.net/). This "un-official release" will contain:
a global map
new graphics for the UU's
you can switch with an ally civ
200 megs worth of videos made by Poly's hexagonia (http://apolyton.net/forums/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=2943).


Playable Civs
Europe
East Balkans
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Norway
SPoland
United Kingdom
United States
USSR
Pacific
Australia
China
Dutch East Indies
Japan
Philippines
Siam
United Kingdom
USA
Xinxiang


Non-playable Civs
Europe
Baltic States
Iberia
Low Country
Sweden
Turkey
Pacific
France
Mongolia
USSR


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Advanced Start

When setting up custom single or multiplayer games, you'll have the option to enable the accelerated start that allows players to buy their starting cities, techs, units and improvements before the first turn actually begins. The amount of gold is based on the size of the map and the starting era you choose. The regular discounts for leader traits or resource ownership are taken into account when you're buying items as well.
Each civilization is given a defined space in which to place their cities so there won't be any competition between players for starting locations. It's still uncertain how the game determines which civilizations found religions that are bought before the game begins since testers always got the ones they bought the techs for. Since you can't see the other civs while they're purchasing starting assets, you may be surprised to find yourself with very powerful neighbors once the game begins.

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Colonies

Big empires that have been hard to manage before are going to be even more trouble in the expansion. In addition to the regular maintenance costs, you will now also incur a significant additional cost for cities that aren't on the same continent as your capital. It's not much of a problem for a handful of overseas colonies, but once you actually establish a mini-empire on another continent, you're going to find yourself losing money.

The answer is to visit your Domestic Advisor and make the cities on the new continent into a colony. The new colony is assigned a new leader and civilization and becomes a vassal to its parent civilization. The AI takes charge of the colony from then on but still allows the player who created them to make use of whatever resources they hold. So if you settle on a distant continent and find rich resource fields there, creating a colony out of the new cities won't affect your access to those resources.

The colony begins life in a very friendly relationship with the parent civilization but from there you'll have to ensure that you do what you need to do to maintain that relationship. Colonies can eventually break completely free of their parent civilization at which point they stop contributing resources and can even become hostile. Smart players never let it get that bad, of course, and the colonies we've seen the AI establish have stayed allied with each other throughout the game.

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Corporations

Corporations are among the new features in Beyond the Sword 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. There are corporations that can cause the productivity of your cities to skyrocket and your economy to flourish. 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, which tapers out in the middle of the game.

You can found a corporation with a specific type of great person once you have researched Corporations and the required tech for that corporation is known. In other words two techs are required for every corporation.

Headquarters
Created by consuming a Great Person.
Receives royalty income for each city in the world hosting a branch of that corporation.


Corporations
The more instances of resources they consume, the more food, production, commerce, or resources they supply.
any city hosting a corporation has to pay a maintenance fee for its services.
Players can block foreign corporations from operating in their cities by adopting the Mercantilism civic
block all corporations, even their own, by adopting the State Property civic.
Can spread each corporation through an executive.


The corporation is good because it's going to give your finances a massive boost but you have to be careful about who you're giving funds to. If you have an oil corporation and you support another corporation, you're giving them the ability to make tanks. The advantage of a corporation is that if you're short of a critical resource, like oil, there's a way to gain access to it through corporations

Known Corporations
Aluminum, Inc.: Consumes: coal Produces: aluminum Secondary Tech: ??? Great Person: Scientist Allow you to compete in the space race.
Civilized Jewelers Consumes: gems, gold, silver Produces: ??? Secondary Tech: Mass Media Great Person: Artist
Creative Constructions Consumes: aluminum, iron, copper, stone, or marble Produces: extra :hammers: and :culture: Secondary Tech: ??? Great Person: Engineer
Cereal Mills Consumes: corn, rice, or wheat Produces: extra :food: Secondary Tech: ??? Great Person: Merchant
Mining Inc Consumes: coal, copper, gold, iron, silver Produces: extra :hammers: Secondary Tech: Mass Media Great Person: Engineer
Sid's Sushi Co Consumes: Crab, Clam, Fish, or Rice Produces: ??? Secondary Tech: Medicine Great Person: Merchant
Standard Ethanol: Consumes: corn, sugar, or rice Produces: oil Secondary Tech: ??? Great Person: Scientist This corporation can be a lifesaver in the modern era, where lack of oil can doom your civilization.


Each corporation consumes the resources it needs and has an additional support cost that must be paid by the city that houses it. These costs can vary depending on your economy civics but it's almost always worth it to run a corporation or two, particularly if you're enthusiastic about spreading it around the world.
Corporations work a bit like the game's religions. Each has a home city that serves as its headquarters and spreads automatically and through dispatching corporate executives that serve as missionaries. You can expand your corporation's influence to other cities by moving your executives in and paying a small bit of cash. Of course, the city in question has to have the right resources for the corporation you're trying to establish. This opens up some interesting forms of competition because some of the corporations require the same resources so they can't coexist in the same city.

The upside to all of this is that the owner of the corporate headquarters will earn a bit of cash every turn for every city that contains a branch of that corporation. 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.

One interesting thing to note is that while the Corporation benefits the civilization that found it, the individual city it's built in is the one that gives the Corporation the resources it requires. To this end, Shafer specifically points out a jerk tactic of sending your Executive to build a Corporation in another civilization's city. This means that you reap the benefits of said Corporation, while the city itself (in your opponent's hands) has to pay the expenses. Of course, to counter such a dastardly move, you can adopt either the Mercantilism or the State Property Civics, which will nullify the effect of any foreign Corporation.

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/938800_20070622_screen022_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1266&c=24) http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/5/4/4/7/5/CreativeConstruction_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1194&original=1&c=24) http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/5/4/4/7/5/MiningInc_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1199&original=1&c=24)

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Espionage

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/bts523_1_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1124&c=24)Espionage deserves special attention because it has become a more integral part of the game than ever before. Spies now have more abilities and missions. We now have an espionage slider and screen and you can now invest into espionage each turn. The new espionage system should have a huge impact for players that like to work in the background to influence events.

The espionage slider is now comparable to scientific research, culture, or income from taxes, as you have the ability to divert part of your income towards espionage activities against other civilizations. The espionage system is based upon points, where points are earned based off your espionage slider. All of your espionage points go into a pool, and you can then open up the new espionage screen to use those points to spy or conduct sabotage on rival civilizations. Using the espionage screen, you can select which mission you want to do. There will be some missions you won't be able to do because you won't have enough points, but when you've earned enough points, you'll be able to pull of greater espionage missions. Also, the more time a spy spends inside a city, the cheaper things get and as you pass funds towards espionage, you'll get the odd intelligence alert too. Your level of espionage is different for every civ, so you may know a lot about one opponent and very little, if any, of another.

At the lowest levels, accumulation of Espionage points will let you see a rival's demographics. Keep spending money on Espionage and you'll be able to see the terrain within the city radius and see what your rival is researching. At the very highest level you'll even be able to investigate a rival's city. If you put enough money into Espionage, you'll eventually be able to see everything that's going on all across the world. The only way for your rivals to block you out is to increase their own spending and Espionage bonuses.

All of the spy units in the game are invisible to everyone except their owner so you won't know until after the fact that your rivals have undertaken missions in your cities. You can sometimes catch a spy through the construction of specific intelligence buildings and through massive Espionage spending. You might even be able to discover who sent the spy to mess with you in the first place. Of course, all these risks apply to spies you've sent in your rival's territory.

The ratio of your accumulated espionage points is measured against the points that your rivals have allocated towards spying on you can increase or decrease the cost of missions undertaken by your spies. If you've vastly outspent your enemy, you can get some real bargains when it comes to direct sabotage. You can see all these ratios and costs on the game's espionage screen so you'll know before you dispatch a spy just how much it will cost to perform a specific mission. These points are then used for both Active and Passive Espionage missions against other civilizations.

Passive Espionage simply means that after accumulating a certain number of points to a civilization, you can do things like see what your opponent is researching or even what's going on inside a city. The way to balance this is that if your opponent has more Espionage Points in general, he can reap the benefits of a Passive Espionage act earlier than you, and in fact, because he has more than you, the Point cost for you to perform Passive Espionage rises, and you'll have to fund more money to spy on him. In fact, when you allot a lot of Espionage Points on a specific civilization, you can reach a level where you can deny spies from that civilization to even cross the border.

Active Espionage spends points in order to do dastardly things like destroy buildings, incite a revolt, steal technology, or switch an opponent's Civics or Religion to whatever you're aligned with. Another interesting Active Mission type is Counter-Espionage, which doubles the cost of any Espionage mission that your target undertakes. To pull off an Active Mission, you need a Spy unit, which is available after researching the Alphabet (which moves Espionage up to an early game mechanic now).

Spies are invisible units that can zip around undetected to gather info, and perform Active Missions within an enemy city. If the mission succeeds, the Spy either survives to perform another one, or gets caught and killed immediately. Heck, the Spy might get caught anyways and the mission fails as a result. Even worse, in that case, your opponent might have interrogated the Spy before killing him/her and find out that the Spy is yours. Finally, with the right combination of Specialists and Wonders, you can also cultivate Great Spies to do dirty work for your civilization.

How to Accumulate Espionage Points:
Espionage slider
events
buildings
Spy specialist

To help balance out the system each successful mission subtracts points from the Espionage pool you've built up with that rival. This means that you'll have to keep spending on Espionage in order to stay competitive. Or course, you'll also want to strike a balance between spending trade on that and spending it on everything else you need.

Spy Missions
Passive:
Can See Demographics
City Visibility
Investigate City
Can See Research
Missions:
Sabotage Improvement
Sabotage Building
Sabotage Project
Steal Treasury
Spread Culture
Poison Water: causes unhealthiness
Forment Unhappiness
Support City Revolt
Steal Technology
Influence Civics
Influence Religion
Perform Counterespionage



Mission costs are determined by base cost, distance, time spent stationairy, and EP's spent.

Each AI will have its own separate listing off relative espionage info. This will include weight, EP's, EP/turn, and % of cost.

Espionage Buildings
Castle: +25% EP
Intelligence Agency +8 EP's; +50% EP; Can turn two citizens into Spy specialists; 180 :hammers: enhances espionage spending and amplify your efforts to spy on others.
Security Bureau: +8 EP +50% defense vs. espionage, helps thwart rival spies can train two spy specialist 220 hammers


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The Great Spy

The Great Spy is a new Great Person type who are born in your cities just like other Great People. They can:
merging as a super specialist
start a Golden Age
can build Scotland Yard
can infiltrate into enemy cities, giving you a significant advantage in espionage against that civilization
are totally invisible, even to other spies.

The Ancient Age Great Spy is the image of a ninja.

The Great Spies
An Jung Geun
Gasper Graziani
Guy Fawkes


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Random Events

There are large numbers of random events in Beyond the Sword (more than a hundred of them), which you can turn off or on. They don’t all occur in every game, so each game feels unique. Some events simply ask the player how to deal with a situation that has arisen, but other events are quite intricate, sending the player on quests in order to receive some reward, for example. It's a bit like the system in Galactic Civilizations II but it comes up much more frequently.

Here are the list of known events:

From Articles

Replant a forest burned by escaped criminals. Ignoring the problem not only leaves you with one less forest tile, but also temporarily decreases happiness in the affected city.
Requests to donate food to a city suffering from famine
Discoveries that grant a bonus
Pleas for help from other civs
Demands from their citizens
a Golden Age
one that simulates the partisans


From Screenshots
Alerts Notifications
Natural disasters (tsunami, earthquake)
Surplus in Hunting grant population boom
Advanced Weaponry
Underground Railroad Network: Public Transportation +5 commerce
Brave Soldier: the heroic deed has inspired a golden age
Events
AI Fugitive: A fugitive from one of your opponents was captured by you and you are given three options: extradite secretly interogate: +500 EP's for that AI, plus +50% chance for suffer -1 vs. that AI Release him
Arranged Marriage: send well wishes and a token wedding gift send hearty congratulations and a generous gift announce a national celebration and outlandish gift: subtract gold and gain +3 relations boost
Heartening Balad: Glad to see the local culture thriving fund it: subtract gold from treasury and receive +450 gold give the artist a recording contract
Interest Rates: Let the free market use the techniques fund a Federal Reserve Bank: subtract gold from treasury and receive -40% inflation
National Highway System: +1 Road Movement
Mine Accident: Organize a rebuilding effort: costs gold assist the bereaved too pressed to send aid
Vermin Problem: sounds like bad news, but do nothing pay to have lost grain replaced: costs gold
Slave Revolt: Re-establish order: one temporary unhappy face, one turn of disorder, two population Restore order than investigate Too busy to be bothered, disorder may continue
A Miracle:tourism enhances city revenue pilgrims are hired and trained as missionaries: subtract gold and convert cities to the religion
Medicinal Tea: establish internal trade fund efforts to increase production: subtract gold and +1 commerce on that plot. In addition, there's a % chance of +3 health and/or +1 free scientist
Gladiator: No one survives forever, cash in: receive gold arrange matches versus easy opponents
Ice Sculptor: glad to see the local culture is thriving fund it: subtract gold and receive +1 free artist
Master Blacksmith: Applaud his accomplishments: forge +1 hammer

Quests
Greed: Military Advisors seek a certain resource in an opponents lands
Classic Literature: requires seven libraries, plus a bonus if you complete the Great Library too. Must be complete prior to an opponent or reaching the Renaissance Era.
Master Blacksmith: must have seven forges and as a bonus, must have a state religion. Must be completed by a rival civilization completing it first, you lose control of Rotterdam and the master smith, or you reach the Renaissance Era.
National Sports League: requres colleseums to complete and it strengthens their social fabric and national identity


Some events are more complicated and may have options for you to choose from. You may hear about unrest in a rival's city and be given the option to get involved. If you leave the rebels alone, they'll be sure to destroy an improvement in that city. If you happen to send a little funding their way, you might get them to destroy a few more buildings. Be careful though. If you send too much money their way, you may risk increased tensions between you and the rival civ's leader.

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Space Race

http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/concept_3.jpgAnd the space race and end game have also been changed considerably. In Civ IV, you won the game the moment that you could launch your spaceship to Alpha Centauri. The problem was that made the space race seem rather anticlimactic and rushed. So the designers turned to the old space-race system from earlier Civs.
It's not launching first that wins the game; rather, it's getting to Alpha Centauri first.
The spaceship can now be custom designed, so you can launch as soon as you have the minimum number of components built.
If you take more time and add extra components, you could construct a better spaceship.
The space race is now more suspenseful because victory is not achieved until the spaceship actually arrives, not when it's launched. So if Napoleon just launched into space, I can focus on my thrusters and try to beat him there. Of course, he can send in spies after me and try and take me out that way.
There is an all-new spaceship screen, where you can customize the visual appearance of your 3D spaceship


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Technology Tree

Considerable content has been added to the modern era.

New Technologies:Classical Age Aesthetics: Fills the space between writing and literature and drama.
Renaissance Military Science: Allows new promotions
Modern Age: Advanced Flight: Lies between Flight and Stealth and allows players to build gunships and jet fighters, obsoletes Stables. Laser: Allows for construction of Mobile SAMs and Mobile Artillery. Superconductor: Allows for Laboratories and certain spaceship parts. Stealth: At the very end of the tree and opens up the chance to build stealth units.

Restructured by:
Cavalry got pushed back to require rifling, thus extending the age of the musket and making the beeline to Military tradition less of a dominant strategy.
Modern Era has been reworked.


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New Game Options

New World Types (designed by Sirian)
Can play as any leader-civilization combination
Can trade away a technology only if you have researched it yourself
choose the religion you found when you discover a technology

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Artificial Intelligence

The changes are too numerous to list, but the result is that the AI plays more like an experienced human player would play, and therefore needs fewer bonuses in order to compete at a higher difficulty level. The AI has gotten considerably better at its previous major weakness, which was conducting military operations, especially naval invasions. It is even stronger at managing its economy, and it also knows how to use all the new features Firaxis has added. Automated units are now much improved and will listen to the city governor, i.e. if commerce is the focus the automated workers will focus on commerce improvements. The AI will try to win a cultural victory.

Cross-continental invasions have definitely improved. The AI coordinates sea & land units much better now. So it will use its navy intelligently while dropping off troops.

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Multiplayer Features


In Hotseat, you see the movement of any AI players that take their turn between the last human player and you.
On the multiplayer front, it's now possible to select any leader-civilization combination. This new option likely will give Civs and leaders that were previously unpopular in multiplayer new attention.
The traditional sequential turn play mode has been improved so all players on the same team take their turns simultaneously.

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Modding



More game mechanics have been exposed to XML and Python, making it possible to do things that you couldn’t previously do with just Civ4. You can now completely alter the look of the interface, and have civilization-specific graphics for the same unit.

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A Modder's Guide http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/bts/newanim.gif

Kael, Impaler[WrG], and Solver have written an excellent guide to modding for BTS, "A Modder's Guide to Beyond the Sword (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=229557)".

Table of Contents
1.0 Less Grunt Work
1.1 CIV4FormationInfos.xml
1.2 CIV4CityLSystem.xml
2.0 Modular XML
3.0 Unit Art Styles
3.1 Step 1: CIV4Civilizations.xml
3.2 Step 2: CIV4UnitArtStyleInfos.xml
3.3 Step 3: CIV4ArtDefines_Unit.xml
4.0 Mod Specific Interface
5.0 New python functions
5.1 CvEventManager.py
5.2 CvGameUtils.py
6.0 Help Attribute
7.0 Promotions can change the look of models
8.0 Events
9.0 The Python Callback Defines file
10.0 New Attributes
10.1 Units
10.2 Promotions
10.3 Buildings
10.4 LeaderHeads
10.5 Technologies
10.6 Features
10.7 Improvements
11.0 New Global Defines
12.0 What can you do now?
13.0 Converting to Beyond the Sword
14.0 Appendix A- Modular XML Loading
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Making Modules
14.3 How it Works
14.4 What Doesn’t Work
14.5 Naming Rules
14.6 Supported File Types
14.7 Schema
14.8 Organization
14.9 Troubleshooting
14.10 Cache Loading
14.11 Templates
14.12 Resources
15.0 Appendix B- Event Guide
15.1 CIV4EventInos.xml
15.2 CIV4EventTriggers.xml
15.3 Python and Events
15.4 EventTriggeredData
15.5 Creating Events
16.0 Appendix C- Links

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Revisions

Revisions:
Air related units & buildings: Air interception has been improved Limited number of units that can be garrisoned in forts and cities Airports up the amount of air units allowed to be garrisoned in a city Airports grant new air units experience Three new air promotions Intercept mission allows your air units to automatically attack incoming air units. Interceptors that survive combat can actually continue to run further interception missions on that same turn.
Siege Units: Limited in the amount of damage they can do when attacking. If a weapon is limited to 85% for instance, it won't take an enemy down to lower than 15% of their total health. You'll notice that the limit is higher for more advanced units, which makes upgrading your siege weapons more important than ever. Siege units are now also more vulnerable to units with the Flanking promotion so you'll need to screen them with other forces.
Expansive Trait now only grants a 25% bonus to worker production instead of 50%.
Scottland Yard is no longer a national wonder, it can now be built by everyone. It functions similar to an Academy.
Civics have been tweaked to account for Espionage and corporations, and some general balance tweaks too
the same unit will look different for different civs
Siege weapon combat has changed a bit, but they will not be as powerful as they are in Warlords.
You now choose which religion you found when researching religion founding techs.
Blockades and Privateers do make your navy more important. Privateers can attack you at any time, so you either need to get a navy or live with them.


Forts have been greatly improved, they are now like cities in may ways:
can base limited number of aircraft in them
can enter them with ships
can paradrop from them
can be used to connect resources
do not have a maintenance cost

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In Regards to Warlords

All epic game content from Warlords will be included in BTS. Scenario content will not be included.

System Requirements

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent/better
512 MB RAM
128 MD Video Card w/ DirectX 8 support (pixel and vertex shaders)
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
CD-ROM Drive
1.7GB of free hard drive space
DirectX 9.0c (included)

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
1.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
256MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
64 MB Video Card w/Hardware T&L (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
1.7 GB of free hard drive space
Direct X 9.0c (included)


SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS
Windows 2000 (plus Service Pack 1 or higher), Windows XP (Home or Professional) (plus Service Pack 1 or higher)

*Requires Sid Meier’s Civilization IV to play

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In Regards to Mac

There will eventually be a Mac version. It's currently not contracted yet, but it usually follow pretty close to the release.

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Official Articles

Chat with Firaxis (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=227415) (June 15th, 2007)
IGN: Firaxis's Alex Mantzaris on the Ultimate Civilization Experience (http://pc.ign.com/articles/791/791168p1.html) (May 23rd, 2007)
"Introducing AfterWorld" (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_bts_afterworld.php) by Tim McCracken, QA Manager and scenario designer at Firaxis (April 11th, 2007)
"Art from Concept to Completion" (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_bts_concept.php) by Firaxis artist Mike Bates (April 11th, 2007)


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Previews

1UP.com by Alicia Liang (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3160518&sec=PREVIEWS) (June 22nd, 2007)
BTS on play.tm (http://play.tm/story/10816) interview with Alex Mantzaris (June 3rd, 2007)
BtS Preview on Inside Mac Games (http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=15183) (May 29th)
BtS Preview on IGN (http://pc.ign.com/articles/792/792037p1.html) by Dan Adams (May 25th)
BtS Preview on Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationivbeyondthesword/news.html?sid=6171558&mode=previews) (May 25th)
BtS Preview on Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=76804) With Tim Kraken (May 25th)
IGN: Interview with Alex Mantzaris (http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788749p1.html) Lead designer (May 16th, 2007)
BtS Preview on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/11/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-unleashes-july-23/) (May 11th)
BtS Preview on GameDaily (http://www.gamedaily.com/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword/pc/game-previews/5936?articleID=41753) (April 13th, 2007)
BtS Announced on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/28/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-announced/) (March 28th)


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Video Previews

From 1UP.com (http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3158306&type=game&sec=VIDEOS) (June 22nd, 2007)
From Gamespot.com (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationivbeyondthesword/media.html) (June 22nd, 2007)

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Related Links

Civ IV: Beyond the Sword website (coming soon) (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/beyondthesword/)
Firaxis: Beyond the Sword (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=16)

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__________________________________________________

Screen Shots

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516e_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1122&c=24) http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516d_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1121&c=24) http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516c_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1120&c=24) http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/ign_bts_516a_thumb.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1118&c=24)

See full size images in the Civ4: Beyond the Sword Gallery (http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/browseimages.php?c=24)

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Wow, Awesome, Cool, Great. :goodjob:

Thx for the thread.

:goodjob: You the man, Methos!

We may need a section at some point detailing which -- if any -- features from Warlords are included.

Finally, a central thread for us fanatics to hunt for news. Thanks, Methos.

Thanks, Methos! :thumbsup:

Thanks for posting this Methos! Finally one central place to keep track of this stuff.

What I am really curious about is: Will I need Warlords to play BtS? As in, will I have to buy it? Or will the WL stuff be included in BtS? The latter would be ok, but the first would be a real rip-off.

Nice thread Dude.

I would imagine this puppy HAS to work with Warlords.

Or am I naive? Let's hope it works with Vista too!

I'm almost certain the press release mentioned Hammurabi as the leader of the Babylonians. You might want to add that to the OP.

Thanks everyone! Like you all, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of the expansion pack. I can't wait to get my hands on it and all the new features (even those I don't know about)!

I'm almost certain the press release mentioned Hammurabi as the leader of the Babylonians. You might want to add that to the OP.

I've searched all the current press releases and I can't find anything about Hammurabi. If I'm mistaken, let me know.

I've searched all the current press releases and I can't find anything about Hammurabi. If I'm mistaken, let me know.

This is taken from Firaxis' (http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=16) website:

More Civilization Leaders: Sixteen new leaders will be provided. The list will include leaders for the new civilizations as well as additional leaders for existing civilizations. Leaders such as Hammurabi of the Babylonians, Abraham Lincoln of the United States, and Sitting Bull of the Native Americans will provide the player with even more choices on who they want to play.

Pretty much confirms Hammurabi, Lincoln and Sitting Bull as leaders.

@Virulent: Thanks!

Leaders and civs updated.

<Jump to OP>

Awesome that all this info has finally been thrown in one spot! :goodjob:

Now, if only they'd release some more info.. I mean, two months is a long time to wait...

I pose the same question as Shigga. Will this expansion be released as Civ3 Conquests was? Any info on the stand-alone-ability of this with regards to Warlords?

An uninformative response is better than no response at all... ;)

AMAZING :goodjob:

Thank you methos!

Happy I reserved mine 3 weeks ago!

An uninformative response is better than no response at all... ;)

:lol:

I pose the same question as Shigga. Will this expansion be released as Civ3 Conquests was? Any info on the stand-alone-ability of this with regards to Warlords?

The only definite point I can make is that Queen Boudica has Charismatic as one of her traits, which was one of the additions from Warlords. Other than that, I'm not sure. Also note that the new civs will have unique buildings, which was also a Warlords addition.

My opinion is that they would do it the same as [c3c], but that's only my opinion.

How i hope they fix the bug that stops me playing Civ4 warlords on my high performance machine with a Ati card.

Its incredible that its still not fixed and enough people have complained about the bugs.

Whats rubbish is that my old laptop can manage the game with a crappy mobile gforce graphics card... how i regret ever buying the new machine!

:(

:
The only definite point I can make is that Queen Boudica has Charismatic as one of her traits, which was one of the additions from Warlords. .

I can make another definite point: Boudica is a Celtic leader.:lol:

Hooray! CFC BtS Gleichschaltung; I like it. :goodjob:

WOO HOO paratroopers are BACK!! YEAH!!

Warned - language. Please refrain from swearing in the forums.

This is what I have been waiting for. I got tired of CIV IV a while ago and decided to buy supreme commander....only problem is that it takes too much damn computing power to run so its a waste of money. Now this new expansion will finally make this game much much more interesting. Thank god for the paratroopers.

They should include Ronald Reagan as a leader.

Great to see this here...

Some stuff gleaned from the new interview ( http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788749p1.html ).

There are 10 new Civilizations and 16 new leaders

Joao II of Portugal (Imperialistic and Expansionist) and unique unit (Carrack).
Sitting Bull (Protective and ?) Totem Pole acts as sort of an extra barracks for archer units as well.

There's info about how Corporations will work and the new GP - Great Spy

They also have another 5 new screenshots.

The worst thing they did imo is portugal having carrack as uu, it means, maybe that this peculiar civ will be probably the only one to have a ship unit as uu, what i thought had changed from Civ3, and was a good thing.

Unique buildings are cool as well unique units, it would be better if the game could provide a higer miscelaneous units for each civilization, would be nice.

The corporations seems some interesting thing, but i hope they make the civilopedia more detailed and explicative about stuff like inflation, economics betwen other.

This will be great anyway, but the better the better :)

Some graphics designers were locked in the room and thought 'hmm...what should we have the cover of the box?'

The Pyramids of Giza...The Pharos Lighthouse...The statue of Liberty...The Parthenon...The Empire States building...The CN Tower...The Taj Mahal...and then err...I know...The Gerkin!

The OP has been updated with the new tidbits from the interview with Alex Mantzaris (http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788749p1.html). Alex is kind enough to expand on the new feature Corporations, the modified Space victory, Espionage (including a new Great Spy person), several new units as well as expanding on the paratrooper, and much, much more.

<Jump back to the OP> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=222075)

Thanks for the work. Pacal the Great should still be added as a new leaderhead for the Mayas. He was confirmed here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5448204#post5448204).

Thanks for the work. Pacal the Great should still be added as a new leaderhead for the Mayas. He was confirmed here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5448204#post5448204).

Thanks. OP has been edited.

Articial Intelligence

Wow, a new AI! :woohoo:

No more Artificial Intelligence, we have the much better Articial Intelligence. [party]

Unless that is just a typo. :(

we have the much better Articial Intelligence. [party]

Unless that is just a typo. :(

Uh.....whoops. :blush:

You might want to recheck the espionage paragraph. Your "[LIST]" isn't closed there. ;)

You might want to recheck the espionage paragraph. Your "[LIST]" isn't closed there. ;)

It's those little things....:D

They should include Ronald Reagan as a leader.

Traits: Sleepy/Forgetful

:drool: OOH! Sitting bull looks to have a great archer rush, especially as the native americans will almost certainly have hunting as a starting tech, then add in protective free promos, and the extra xps from the totem pole, and you have a mean unit early on :drool: perhaps he will even have a archer UU!

Btw, Methos, have you spotted this?

Hey kids,

It's Steve from IGN. I meant to send out a heads up about the interview before we posted it but I'm traveling this week and my web access has been spotty. I would have asked Charles to do it but he's from Canada so he's a little slow, eh? Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the leader in the screenshot is Pacal of the Maya.

Btw, Methos, have you spotted this?

You know, I was wondering why a couple people posted that comment and I even got a PM about it. I couldn't understand as I updated the info this morning. Bah, stupid cut-n-paste. :lol:

I must have edited in the post instead of my text file (which is where I copy/paste from). :D

:D The paratrooper is back ! I want the Radar Artillery back too ! The curent artillery is from world war 2.. Radar Artillery is the modern one ! Also Stealth Fighter will be nice.. weak in normal bombardment.. but very strong in Tactical Bombardment (destroying buildings.. which is not possible in Civ 4 without conquering a city :( ). The Carrier should have the posibility to transport Gunship and Paratroopers.. Transports (like the one in Civ 4) can't carry Helicopters.. :eek: .

I have an idea about a new system of alliances.. the curent ones are not so realistic.. we just can't form an alliance like NATO or European Union in-game.. :(
Military Alliances (in modern age+) should be different.. you build a building or something to form one.. then you put conditions (like: those who want to join must have at least xxx units.. xxx navy, xxx land, xxx air),etc.. and I want to tell my allies to attack a certain city.. so the wars will be more organised
Economic Alliances: those who want to join must have a xxx income/turn, xxx cities, xxx resources..etc.. and those who join will share income and resources..
Research Alliances: those who join must have at least xxx research buildings,etc.. and they share research.

PS> xxx = a number added by you.


Also... the modern wars are not so realistic neither.. for exemple the curent real wars.. Afganistan and Irak.. The americans conquered both countries.. but they will not make them american teritorry.. I want this in Civ 4.. i conquer a country just to change the government.. with a leader loyal to me. Then i retreat my troops.

And when all the cities of a country are conquered..the leader of that country can go in a friendly country.. in exile.. that friendly country can get back its towns or even gift one of its own towns..

will beyond the swords work too if i have not warlords?

will beyond the swords work too if i have not warlords?

That is the million dollar question right now and it looks like Firaxis/Take 2 are silent on the matter. But from the info we're getting it seems there are two likely choices:

1) BtS will include all of the Warlords content (probably minus the Warlords scenarios however).

2) BtS will need Warlords to work.

I'm starting to think that it's going to be option 1 due to Firaxis/Take 2's silence on the matter. If BtS doesn't need Warlords to work then as soon as it's released Warlords is going to be as obsolete as Stonehenge after the discovery of Calendar. Since Warlords is still in stores (and was added to Steam not so long ago) I can understand Take 2 not saying saying anything about it until BtS is as close to release as possible to maximize the sales of Warlords.

They should include Ronald Reagan as a leader.

Yeah, even though I would love to see it I doubt that he'll ever be in there.

I see him as the modern equivalent of FDR...

But... as Sid has said to the question of adding leaders...

As long as they are long dead.

Reagan only died a few years ago...I don't count that as Long Dead.

Traits: Sleepy/Forgetful

He had Alzheimer's...

who cares about this new features????

there are a lot of scenarios with them...
Corporations.. are.... like religions so they dindt improve anithings... where are the new concepts???

Perhaps the coolest single feature (if it lives up to the hype) IMHO is not yet quoted...

"The ways in which the AI will attempt to achieve victory have also been expanded." (Source: http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=16 under Enhanced AI)

Although I must admit, the Espionage, Corporation, and Space Race a la Civ 2 features also make me extremely interested in this expansion!

Sam

I love the idea of Corporations

I can take over the world with a corrupt, over-funded company!

I would love to see a new leader for Greece or England.

Looking for evidence of Sioux being the name of Sitting Bull's civilization. Anyone know where that was found?

Looking for evidence of Sioux being the name of Sitting Bull's civilization. Anyone know where that was found?

IIRC, the original screenshot pic had the name Sitting Bull in it, which is how we knew it was Sitting Bull. However, the idea that the Civ was Sioux is merely from history. It sounds like there's just going to be a 'generic' Native American civilization with Sitting Bull as its leader.

I want the Radar Artillery back too !

In the first screenshot from the IGN article, there is a unit that looks like an artillery gun on tracks. So there might be a modern artillery unit included.

In the first screenshot from the IGN article, there is a unit that looks like an artillery gun on tracks. So there might be a modern artillery unit included.

I believe that's the new anti-tank unit.

I believe that's the new anti-tank unit.

Unlikely. It doesn't look like an anti-tank gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_gun#Anti-tank_guns) and it wouldn't make sense that the new tank counter would be a tank-like unit itself that from the looks of it needs at least the same prerequisites as a tank. In that case you could just build tanks as a counter.

However the unit looks very much like a mobile howitzer (e.g. the M109_howitzer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M109_howitzer) or the PzH_2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PzH_2000))

I haven't seen it mentioned but if there is a Charlemange mounted unit (one of the earliest released pictures) then isn't Charlemange one of the new leaders? The civ would be Franks or HRE I think.

This unit (or the model at least) has been around since Civ4 came out. I think it was meant as a mobile howitzer in some unreleased scenario. And now it will find its way in an official expansion.

Mmm... a cheap anti-tank unit... minelaying engineer(s) anyone? ;)

I pose the same question as Shigga. Will this expansion be released as Civ3 Conquests was? Any info on the stand-alone-ability of this with regards to Warlords?

An uninformative response is better than no response at all... ;)

A german webshop (http://www.okaysoft.de) is listing a "Civilization 4 Bundle", including Civ 4 vanilla, Warlords and Bts. So that could (!) be an indication that warlord isn't inluded in Bts. But I don't know if this is an official bundle. The covershot of this offer so far shows only the BTS-Packshot.

Edit: Wrong quote used.. corrected.

Got some more info in swedish PC Gamer.

I don't understand something... what is new in the picture "Navy" :confused: .. i see the same ships..

Got some more info in swedish PC Gamer.

Is it different than what has already been stated? If so, can you link to the BtS page? I'm having a little trouble navigating the Swedish site.

If this expansion really makes the late game more interesting AND provide more ways to win peacefully, then it's a no-brainer... I'm eagerly awaiting it :)

He had Alzheimer's...

Yeah, I know. Probably not a good thing for a President to have.

I would much rather see TR than Reagan.

Methos: When did we get confirmation the name of the Native American Civ is going to be Sioux?

Looking for evidence of Sioux being the name of Sitting Bull's civilization. Anyone know where that was found?

It was not found anywhere. The screenshot I saw on the official Civilization site referred to him as "Sitting Bull of the Native Americans." So they've lumped them all into one tribe.

Methos: When did we get confirmation the name of the Native American Civ is going to be Sioux?

It hasn't. We've just decided to refer to the civ as it was used in Civ2 for now.

It hasn't. We've just decided to refer to the civ as it was used in Civ2 for now.

Gotcha. 8910

Any word on whether or not Canada will be in this expansion?

I doubt it very, very much.

I also doubt it...

the Canadian "empire" is only 50 years old, around 200 years younger than the youngest empire in the game, the American.

I've asked a thousand times by now, if anyone has any clue, when will it COME OUT FOR MAC?! I'm going crazy.

I also doubt it...

the Canadian "empire" is only 50 years old, around 200 years younger than the youngest empire in the game, the American.

Yea, I doubt it too, Canada isn't an "Empire" or "Civilization".:king:

I've asked a thousand times by now, if anyone has any clue, when will it COME OUT FOR MAC?! I'm going crazy.

Unfortunately, they haven't said.

I've asked a thousand times by now, if anyone has any clue, when will it COME OUT FOR MAC?! I'm going crazy.

I think that would be a question for Aspyer, the company that publishes most games for mac...

It probably will, just several months after the PC release...

Trust me, I had a mac for about 14 years, until it died last month.

How i hope they fix the bug that stops me playing Civ4 warlords on my high performance machine with a Ati card.

Its incredible that its still not fixed and enough people have complained about the bugs.

Whats rubbish is that my old laptop can manage the game with a crappy mobile gforce graphics card... how i regret ever buying the new machine!

:(

Have you tried disabling Catalyst A.I? That hindered me from starting Maya.
Dunno if you can do it through the normal drivers, but with Omega drivers you can.

I think that would be a question for Aspyer, the company that publishes most games for mac...

It probably will, just several months after the PC release...

Trust me, I had a mac for about 14 years, until it died last month.

Thanks, that's what i thought, just like warlords. It came out in November for mac, You should get a mac again! :lol:

I came across a preview form GameDaily that was put out on April 13th. The information is basically what we already know, but I've added it to the OP. I've also added a new section titled "Previews".

<Jump to OP> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=5439456#post5439456)

Updated with information from the July 2007 issue of PC Gamer (http://www.pcgamer.com/) magazine and its preview of BtS. Thanks for JtheJackal for posting about it (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=223198).

<Jump to the OP> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=222075)

Yeah, I know. Probably not a good thing for a President to have.

I would much rather see TR than Reagan.

Reagan was pretty lame even before he got Alzheimer's. He just had the good luck to be President when the Soviet Union tooka nsoe dive.

Any word yet on lethal bombardment? A late addition to CivIII, dropped again (!) in civ IV... to me the air-sea thing is skewed without it.

Yea, I doubt it too, Canada isn't an "Empire" or "Civilization".:king:

Canada is one of the top nations in the world for economy, health and education...

Why not have a Canada Civ?
Leader: Pierre Trudeau (Charismatic/Creative)

Starting techs: Fishing and Hunting

Unique unit: Bushman (replaces Machinegun)
Str-16 Mov-1 Prod cost- 130
-Can only defend, 1 first strike, +50% vs. gunpowder
-Begins with woodsman II

Unique Building: Brewery (replaces Market)
Cost- 130
- +1 Happiness from wheat, rice, corn, wines
- +25% gold, can turn 2 citizens into merchant

Artificial Intelligence

The AI has been improved and no longer needs hefty bonuses to compete with a smart human.
The AI will try to win a cultural victory.



I would so LOVE it if the free upgrade of AI units was eliminated. :goodjob: IMO it's the biggest cheat in the game. It is way too common for me to be attacking with swords and axes against AI archers on one round and suddenly be facing longbowmen the next. :mad:

.

Hey, heres some new SS's
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115323203.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115326843.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115327593.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115328234.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115329031.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115329656.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115330390.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115331265.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115331828.jpg
I hope Paratroopsers can land in enemy citys and para-attack.

I bet nuke-and-drop is back...

Oh yeah! NUKE AND DROP! move, move, move!!! And I HOPE they make bombers be able to land on carriers now. It is really dumb that they can't in Civ4.... One thing, how in the world do you make haste slowly? lol

There's a new article on ign on bts as well
here (http://pc.ign.com/articles/791/791168p1.html)

Grishnash, bombers not being able to land on carriers was something sorely needed. It is absolutely ridiculous for a B-29 type bomber (or a B-2 stealth) to take off from the deck of a carrier. Absolutely unrealistic. I'm glad they finally wised up and limited it to fighters and fighter-bombers.

"Make haste slowly" was an old motto of Caesar Augustus. I believe it refers to his political manuevering, i.e. gaining one's power and influence slowly, but surely, so as not to alarm your rivals... "a compound interest, you might call it."

(A cookie to the person who knows the source of that last quote. :D)

I have played civilization since CIV I.

One HUGE disappointment with CIV IV is:
I like to play custom games using earth maps. However with CIV IV you CANNOT select the number of players that you want to play with on these types of maps. If you are playing on a map designed for 18 then you have to play with 18 or have to modify the files to be able to play with lets say 7 civilizations. That is total BS!

I wish they would fix it like in CIV III and let you chose how many CIVS!!!!!!!

Is there any way to lobby them for the new Mod coming out?

Has anyone created a utilty that will let you select the number of players?

I've updated:
Espionage
Corporations
Switched Sioux to Native Indians
New Units
Official Articles
Tech Tree


<Jump to the OP> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=222075)

I have played civilization since CIV I.

One HUGE disappointment with CIV IV is:
I like to play custom games using earth maps. However with CIV IV you CANNOT select the number of players that you want to play with on these types of maps. If you are playing on a map designed for 18 then you have to play with 18 or have to modify the files to be able to play with lets say 7 civilizations. That is total BS!

I wish they would fix it like in CIV III and let you chose how many CIVS!!!!!!!

Is there any way to lobby them for the new Mod coming out?

Has anyone created a utilty that will let you select the number of players?

I believe you can do this already by selecting "custom scenario" from the single-player menu and then picking/removing your desired civilizations. No need to edit the files (though that always works :p).

OMFG! Its the giant death robot!!!

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/arti...3115331828.jpg

Umm.. I think, I THINK. Japan attack the US with bombers(From their carriers) and that the US did drop nukes on japan via bomber carrierd over by, well... Carriers. And I think, I THINK that a modern aircraft carriers would be able to hold most any aircraft.. But, hey... I've never been on one :D
And then they should be paratroopers and choppers be able to load onto carriers. And I hope they bring in old nukes(A-bombs"fat man and little boy" thinks that their names..) oh, and maybe bio warfare :nya: and at least make air combat 200% better then what it is now in civ4... I wonder if they even 'look' at what we've got to say:confused: :goodjob:

Umm.. I think, I THINK. Japan attack the US with bombers(From their carriers) and that the US did drop nukes on japan via bomber carrierd over by, well... Carriers. And I think, I THINK that a modern aircraft carriers would be able to hold most any aircraft.. But, hey... I've never been on one :D
And then they should be paratroopers and choppers be able to load onto carriers. And I hope they bring in old nukes(A-bombs"fat man and little boy" thinks that their names..) oh, and maybe bio warfare :nya: and at least make air combat 200% better then what it is now in civ4... I wonder if they even 'look' at what we've got to say:confused: :goodjob:

Not quite. Japan's carrier task force that attacked Pearl Harbor utilized Kate torpedo bombers and Val dive bombers, with Zero fighter escorts. Each of these is a relatively small plane (fighter-sized in Civ 4) and not like the bomber unit, which represents the heavy bombers like the B-17 or B-29. These required full airfields, not carriers, to take off (as did many other medium bombers, American or otherwise).

The only bomber that I know of that could take off from a carrier was the modified B-25, which was the plane used in Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Japan in April 1942. This was a very special circumstance as it was a one-way trip (the planes had to be stripped down) and they barely got off the flight deck.

The nuclear bombs were delivered to the Pacific by the U.S.S. Indianapolis (which incidentally was sunk after the mission as mentioned in the movie Jaws), then transferred to B-29's stationed on the island of Tinian. Trust me, no B-29 could ever take off from a carrier. They're big monsters. So bombers based on carriers are not realistic.

I agree with your statement about Little Boy and Fat Man. It'd be great to have a nuclear bomber unit, essentially a B-29 armed with atomic bombs, like in the WWII Pacific scenario in C3C. I hope they do that one day, if not in BtS.

I believe you can do this already by selecting "custom scenario" from the single-player menu and then picking/removing your desired civilizations. No need to edit the files (though that always works :p).

Doesn't work on my game. THe players are locked, thus you can remove them. I wish I could unlock them that way.

Alright, having no idea about aircrafts and not wanting to look it up, I won't debet it with you :) But then, they should be them be able to hold more fighters to give it a more "Bombardment" felling, "cuz right now you need to have like 10 carriers to do any good sea-to-land bombings. Yeah, that might be realistic but no fun. :p
And no you can not pick how much players you want to play with on the world map. I tried.

Alright, having no idea about aircrafts and not wanting to look it up, I won't debet it with you :) But then, they should be them be able to hold more fighters to give it a more "Bombardment" felling, "cuz right now you need to have like 10 carriers to do any good sea-to-land bombings. Yeah, that might be realistic but no fun. :p
And no you can not pick how much players you want to play with on the world map. I tried.

Carriers aren't really for bombarding, they are for using fighters at sea, to protect your ships from fighters and attack the enemies ships. A fighter can deliver a torpedo, or as the Japanese did sometimes, kamikaze with payloads.

Canada is one of the top nations in the world for economy, health and education...

Why not have a Canada Civ?
Leader: Pierre Trudeau (Charismatic/Creative)

Starting techs: Fishing and Hunting

Unique unit: Bushman (replaces Machinegun)
Str-16 Mov-1 Prod cost- 130
-Can only defend, 1 first strike, +50% vs. gunpowder
-Begins with woodsman II

Unique Building: Brewery (replaces Market)
Cost- 130
- +1 Happiness from wheat, rice, corn, wines
- +25% gold, can turn 2 citizens into merchant
Wow, you've seemed to think about this a lot, but I still REALLY doubt Canada as a civ.

Hey, heres some new SS's
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115323203.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115326843.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115327593.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115328234.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115329031.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115329656.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115330390.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115331265.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/791/791168/civilization-iv-beyond-the-sword-20070523115331828.jpg
I hope Paratroopsers can land in enemy citys and para-attack.

Whos the guy with the Turban, Suleiman or something? And the other guy too, is that the Portuguese guy or Charlemagne or something?

Pacal.........

I was getting ready yesterday to do my preorder at amazon.com, when I noticed it only listed Windows XP as the platform. As I am still running Windows 2K, you don't know how much my heart sank.

So, does this mean I have to finally upgrade to XP? And as far as requirements go, has anybody seen any other system requirements posted anywhere? You know, the minimum/recommended thing?

If I have to upgrade to XP, what's the best edition for single person home gaming use?

I was getting ready yesterday to do my preorder at amazon.com, when I noticed it only listed Windows XP as the platform. As I am still running Windows 2K, you don't know how much my heart sank.

So, does this mean I have to finally upgrade to XP? And as far as requirements go, has anybody seen any other system requirements posted anywhere? You know, the minimum/recommended thing?

If I have to upgrade to XP, what's the best edition for single person home gaming use?


I can't imagine it's going to have different Operating System requirements than Vanilla, since you'll still be running the Vanilla game with BTS "plugged-in" (like Warlords did). The official site, though, will announce the requirements at some point (probably soon), so I'd keep an eye on it -- presuming it ever gets put up :rolleyes:

I'm a big fan of women in tight PVC jump suits, but I really hope the espionage units have a better model for the early game.

I'm a big fan of women in tight PVC jump suits, but I really hope the espionage units have a better model for the early game.

HAHA :lol:

So, does this mean I have to finally upgrade to XP? And as far as requirements go, has anybody seen any other system requirements posted anywhere? You know, the minimum/recommended thing?

If I have to upgrade to XP, what's the best edition for single person home gaming use?
If Civ4 works for you on Win 2K, then the expansion should work too.

If Civ4 works for you on Win 2K, then the expansion should work too.

I've never even heard of Windows 2k, is it from the eighties or something? I'm a mac user and proud of it :trophy:

If I have to upgrade to XP, what's the best edition for single person home gaming use?

If that's all you want to do, then Windows XP Home would serve your purpose. I personally wouldn't get anything less than Windows XP Professional since I like having the additional networking and language features. My favorite is Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 so that is what I have installed.

If Civ4 works for you on Win 2K, then the expansion should work too.

I agree, I think it's all about the DirectX.

[...]
Multiplayer Features

On the multiplayer front, it's now possible to select any leader-civilization combination. This new option likely will give Civs and leaders that were previously unpopular in multiplayer new attention. The traditional sequential turn play mode has been improved so all players on the same te