Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Expansion Pack Announced!

2K Games today announced that Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, the second expansion pack for the critically acclaimed Civilization IV, will be available in July 2007.

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.

Key features include:

• 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, many containing themes never before included in the Civilization series, 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.

Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword will require the full version of Sid Meier’s Civilization IV and will be released for PC in July 2007. For more information please visit http://www.civilization.com/.

Six images (including 4 concept arts) from the expansion have been added to the gallery. They are: Abraham Lincoln , Afterworld Concept Art, Mausoleum Wonder, Modern Building Set, Sitting Bull, and Charlemagne Mounted Units.

>> Civ4: Beyond the Sword Gallery

Great news! I wonder if the expansion will include the Warlords additions? Or would you have some people with Vanilla + BTS content and others have Vanilla + Warlords + BTS content? I'm also axious to see what the full list of new civilizations is going to be!

YEAH! The Netherlands are included... finally it will really be civilizations

That is awesome!!! I'm really excited by the future scenarios. Do you think "Afterworld" scenario suggests post-apocalyptic?

The expansion looks so exciting that I can't wait!

12 scenarios, 10 new civs, random events...

Kolath said:

That is awesome!!! I'm really excited by the future scenarios. Do you think "Afterworld" scenario suggests post-apocalyptic?

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That idea of the "A team as USA unique unit" in your sig is hilarious. I could see the unit being represented in the game by the little black van with the red stripe. It would have no normal attack or defense rating, instead when attacking or defending you would pay a ridiculous amount of money for the battle, and you always win (as well it kills all units in a stack).

Nice. Not too excited by the scenarios they spend development time one but I feel that the other features they are adding are going make this expansion much more satisfying then Warlords. I think they are making a huge effort in filling in the holes in the game. For example, expanded espionage and UN features were two things I was looking for. One thing I always wanted for the UN was the ability to refuse to change. This will incur massive hatred from your peers but I think this should be an option for civs that don't want to be sheep. The random events and Corporation concept are also very intriguing.

Corporations! Wow, I can't wait.

Man, I now wish I had saved my money on Warlords so I could spend it on this expansion. I can finally play as the Dutch, and it focuses on the epic games I prefer. Scenarios...meh...I never play those...like a short story when you want a novel!

I love how the best thing about this pack so far seems to be, 'Finally! I can at last play as the Dutch.'

Good news!

Booya! ^_^

I'm really interested in the new random events. Depending on what they are and how they work, they could make for a really nice single-player experience. They mention tweaking the epic game... I haven't played the Warlords expansion yet, but if they haven't already, I hope they add some tweaks to the "quick" version of the game. Instead of just speeding production up, it'd be nice if they removed techs and such for a shorter game.

Heh; Abraham Lincoln for the win. Can't wait to see the list of new civs/leaders.

Aneurism said:

Great news! I wonder if the expansion will include the Warlords additions?

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I doubt it... Warlords is a decent expansion pack, unlike PTW which received mostly very bad reviews.

This expansion seems like a lot of fun! I really like the corporation idea, but I hope it will be as good as it sounds.

If I have a better computer by then, this might be enough to convince me to give CIV another try!

What kind of name is "Beyond the Sword" anyway? Of course it is not as weird as Play the World...
I hope Beyond the Sword means that the scenarios and the overall expansion will focus less on warfare and more on the finer aspects of civilisation (such as backstabbing).

Wow, with all of the additions to the epic game, this sounds more as the massive lists of features you see in a mod. And I mean that as a good thing. More units, more buildings, more technologies, new world wonders, earlier expanded espionage, corporations (whatever they may do), random events, expanded space victory, more diplomacy and diplomatic options through the Apostolic Palace and a betterAI to top it of. Those are great features. They seem to focus on the more hardcore fan now who still play the game and want something new out of it. I think that is a wise choise for a second expansion pack. People who buy a second expansion pack are typically more hardcore fans.
I'm less interested in advanced starts and scenarios, but maybe others like those options. A scenario has to be pretty good to be able to compete with the epic game.

Oh and the Dutch are in the game. Ok, I'm sold, forget all of those other features.

[*]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.

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Defend their government's secrets? Does this imply technological espionage or is it just the normal 'spy on a tile has a good chance to make another spy fail its mission'. It's pretty hard to introduce technological espionage into this game in a balanced manner. The cost has to be dependent on the research cost of the technology to be somewhat balanced.

Well, this sounds nice...

So looks like there is something to wait for each month until July. After Beyond the Sword everything else in unnecessary for some time.

sounds cool. hope knights arnt immune to first strikes. anybody know of Cressy or Agincout in the Hundred Years War?

Excellent! Sounds really cool, with some totally new features and civs and revamped features....can't wait. Corporations sound interesting. I think the name suggests that this game will not focus on war, which is great, because Civ shouldn't be all about war. I just hope it isn't too expensive...I think I'll wait until it becomes £20 or less.

Mrop said:

Possibly the worst science pun ever:
Molecules are just like bears, some are polar and some are not.

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Mrop said:

What kind of name is "Beyond the Sword" anyway? Of course it is not as weird as Play the World...
I hope Beyond the Sword means that the scenarios and the overall expansion will focus less on warfare and more on the finer aspects of civilisation (such as backstabbing).

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Focusing on the latter parts of the game: gunpowder, modern age, etc. Hence, "Beyond the Sword." Play the World made sense too: you could play the world.

This looks to be a promising expansion. Abe's back!