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May 14, 2007, 10:05 PM
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HoF Quattromaster
   
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Civ IV: Beyond the Sword Info Center
  Developer: Firaxis Games Publisher: 2K Games Platform: PC Release Date: July 23rd, 2007 Order Beyond the Sword: Amazon.com Amazon UK Amazon DE 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 Here are the key features mentioned in the expansion pack announcement: Quote:
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  BabylonianLeader: 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%).  DutchLeader: 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.  EthiopianLeader: 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.  MayanLeader: 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.  Native AmericanLeader: 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
Altered Traits:
New Buildings Buildings
New Units There are several new units that are available:
New Promotions There are several new promotions available:
New Wonders  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
National Wonders
Apostolic Palace +4  +2  (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:
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:
  Last edited by Methos; Jul 08, 2007 at 11:00 PM. Reason: updated |
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May 14, 2007, 10:05 PM
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HoF Quattromaster
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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 announced scenarios are:
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. Quote:
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. 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. Charlemagne   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! Civ Defense 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. Crossroads of the World 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:
Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice Quote:
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:
Gods of Old 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. 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:
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
And there is a new non-playable civilization in the 600 Start: The Byzantine Empire. 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 thisStarting 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, 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. WWII: Road to War This mod was created by Dale 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:
Historical Game
Random Historical Events Not much is known about this mode, except it is between the Historical Events and Open Play mode. Open Style
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. This "un-official release" will contain:
Playable Civs
Non-playable Civs
Last edited by Methos; Jul 08, 2007 at 11:00 PM. |
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May 14, 2007, 11:57 PM
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HoF Quattromaster
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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. 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. 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
Corporations
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
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.    Espionage  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:
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
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
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:
The Ancient Age Great Spy is the image of a ninja. The Great Spies
Last edited by Methos; Jul 01, 2007 at 08:13 AM. |
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May 14, 2007, 11:58 PM
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#4 |
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HoF Quattromaster
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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
From Screenshots
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. Space Race  And 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.
Technology Tree Considerable content has been added to the modern era. New Technologies:
Restructured by:
New Game Options
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. Multiplayer Features
Modding
A Modder's Guide  Kael, Impaler[WrG], and Solver have written an excellent guide to modding for BTS, "A Modder's Guide to Beyond the Sword". 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 Revisions Revisions:
Forts have been greatly improved, they are now like cities in may ways:
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 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. Official Articles
Previews
Video Previews From 1UP.com (June 22nd, 2007) From Gamespot.com (June 22nd, 2007) Related Links __________________________________________________ Screen Shots     See full size images in the Civ4: Beyond the Sword Gallery Last edited by Methos; Jul 08, 2007 at 11:04 PM. |
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May 15, 2007, 02:29 PM
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#5 |
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Emperor
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Middle of Cyberspace
Posts: 1,554
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Wow, Awesome, Cool, Great.
 Thx for the thread.
__________________
 I'm Updating My MOD COMPs |
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May 15, 2007, 02:32 PM
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#6 |
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Mmm...tasty!
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Piedmont Triad, North Carolina
Posts: 6,255
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You the man, Methos! We may need a section at some point detailing which -- if any -- features from Warlords are included. |
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May 15, 2007, 05:57 PM
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#7 |
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Imperator
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 320
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Finally, a central thread for us fanatics to hunt for news. Thanks, Methos.
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May 15, 2007, 11:43 PM
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#9 |
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Prince
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 591
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Thanks for posting this Methos! Finally one central place to keep track of this stuff.
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May 16, 2007, 05:22 AM
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#10 |
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Shiggadelic Baby! :)
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: [GER]
Posts: 431
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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.
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'nuff said! |
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May 16, 2007, 06:40 AM
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#11 |
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King
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: England South
Posts: 670
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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!
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CIV ON! |
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May 16, 2007, 08:42 AM
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#12 |
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King
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 662
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I'm almost certain the press release mentioned Hammurabi as the leader of the Babylonians. You might want to add that to the OP.
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May 16, 2007, 09:09 AM
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#13 | |
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HoF Quattromaster
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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)!
Quote:
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May 16, 2007, 10:42 AM
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#14 | ||
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King
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 662
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Quote:
Quote:
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May 16, 2007, 11:54 AM
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#15 |
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HoF Quattromaster
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May 16, 2007, 11:55 AM
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#16 |
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Master of Tortii
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Voyage of the Beagle
Posts: 1,251
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Awesome that all this info has finally been thrown in one spot!
Now, if only they'd release some more info.. I mean, two months is a long time to wait... |
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May 16, 2007, 12:54 PM
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#17 |
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Guest
Posts: n/a
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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... 
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May 16, 2007, 02:13 PM
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#18 |
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Warlord
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 125
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AMAZING
Thank you methos! Happy I reserved mine 3 weeks ago! |
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May 16, 2007, 02:25 PM
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#19 | ||
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HoF Quattromaster
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Quote:
 Quote:
My opinion is that they would do it the same as  , but that's only my opinion.
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May 16, 2007, 04:13 PM
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#20 |
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Chieftain
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 58
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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! 
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