Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword - Expansion no2!

[weasel77066]

Forgive me if this has already been asked but I wonder if the new UN will allow me to rebel against world opinion at some kind of cost. (e.g., they UN votes to implement Free Religeon and I refuse...)

JB- this was something Ive been wanting since vanilla. I would love to see this implemented... Only problem is that I can/t really think of a suitable penalty. If free religion is passed and you refuse? A negative on relations? Or should it be united effort aginst you. Loss of foriegn trade routes? Loss of trade? War? Maybe this new expanded UN stuff will add options, but Im finding it hard to see the potential. Im not a game designer

 

[Quintillus]

Wow, I'm impressed. Beyond the Sword looks like what I would expect in a good expansion pack. Warlords, to me, was underwhelming in what it added, but I don't think this one will be. I like the late-game emphasis as well; I'd always found the late-game a little repetative after all the factory-containing cities built everything.

There's two main suggestions I have for the expansion:

1. Include Paratroopers, or better, a unit upgrade of Paratrooping. In my current game, I've already had two modern-era instances where paratrooping would have been very handy: one trying to conquer an island when my only transport was a continent away, and another attempting to conquer a city buried in the mountains and hills. Just don't make a very underpowered Paratrooper unit like in Civ III - an upgrade would be better.

2. The UN issue JBConquests mentioned. It is very annoying to have to give up Republic or Monarchy for Democracy, etc. It'd be nice to not be bound to UN orders - some countries don't follow them today, so why should my civ have to? I'd also like it if the binding civic resolutions could be on any civic - so if everyone wanted Pacifism, it could be the universal civic. This also could allow changing the universal civic - the UN could decide to have universal Serfdom at one time, and later change to universal Caste System.

 

[weasel77066]

Look, I won't lie that-though I bought Warlords-I was slightly underwhelmed, at first, by what was offered in there (especially when you consider the modding tools at their disposal). It is still a good expansion though, & the fact that I have never gone back to Vanilla Civ is testament to that. Based on all the official news I am hearing so far, though, I reckon that Beyond the Sword is going to be the best iteration of Civ (alone or expanded) ever created!!! Guess I just have faith in the developers!!!

Aussie_Lurker.

Yup. My thoughts exactly. OMG I hated civ4 when it first came out. I grew to love it. C4 War was only a small extra, but it added enough to get me inticed all over again...
NOW there is another one peeping around the corner. Will I buy it? Absolutely. This one sounds like the real expansion. People gripe and "force" them to put something out... but evidentally they have ideas brewing the whole time, just not ready yet.
You have to love civ. Seriously. What else are you going to play?
Dang Aussie. Where have you been hiding? I'll bet youve been modding (or else you have too many sheilas)

 

[DaviddesJ]

In my current game, I've already had two modern-era instances where paratrooping would have been very handy: one trying to conquer an island when my only transport was a continent away, and another attempting to conquer a city buried in the mountains and hills.

What is it that you expect the paratroopers to do? If you want to conquer cities just by dropping paratroop units on them, that's wildly unrealistic. Paratroops in real life can be used to seize lightly held strategic objectives, or to support a seaborne invasion or armored breakthrough by dropping behind enemy lines. But you can't attack a sizable force with just paratroops.

It is very annoying to have to give up Republic or Monarchy for Democracy, etc. It'd be nice to not be bound to UN orders - some countries don't follow them today, so why should my civ have to?

Perhaps it would be reasonable if you could ignore the UN vote but you would get a negative diplomatic modifier with all civs that do comply with the UN resolution.

 

[Quintillus]

In the latter case, the city was lightly defended and I had both air supremacy and a large number of bombers. Thus, I would have dropped paratroopers outside the city and the next turn bombed it and used the paratroopers to overcome the weakened defenders. Capturing a large city with them is unrealistic, but with smaller settlements it can be done.

 

[Dale]

Paratroops are the perfect unit to drop behind citys to cut roads and resources. Effectively isolating the city from reinforcements.

 

[Martinus]

The corporation ideas sound great. I can't wait to rule the world's economy!

I hope this includes a new type of victory, similar to the SMAC economic victory, only with the use of the corporation feature.

 

[Martinus]

I'd rather see Meiji as the second Japanese leader.

Who would be good choices for Aztecs, Spain, or Arabia? My thought is that those of the original 18 nations that didn't get a new leader in Warlords will likely do so this time around...

For Aztecs it's hard to say unless they take the route of Mexico being a "successor state" (a bit of a stretch).

For Spain, again a late history leader sounds right (maybe Franco? now before someone accuses me of fascism, I hate this bastard's guts, but since we have Mao and Stalin already in, it would be nice to hate and destroy some fascist too ).

For Arabia, Abu Bakr sounds like a good choice.

 

[Martinus]

is this guy charles de gaulle?

Are we sure this picture is legit? Firaxis made De Gaulle's leaderhead for Sid Meier's Railroads - it could be someone playing with a screenshot from that and Photoshop.

 

[salnc]

Are we sure this picture is legit? Firaxis made De Gaulle's leaderhead for Sid Meier's Railroads - it could be someone playing with a screenshot from that and Photoshop.

It's on the firaxis site: http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=16#

Edit: on every page, not just on the page about BtS!

 

[mrt144]

it is for railroads. i asked earlier and then edited when i went to the railroads website.

 

[Andy_Candy]

Looks like it will be a cool xp, but one thing I can't understand. Why make 12 poor scenarios instead of making 3-4 really good ones? If the scenarios will be of the Warlords standard, I think the could save their efforts for other tasks. Those scenarios are the worst, most uninteresting official scenarios ever made for any Civ game, and I have played em all!

Of course I cant know in advance the scenarios will be bad. But because of the large number, and the bad experienses from the Warlords xp, I guess I have a good reason to fear this.

 

[Shadowhal]

Hopefully we finally get Austria as Civ !

Imhotep

oh, almost missed that. gosh, that would be awesome, playing austrian and ... kicking some german butt or germany becoming austria's vassal. but realistically speaking i rather doubt this possibility. to my knowledge the only game with a civ like time scope that included it was empire earth, but hey, we'll see in time.

I really hope that they dont have names of real corporations in the game - I dont want to be setting up a set of American corps (no doubt they'd nearly all be American) such as McDonalds, Ford, Citibank, Starbucks, Tommy Hilfiger, Enron, Monsanto etc etc - that would massively suck big time. I would prefer they keep it generic by just referring to markets e.g. freight & shipping, petrochemical, automotive, textiles, agriculture, pharmaceutical etc etc. I remember one of the civfans coming up with a corporation idea that played a bit like monopoly - it seemed kind of cool - I wonder if Firaxis based corps on his idea.
I also hope that corps become available before the corp tech e.g. teas & spices and textiles

hmm, you actually brought up an interesting point with enron. religions can't die, corporations can, so will that be an issue in BtS? also, for names I would just go for some combination of the material they are trading with and the city / nation they are created in, say "spanish motor production sa" or "new orleans petroleum inc." (granted this could bring up names of actual companies, but then they are also so generic that I doubt legal actions could effectively prevail).

 

[mitsho]

@shadowhal Austria btw. was the 32 C3C-civ that was only left out due to the 31 civ-cap. It was (nearly) ready made then. So, it is untrue that Austria has never been included into a civ-game.

mick

 

[Tomek]

It's a free world. QUOTE]


totally agree

 

[Shadowhal]

@shadowhal Austria btw. was the 32 C3C-civ that was only left out due to the 31 civ-cap. It was (nearly) ready made then. So, it is untrue that Austria has never been included into a civ-game.

mick

I stand corrected. in fact, I had a look at wikipedia afterwards and saw so. nice!

 

[Andy_Candy]

Hitler was directly responsible for the death of millions of Germans in the concentration camps, in the bombing raids and at the war fronts. His actions lead to the devastation of Germany, it's partitioning and a fifty year occupation. He finally took the coward's way out of it. I would have to struggle pretty hard to think of a greater ****-up then old Adolf.

If he had died before he attacked Poland, or if the brits/french hadn't attacked Germany to protect Poland, I'm sure he would have been remembered as one of the greatest german leaders ever. The one who made Germany strong again, after the humiliating Versailles treaty.

Just had to comment this, now back to the BtS discussion....

 

[Andy_Candy]

We need the selucids!!

I agree. It would be so nice to have em arround for people making "Rise of Rome" scenarios. This is also the time of history best suited for fun Civilization play......


And at last a comment on the Apostolic Palace. My guess is that it might be a kind of UN for the countries of a specific religion. A way to unite countries in a holy war, for instance......

 

[Andy_Candy]

I admit that my country was (and still is) founded and gets all of its power from the people it has taken advantage of (slaughtered, raped, used, etc) in the past (and present).

Yep, all strong nations are strong because they go for their own interests, and arent afraid to protect them. That's also a lesson you can learn from playing Civ....

It's nothing wrong about that. The opposite would be wrong. Use your powers to be as strong and dominant as possible. It's just common sense. Weak nations have just themselves to blame, I can't feel sorry for them.

 

[grumbler]

If he had died before he attacked Poland, or if the brits/french hadn't attacked Germany to protect Poland, I'm sure he would have been remembered as one of the greatest german leaders ever.

By that logic, if I jump from the Eiffel Tower, I would be remembered for being able to fly.

The one who made Germany strong again, after the humiliating Versailles treaty.

So how did he make Germany strong again, apart from profiting from economic policies set in motion by the social democrats before him and apart from implementing economic programs he had no way of paying for (without the war)?

Just had to comment this, now back to the BtS discussion....

Likewise.