n my view, there is no argument that Sid Meier’s Civilization IV is the pinnacle of the modern strategy genre. I’d go so far as to make a case for it as the best strategy video game of all time, and so it is with great pleasure that I report Beyond the Sword is outstanding in every sense of the word.
The espionage system introduced in Beyond the Sword is skillfully integrated into the very core of Civilization IV’s complex gameplay. Developing intelligence and counter-intelligence networks is an expensive proposition, so espionage takes resources away from your treasury, culture, or research efforts. To justify such heavy investment, the benefits had better be worth it, and they certainly can be. Trashing enemy production, inciting their population to revolt, and stealing resources – traditional activities for the genre, to be sure – and preventing the same from happening to you couldn’t be more important. The intelligence benefits, which range from seeing enemy demographic information to the current production in their cities, are immeasurably helpful as well. It’s not necessary to delve too deeply into espionage, but it’s a nice additional non-combat vector to spread your influence. The UI could be better, though.
To support all this spy stuff, several new advances have been woven into the tech tree. More importantly, a huge number of additional Wonders, National Wonders, units, and buildings now supplement the existing tech, giving espionage a broad base of support across all of the game’s layers.
Corporations have also been added. As a function of the late game (you need to research the Corporations tech to enable them), these constructs allow another vector of interaction with your rivals outside of warfare. Corporations work much like a religion in that they spread from city to city via the Corporate Executive unit, but have more varied effects, like culture or production bonuses.
Finally, Beyond the Sword includes several new scenarios if you should tire of the base game. These vary wildly in gameplay style, from a tactical RPG to space colonization. Unfortunately, the quality swings up and down as well; I found myself coming back to vanilla Civ IV after a few hours no matter how novel a scenario seemed at first. That’s as much a commentary on the excellence of the base game as it is an indictment of the alternate styles, though.
Beyond the Sword is unquestionably one of the best expansion packs I’ve ever played, and not just because the original release is so strong. The amount of content it adds, and the quality of those additions, is top-notch. This kind of massive depth, smooth polish, and unending replayability is what PC gaming is all about.