Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword | Sid Meiers Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword | Sid Meiers does it again.

pc & video games:

Sid Meiers Civiliz...

	Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword Windows \| 2K Games, 2007 average customer review:based on 72 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Sid Meiers Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

This was a Christmas gift for my twenty-six year old son, a history major at Kansas State University. He loves it.

Sid Meiers does it again.

Excellent game. Super content. It had everything that I expected in it. Completely lived up to our expectations of a Sid Meiers Civilization game.

Makes Civ 4 Purchase-able

I got Beyond the Sword and Warlords both for Christmas this year (2007). I would never have purchased either (I bought Civ 4 for myself last year and was totally unimpressed with it - I still think that Civ 3 Complete is much better overall). After playing Civ 4 with the new features of each expansion pack, I have some commentary that can help you in your decision to purchase these expansion packs.

Briefly, as aforementioned, Civ 4 by itself is generally worthless in my opinion if you own Civ 3 Complete. The latter is much more manageable and customizable. If you don't like spending $50 for video games, Civ 3 Complete is less than half of that and will rock your video game world - you don't really need much else if you are into strategy, turn-based video gaming.

That said, Warlords was a pretty lame expansion pack only because I think they should have included ALL of its features in the base game. Withholding the Warlord leader units, the Civ-specific buildings, and other civilizations and leaders was just shameless marketing, in my humble opinion. I also believe that the vassalage system was totally do-able for the base game, as well.

And this leads to my review of Beyond the Sword...

This expansion pack makes Civilization 4 worth buying. But check this out - they brought many of the features from Warlords such as the new civilizations, leaders, buildings, units, and even the Warlord unit! What the heck? This reminds me of the Civ 3: Play the World expansion pack - almost totally worthless; we should have just bought Conquests. (However, I still recommend Civ 3 Complete.)

Anyway, Beyond the Sword does add a lot of content to the base game which is appreciated. For example, there are random scripts that take place throughout your games now. There will be little things like "A flood wiped out one of your mines..." and then you are given three choices, such as (1) pay a lot of money to save the mine; (2) pay a little bit of money to lose the mine but keep everybody happy; or (3) pay no money and lose the mine AND people get unhappy. Little things like that really add flesh to the game, in my opinion, and it is a very nice touch.

Another example of a new feature in BTS - besides just more civilizations, units, and leaders - are the scenarios. Firaxis and its amateur community really put together some sweet scenarios for us to play. Each one tickles your imagination as to how you could modify the game and make your own scenario. Which leads to my final point on BTS...

I still recommend that you hold out for a while before buying the Civ 4 enterprise. Right now, it is just not fair for customers to pay about $100 for Civ 4 and its two expansion packs - the game just isn't good enough for that kind of expenditure. I would recommend holding out until the game is finished being expanded and the "complete" package costs about $50, give or take. In the meantime, I highly recommend playing Civ 3 Complete (about $20). Civ 3 is as addictive as Civ 4, and it is far easier to customize. Civ 4, on the other hand, has a great potential, but most of us will never fully understand the Python and XML programming languages. (Such knowledge is required if you want to change things like government types, civ names, units' attributes, etc.) And even though the scenarios provided in BTS kind of fill in this potential in many ways, the overall product that is Civ 4 is still undeserving of the money they want for it, in my opinion.

So if you get anything from my review here, it is that Civ 4 was properly expanded with Beyond the Sword and is worth having in your video game collection. However, the base game (by itself) and Warlords are cheapshots, and for that we should respect ourselves and not support Civ 4 until it becomes reasonable to do so. I recommend waiting for the "Civ 4 Complete" version or for Civ 5 to be less of a cheapshot. Either way, Civ 3 Complete is waiting for you, and it is a fantastic game that all of us would love and enjoy.

Recommended expenditures for the Civ 4 titles:

Base game: $15
Warlords: $10
Beyond the Sword: $25

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More of what was already a good game

BTS is a good addition to a already good game.More civilizations,more tech to follow by expanding the tech tree,more units and it

even has all the content from WarLords minus scenarios.All in all more reason to spend hours on the PC trying to conquer the world.

Very nicely done

I have loved the CIV games since I played CIV 1, but fell in love with CIV 2, three and other tries just didn't get me, but CIV IV is unbelievable, and with Warlords, and Beyond the Sword I doubt you could ask for more. I have to force myself to stop playing this game I get so into it haha. Only reason I gave it a 4 out of 5 is because the maps just don't seem as big as they could be, and the tech tree in the regular game seems a little light. But being able to go more into the futur, and now even in space, I know I will be playing CIV IV for a long long time!

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