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Together these new events give each game a completely unique flavor. There are more than a hundred of these events, including natural disasters, such as earthquakes that can destroy buildings, and diplomatic marriages that might suddenly turn two former rivals into friends. The expansion reintroduces SimCity- and Alpha Centauri-style random events from the original Civilization game, which can cause the game to swing in the player's favor or present another obstacle the player must overcome. (This can be tested by saving an in-progress player vs CPU game and continuing it with players in place of the AI.) Even a friendly AI could potentially have a hidden −10 points from captured spies that will never allow a diplomatic victory, even through rampant generosity of resources, technology, gold, and all other attempts to negate the immense negative statistic. The act of catching opposing AI controlled spies will devastate your diplomatic relations with those players forcing you into a negative relationship that you cannot recover from. Conversely, espionage has become somewhat of a hindrance in the pursuit of normal diplomatic victories. Just like other Great Persons, they have unique names, and their appearance changes accordingly to the time period, e.g., a Great Spy in the ancient era shows up as a ninja, just as the Industrial-Age Great Spy appears as a tuxedo-sporting James Bond-style unit, complete with similar thematic music once a mission is performed. Their special function allows them to infiltrate enemy cities, giving the player significant advantage in espionage against that civilization. Great Spies are born in cities, like other Great Persons, and can perform typical functions like serving as a Specialist, starting a Golden Age, or building a unique building.
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Their role is a bit different, because spies are now invisible to all units, save for other spies. The player can also send Spy units into foreign territory to gather further intelligence and to perform various missions of destruction and propaganda. Once the player has reached certain thresholds of espionage investment, the player starts gaining some automatic intelligence benefits over rival civilizations. The new espionage slider allows the player to divert part of their income towards espionage activities against other civilizations. Players can block foreign corporations from operating in their cities by adopting the Mercantilism civic, and they can block all corporations, even their own, by adopting the State Property civic.Įspionage's importance in Civilization IV has been raised to compare with that of scientific research, culture, income from taxes etc. Corporations can be spread like religions (using the Executive unit as a missionary) to other cities, including foreign cities any city hosting a Corporation branch must pay a maintenance fee for its services, while the owner of the Corporate Headquarters receives bonus gold for each branch. The more instances of resources they consume, the more food, production, commerce, or resources they supply. Each Corporation consumes specific resources, and supplies alternative resources or benefits in return. Each of the seven available Corporations requires a particular type of Great Person, a particular additional technology, and access to particular resources to build the Corporate Headquarters and found that Corporation each of the seven Corporations can be founded only once per game. New Game Options: Beyond the Sword offers various new game options, like new world-types and the option to play any leader-civilization combination.Ĭorporations become available with discovery of the Corporation technology.Expanded Diplomatic Victory: It is now possible to achieve diplomatic victories much earlier in the game, and to defy resolutions.Expanded Space Victory: Obtaining a space victory is now more difficult and requires more strategy and decision-making than before.Advanced Starts: When starting the game in any era, this new option allows the player to purchase components for an already-developed nation.Random events can also be beneficial, such as scientific breakthroughs and incidents that improve relations with a neighbor. Random Events: New random events such as natural disasters, pleas for help, and demands from their citizens will challenge players to overcome obstacles in order for their civilizations to prosper.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.Each corporation provides benefits in exchange for certain resources. Corporations: A new gameplay feature, similar to the "religion" feature, allows players to create corporations and spread them throughout the world.Beyond the Sword offers several new features:
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