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I have said this before - "more Civilization is always good." I would like to expand this to "more Sid Meier is always good." I have always liked Sid Meier's work on games like Colonization, Civilization, Pirates, Sword of the Samurai, and others.

I would like to remind game players that this is an expansion - you must have the original Sid Meier's Civilization IV game to play Beyond the Sword. I know when I buy games from major retailers they rarely make the effort to inform me I am purchasin an expansion that requires the original game to play. I often buy the expansion only to have to put in another order for the original game.

I believe that Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword (BtS) is the largest Civilization expansion ever. New features include Corporations, Espionage, Random Events, Advanced Starts, Expanded Space Victory, Expanded Diplomatic Victory, several new game options, 10 new civilizations, 16 new leaders, 25 new units, 18 new buildings and their technologies, 11 new scenarios, and 6 new wonders of the world. The corporations, espionage, expanded space victory, expanded diplomatic victory, and other new features are very involved game systems.

Civilization is a game where you explore the map, colonize cities, develop cities by building buildings in the cities, use the cities and specialized buildings to produce simple and specialized units, develop the land and resources around cities with workers, defend cities with combat units, use assault troops to conquer cities, use diplomacy to befriend other cities, use city success to recruit cities peacefully, build wonders to improved city happiness, economy, defense, health and a group of other actions and strategies. I love the details of Civilization but hate the micro management, and wish for features that would allow me to automate some of those features to work in my own favorite style.

I was disappointed to find that the six new technologies were not narrated by Leonard Nimoy, as was the case in previous incarnations of Civilization. However, the new technologies are narrated by Sid Meier, so that you can now recognize his distinctive voice (an "Easter egg" for those players who can recognize Sid's voice). There is a reference to The Colbert Report and another reference to Donald Rumsfeld; I challenge you to find these references.

I enjoyed the expansion of the diplomatic victory, with the Apostolic Palace serving as an early United Nations. I'm not sure but I may have hit a bug her, since no voting selection came up for the Apostolic Palace when the player is Pope the way it does for the United Nations when the player is the Secretary General of the UN. There have been patches since this writing so be sure to install them.

Another fun part of the expansion was the new Espionage game play. A great spy is a new character that enables the building of a spy creation center that makes skillful spies. The new center is Scotland Yard. Espionage gets its own slider that allows your civilization to balance versus research and money emphasis on a percentage basis. I found that by increasing the spy slider when I was behind on technology that I could catch up more quickly, since spying takes less time than researching.

I found the single player artificial intelligence (AI) to be more cunning, and better at war. The designers made an effort to make the warfare of AI opponents tougher, especially in naval operations. I believe the designers were successful.

I like the new graphic details such as the unique clothing and accessories of the settlers, warriors, spearmen, workers, etc., who now look like they come from the civilization they were spawned by. Each civilization "early unit" has its own signature look. I find it much easier to lose myself in the game when little details like this support the authenticity of the illusion that I am really playing history.

Civilization now supports ocean trade routes making protecting these routes from interruption on the high seas a priority when funds are tight. Naval units have to be used to patrol and protect the new routes, just like the old land routes required protection from land based combat units.

I was baffled by the change in Augustus Caesar. He used to be creative and organized, but now he is imperialistic and industrious. I used to like playing Caesar, but, with this change, if I want to play a creative and organized leader, the new leader Yara Yaqob from new civilization of Ethiopia is my pick. I thought that Beyond the Sword was trying to use up all the trait combinations, but there are still three combinations that are unused. Can you figure out which ones?

I like the eleven cool new scenarios that I think work like "mods." Tim McCracken designed a Horror Role Playing Game. I loved X-Com, and the Gravebringers are sent to a world of human robots to retrieve research. Be careful with your gravebringers; if one dies you lose.

Another far out scenario/mod that I found interesting was "Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice," based on the public mod "Fall from Heaven" and jointly developed by Firaxis and the public mod team. The plot thickens when 350 years into the Age of Ice, the god of winter, named Mulcarn, is king. Mulcarn has beleaguered man, who has descended to the lowest of Maslow's circle of need, survival. The great hero, Kylorin, must reforge the broken shards of the Godslayer and make the sword live up to its name.

I was longing for a Final Frontier (a vague reference to the Star Trek franchise. Even god wanted the return of Enterprise). The Final Frontier scenario/mod takes us once again into space to establish colonies. Cities become star systems of planets and moons. The tech tree morphs into one more appropriate for space colonization, exploration, and war. I enjoyed the Battlestar Galactica style search for the lost home planet Earth.

My only criticism of Civilization is the amount of micromanagement that could somehow be automated. In the past, I have found out many automated micromanagement features the more that I played the game and read the manual. Like most people, I only read the manual when I dig it out of the trash can on the way to the bathroom/reading room.

I find Civilization to be the most fun in the beginning, when there is less to do. Later in the game, when I control dozens of cities, I can spend hours on my turn getting all the details right. I find the end game a tedious repetition of doing the same thing over and over again in city after city. Why do I play and still enjoy the game? I find the positives far outweigh the negatives. But I can still hope that the future holds a Civilization that is easier to customize and automate to my individual play style.