Alongside this, Firaxis are looking at the fact that come endgame, religion doesn't seem to matter as much as it does in the early days of a civilization.

Then you've got your Great Spies sauntering around, and situations of Cold War-intensity when other nations start ramping up their counter-espionage: it's almost a means of combat without sending the boys in. So you've got your spies, invisible to all but other spies, setting off revolutions in rival cities, poisoning water supplies and whispering how about that Will over in the Willish Empire? You'd love to be more like him wouldn't you?' into the ears of the populace.

This thing is just gigantic - I'm going to have to take two weeks off work just to review it. It's an expansion designed primarily to flesh out the later parts of a bout of Civ, and simultaneously a compendium of professionally created mods that veer so sharply from the usual template that they could be another game entirely. Never mind though, because the sneaky technology stealer is back! Or at least the essence of him is, now under the guise of a brand-new espionage system - just one of the countless features being jammed into Beyond The Sword. Honestly, I didn't have to get my coat - it was handed Stupidly, I embarked on a solo discussion on exactly why Civ IV suffered from not having a diplomat unit. My very worst experience of this though came when I was drunk in a Wetherspoons on Bedford High Street, talking to a random group of pretty nurses and with almost Machiavellian prompting from an associate. It's an occupational hazard of sorts: the unwitting social mishap of a gamer forgetting the company lie's in and the fact that not everyone will understand a metaphor based on the intricacies of de_dust. Quite Often, I find myself going off passionate about, and realise five minutes later that the room has gone silent and everyone has started looking quizzical.

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