Beyond the Sword

Beyond the Sword is Civilization 4's second expansion, released Jul 23, 2007 in North America at $29.99. It added 10 civilizations, 16 leaders, five wonders, corporations, espionage, random events, the Apostolic Palace, colonies, Advanced Start, a reworked space race and 11 scenarios and mods, includes Warlords' rules, and with its final patch 3.19 (Jun 11, 2009) is the version most players run today.

Beyond the Sword is the second expansion for Civilization 4, released in North America on Jul 23, 2007 for $29.99, and it adds 10 civilizations, 16 leaders and five wonders, corporations, espionage, random events, the Apostolic Palace, colonies, Advanced Start, a reworked space race and 11 scenarios and mods. It focuses on the eras after gunpowder, needs only the base game, and includes everything Warlords added to the rules, per its manual. Alex Mantzaris and Jon Shafer were its lead designers (Game Developer). Beyond the Sword, or BtS, is the version most Civ 4 players run today: it had 1,695 players on Steam at 17:45 UTC on Oct 21, 2026, more than the base game, Warlords and Colonization together.

Rendered view of a tall rectangular monument: a stone base with a row of statues, a colonnade above and a stepped roof, with statues on pedestals in the foreground and orange clouds behind. — A wonder scene on 2K's Beyond the Sword page: a tall columned tomb on a stepped base with statues in front, under an evening sky. Firaxis Games and 2K

Quick facts

Get it	Steam, $9.99; in the Complete Edition
Released	Jul 23, 2007 in North America (Steam lists Jul 24)
Launch price	$29.99
Requires	Civilization 4 (not Warlords)
Lead designers	Alex Mantzaris and Jon Shafer
New civilizations	10, with 16 new leaders
New systems	Corporations, espionage, random events, Apostolic Palace, colonies, Advanced Start
Scenarios and mods	11
Final patch	3.19, Jun 11, 2009
Mac	Aspyr, $35, Jul 2009
Metacritic	86
Steam reviews	"Overwhelmingly Positive", 96% of 2,898 (Oct 21, 2026)
Steam players	1,695 at 17:45 UTC, Oct 21, 2026

New civilizations and leaders

Beyond the Sword adds 10 civilizations, each with one leader, a unique unit and a unique building, listed in its manual:

Civilization	Leader	Unique unit (replaces)	Unique building (replaces)
Babylon	Hammurabi	Bowman (Archer)	Garden (Colosseum)
Byzantium	Justinian I	Cataphract (Knight)	Hippodrome (Theater)
Ethiopia	Zara Yaqob	Oromo Warrior (Musketman)	Stele (Monument)
Holy Roman Empire	Charlemagne	Landsknecht (Pikeman)	Rathaus (Courthouse)
Khmer	Suryavarman II	Ballista Elephant (War Elephant)	Baray (Aqueduct)
Maya	Pacal II	Holkan (Spearman)	Ball Court (Colosseum)
Native America	Sitting Bull	Dog Soldier (Axeman)	Totem Pole (Monument)
Netherlands	Willem van Oranje	East Indiaman (Galleon)	Dike (Levee)
Portugal	Joao II	Carrack (Caravel)	Feitoria (Market)
Sumer	Gilgamesh	Vulture (Axeman)	Ziggurat (Courthouse)

Source: Beyond the Sword manual, pp. 28-30.

Six more leaders join older civilizations: Abraham Lincoln (America), Boudica (the Celts), Charles de Gaulle (France), Darius I (Persia), Pericles (Greece) and Suleiman the Magnificent (the Ottomans). That brings a full game to 34 civilizations and 52 leaders. The manual does not list the new leaders' traits, and it says Beyond the Sword also changed "a number of leaders' traits"; the game's Civilopedia lists every pairing. See Civilizations and Leaders.

Corporations

Corporations work "essentially like late-game religions", in GameSpot's words. A Great Person founds a corporation's headquarters in a city with one of the resources it uses, Corporate Executives spread it like Missionaries, and each city with the corporation turns its resources into food, production, gold, culture or research while the headquarters' owner collects gold from every branch. There are seven: Aluminum Co., Cereal Mills, Civilized Jewelers, Creative Constructions, Mining Inc., Sid's Sushi Co. (a play on Sid Meier's name, GameSpot noted) and Standard Ethanol. Mercantilism keeps foreign corporations out, and State Property switches them all off. See Corporations.

Espionage

Espionage arrives with Writing, much earlier than the base game's Spies. An espionage slider sits beside research and culture, its points are weighted against each rival on the Espionage Screen, and Spies spend them on missions: sabotage a building or improvement, steal treasury or a technology, poison water, foment unhappiness, support a city revolt, influence a rival's civics or religion, per the manual. Passive missions let you see a rival's research and demographics. Great Spies are a new kind of Great Person, and Scotland Yard can only be built by one. GameSpot's review listed "New espionage feature doesn't work all that well" among its complaints, while PC Gamer's review of Civilization 7 in 2025 missed it ("Civ 4, how I miss thee"). See Espionage.

Random events, Advanced Start and colonies

Random events can help or hurt: 2K's page names earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and a baby boom, and GameSpot counted more than 150 events, some of them quests. They can be switched off with the "No Random Events" option.

Advanced Start lets you spend a pool of points, set by difficulty, on cities, population, buildings, units, improvements and technologies before the first turn, with no attacks allowed for 10 turns. Colonies let you release cities on another continent as a separate civilization that becomes your vassal; the manual leaves the details to the Civilopedia.

The Apostolic Palace, wonders and the space race

The Apostolic Palace is a Medieval wonder that works like an early United Nations, except that votes come from faith rather than population, per the manual; GameSpot's preview described decrees that stop members of the same religion from attacking one another. The five new world wonders 2K announced are the Statue of Zeus, Cristo Redentor, the Shwedagon Paya, the Mausoleum of Maussollos and the Moai Statues, and the manual also adds the National Park and the seven corporate headquarters. See Wonders and Diplomacy.

The space race was reworked. You can launch with the minimum parts or add more to arrive sooner, the trip takes time depending on the parts, and the winner is the first ship to reach Alpha Centauri, not the first to launch (GameSpot). Capturing the launching civilization's capital destroys its ship. See Space Race Guide.

3D close view of a dense city of glass towers and older buildings with an iron lattice tower at its center, a red and white lighthouse on the pier, three soldiers near a pumpjack on the grass above and a fire on the right. — Gameplay from the Beyond the Sword Steam page: a modern coastal city with skyscrapers, the Eiffel Tower and a lighthouse, soldiers beside an oil well, farms and a burning city at the edge. Firaxis Games and 2K

Rule changes

Beyond the Sword also changes older rules, and its manual lists them. Slavery's upkeep rises to Medium; the Expansive trait gives +2 health and makes Workers 25% faster; the Greek Phalanx now replaces the Axeman; Great Generals need more experience; the Parthenon needs the new Aesthetics technology; Stonehenge goes obsolete with Astronomy. The AI was rebuilt to rely "more on smart play and less on handicap bonuses", says Steam's page, and teammates in multiplayer now take their turns at the same time.

Scenarios and mods

The box holds 11 scenarios and mods, started from Single Player, then "Beyond the Sword Content": "six new one-off scenarios plus five playable mods", as GameSpot counted them (2K had announced 12). They are Afterworld, Broken Star, Charlemagne, Civ Defense, Crossroads of the World, Final Frontier, Gods of Old, Next War, WWII: The Road to War, and two fan mods, Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice and Rhye's and Fall of Civilization. GameSpot called the Rhye's and Fall mod "excellent". See Scenarios, Fall from Heaven 2 and Rhye's and Fall of Civilization.

Patch 3.19

Beyond the Sword's last official patch, 3.19, was posted on Steam on Jun 11, 2009 and is the final version of Civ 4. Its notes list several dozen changes, among them:

AI fixes for civics, Golden Ages, votes on nuclear bans, captured cities, missiles, ships and air units, and Great Engineers hurrying Wonders in other players' cities.
A No Espionage option that also drops the free Great Spy from Communism and espionage events.
Conquistadors ignore walls, like Cuirassiers.
Collateral damage modifiers, collateral damage immunity and air defense modifiers multiply instead of add.
Culture from espionage was "100 times lower than intended" and was fixed.
"Moved some gamecore-specific code into the DLL", which helped modders.

Most big mods today name 3.19 as the version they need, among them Realism Invictus (ModDB), AdvCiv (GitHub) and the latest Rhye's and Fall (Rhye's Mods). Every patch is on Patches and Updates.

Reception

Beyond the Sword scored higher than Warlords. It holds a Metascore of 86 from 28 reviews. GameSpot's Andrew Park gave it 8.5, praising the new systems but faulting espionage and a cluttered interface; IGN's Steve Butts gave it 8.9. On Metacritic's critic list, Game Informer gave 95, PC Gamer US 93 ("more of a director's cut of the fantastic original game"), GameSpy 90 and Eurogamer 80 ("The best Civ expansion ever? Yeah, why not?"). Before release GameSpot called it "quite possibly the biggest Civilization expansion to date" (hands-on). On Steam today it is "Overwhelmingly Positive", with 96% of 2,898 English reviews positive.

Frequently asked questions

What does Beyond the Sword add to Civ 4? Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword adds 10 civilizations, 16 leaders and five wonders, corporations, espionage, random events, the Apostolic Palace, colonies, Advanced Start, a reworked space race and 11 scenarios and mods.

Does Beyond the Sword need Warlords? No: Civilization 4's Beyond the Sword needs only the base game, and it includes Warlords' traits, Great Generals and unique buildings, per its manual.

What is the latest version of Civ 4 Beyond the Sword? The final version of Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword is patch 3.19, released on Steam on Jun 11, 2009; the Steam version is already patched to it.

When did Beyond the Sword come out? Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword came out on Jul 23, 2007 in North America; Steam lists Jul 24, 2007.

Is Beyond the Sword the best version of Civ 4? Civilization 4's Beyond the Sword is the most played and best reviewed version on Steam (1,695 players and 96% positive on Oct 21, 2026), and PC Gamer US called it "more of a director's cut of the fantastic original game".

How much is Beyond the Sword? Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword costs $9.99 on Steam on its own (Oct 21, 2026) and needs the base game; the Complete Edition with everything is $29.99.