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Civilization IV gets a botched spy-ectomy
After nine long months, Firaxis patched their epic strategy game again. In addition to addressing some small but important errors, the new Civilization IV patch lets you disable an entire feature: the espionage added in the Beyond the Sword expansion. Apparently Firaxis heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth from those of us who felt the new spying system was a mess of nearly Love Guru proportions. So, like this Administration before invading Iraq, we can simply check a box before starting a game and then not worry one whit about espionage.
Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. Yes, espionage is often tedious and micromanagement-intensive, which doesn't jibe with Civilization IV's clean elegant rules. But it's threaded like spaghetti code throughout the game. Espionage is a part of buildings, Great Persons, technologies, units, and even the way information is presented. Taking it out will require a bit of effort.
So what did Firaxis do? Not much. In espionage-less games, buildings that produce "espionage", a resource similar to gold or "happiness", simply produce "culture". That's right, culture. The same resources produced by theatres, cathedrals, Rock n' Roll, and Hollywood. The Scotland Yard wonder of the world will be your new Sydney Opera House. Your civilization will earn more culture with every intelligence agency, courthouse, and jail you build. I can only imagine Firaxis' inspiration was this instance of jailhouse rock :
On the plus side, the patch includes a poor-to-middling MesoAmerican scenario and a really cool map script called Earth2. The new map script situates different civilizations in their proper locations around a randomized Earth-like layout. It's a fun bit of revisionist geography leading to a world known for, say, the exotic spices of the American Northwest, the silk of Australian, the wines of Mongolia, and the rich oil fields of the Caribbean.
You can get the patch from the ingame updater, because 2K Games and Firaxis can't be bothered to actually host it on their own sites.
By Andrew at 4:32 PM ON 06/27/08
Wow, that's pretty funny. I mean, I can understand what kind of monetary constraints they are probably under, but that is a little sad. I think I'll keep treating spying like I do Great People, as one of the subsystems that I ignore unless it pops up something fun for me. Though espionage only seems to pop up negative things if you ignore it, as your opponents run rampant on your lands.
By Troy Goodfellow at 5:15 PM ON 06/27/08
I can't imagine ignoring Great People, Andrew. I'm one of those compulsive bar checkers, always wondering which city is likely to spawn that engineer or artist I need. And if I found a religion, I'm rushing for that Great Prophet ASAP.
In spite of how annoying the espionage system is, this fix is not a good one, except that it makes me build Scotland Yard, a structure I often ignore unless I'm really getting hammered in the spy race.
By frank at 12:52 AM ON 06/28/08
"So, like this Administration before invading Iraq, we can simply check a box before starting a game and then not worry one whit about espionage. "
Clever, the mandatory Bush bashing comment. Stick to video games, or the adults will make you look silly on issues.
By Chris Nahr at 3:01 AM ON 06/28/08
Oh dear, now you've upset a neoconservative who still believes in Saddam Hussein's WMD.
On topic... why is everyone talking about Scotland Yard? If you disable Espionage you won't get any Great Spies, and without Great Spies you cannot build Scotland Yard. So this particular building is actually not in the game if you disable espionage.
Otherwise, I agree -- there is way too much residue of the espionage system left in the game with the option disabled. The other espionage buildings are still there, and they still report a production of espionage points, even though they're converted to culture points under the hood. You even get random events that add or subtract espionage points. It's pretty sad.
Chris Nahr:
Oh dear, now you've upset a neoconservative who still believes in Saddam Hussein's WMD. On topic... why is everyon...More »