Civ IV and expansions: which to play first?

ionapaul

My bro got me Civ IV and a couple of the expansions for my recent birthday; should I play the 'vanilla' Civ IV at all after install, or will running Warlords and Beyond the Sword give me access to everything Civ IV-related installed on my machine? Do the expansion packs render the original vanilla game redundant?

Pyr0

I think the expansion packs add on to what is already there, so beyond the sword will have all the stuff Warlords and Vanilla had. Not too sure though..

Sephiroth_dude

Im in a similar position,have vanilla civ and beyond the sword and im think,should I just play beyond the sword and now bother with vanilla?

Sand

IIRC correctly [ few months since I played last ] Warlords offered a different rule set to standard Civ 4, whilst also upgrading Civ 4. Probably Beyond the Sword does the same. I dont think it rendered Civ 4 redundant, just offered a different flavour.

Branoic

You should play with all three installed - its a much deeper and more expanded game than vanilla Civ IV. Also, Beyond the Sword alone does not contain all the things that the first expansion Warlords added to the game - so you really should have them both installed.

Maximilian

Warlords was so-so but Beyond the Sword is an essential add-on. All the main additions from Warlords are included I think, such as Great Generals. Some of the mods included like the space based "final Frontier" mod, are great also.