Civ5:G&K

Rhasto signed up at Apolyton to post his Civilization V: Gods & Kings review! His review is the 3rd submission to our Civilization 5: Gods & Kings review contest. If you like his review, please give him a 'thanks' in the forums. The reviewer that gets most 'thanks' will get his or her Gods & Kings purchase paid back by Apolyton (read the terms & conditions for specific information)

Civ 5 Gods and Kings Review.
Many people compare Civ 5 to previous installments of the Civilization game. I am going to try and give a simple, unbiased review of the new features in G&KS, the first expansion for Civ 5.
The expansion does add several new gameplay features, such as espionage, religion, 9 new Civilizations as well as Several new technologies. The big question is, is it worth it? If you enjoyed Civ 5's gameplay then I would say definetely get the expansion, as it improves the game immensely. If you are a CIV Vet, and you hated Civ 5s gameplay then I would say try the demo available on Steam. Worst case scenario : You don't like it and can get on with your live. Now, on to the new features introduced in the game.
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Civilization V: Patch 1.0.1.705 has been released. It addressed problems that have been found since the Civ5 addon Gods and Kings like the leader shift save game bug, and miscellaneous crashes and bugs. Here is the complete list:

[PREVIOUS SAVES]

• Older saves with DLC leaders (including Genghis) will no longer "shift" when loaded into the patched game.

[CRASH FIXES]

• If a user does not have a religion, and receives a religion from another Civ, setting the "automated faith purchase" option could previously cause a crash when the purchase tries to fire for either the player, or the AI. This has ...

Long time Apolyton member Wiglaf is the 2nd person to submit his review of Civilization V: Gods & Kings to Apolyton's Civilization 5: Gods & Kings review contest and is clearly not happy with this expansion pack, read his review to understand why. If you like his review, please give him a 'thanks' in the forums. The reviewer that gets most 'thanks' will get his or her Gods & Kings purchase paid back by Apolyton (read the terms & conditions for specific information)

Review:

Gods and Kings, hitherto 'GK,' is the first expansion to Jon Shafer's last act as a respected member of the PC videogame industry, known as Civilization 5. GK is a continuation of the trend of cashing in on a successful but highly flawed game by tacking on poorly integrated, barely thought-out game features that really should have been included originally, in working format.

I will break down my thoughts on the additions.

The name: 'Gods' makes sense, but 'Kings' does not. This is a bad start, and things will only get worse.

Boring, uneventful, nukeless espionage: The first thing I noticed is that all my spies have only first names, like Albert, or Alexa, or Fred. While I appreciate the need for secrecy, I do not appreciate feeling like I am sending my god damned pet goldfish off to spy on the enemy. These are professionals and they should be named as such. ...

First contender in Apolyton's Civilization 5: Gods & Kings review contest is OzzyKP. OzzyKP is a long time Civilization fan and known as a dedicated Civ4 diplogamer (multiplayer). If you like his review, please give him a 'thanks' in the forums. The reviewer that gets most 'thanks' will get his or her Gods & Kings purchase paid back by Apolyton (read the terms & conditions for specific information)

Review:

Introduction
No doubt like most people reading this review, I don't play Civ5 all that much. So it will be difficult to review Gods & Kings since beyond the big ticket items I can't quite tell you what has changed in the game. So consider this review to be from the perspective of a casual gamer, not one who has explored and mastered all the intricacies of the game. Just a regular Joe who doesn't have strong feelings about Civ5, but decided to give the expansion a shot.

When Civ5 first came out I was pretty excited. I've been playing the Civ franchise since the beginning and love Civ4 dearly. So I followed news of Civ5's development closely. I don't buy many games, but my loyalty to the franchise was strong enough that I went out and bought a copy of the game the first day it was available. In fact, after driving 9 hours from Indiana to Maryland, I went straight to my local Best Buy. Unfortunately Civ5 was sold out, so after my long drive I got back in the car and spent another hour driving to the only other Best Buy in the area with a copy.
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Greg 'Greg 2K' Laabs will broadcast a 2 hour lasting demogame live on the interwebs on monday June 18th! "My favorites are the ones where the person running the Let's Play takes requests from the audience for how to proceed in the game. There's a strange amusement in seeing someone try to carry out your wacky (or maybe even wise) request and finding out where it leads." Greg states on the 2K Games blog

The livestream will start around 1pm PDT and can be followed on Twitch.tv 2K channel. All be sure to login and ask your questions to Greg! ...

UPDATE: DLGamer.com is now offering Apolyton members a 26% discount!

DLGamer.com is offering all members of Apolyton a 26% discount on Civilization V: Gods & Kings during the pre-order period! If you'd like to take advantage of this offer, pre-order the game at DLGamer.com and use the voucher code: "Apolyton-10%OFF-CIV5GK". ...

Civilization 5 addon Gods and Kings add and improves miscellaneous features. Civ5:G&K improves the game balancing. Civ5:G&K accelerates the turns with an improved combat processing. Civ5G&K tweaks many civilization properties, especially those of the Songhai. Civ5G&K adds also new music and new background images for the main menu and the loading menu. The general improvements like balancing, artificial intelligence, combat system etc. are also announced for a future Civilization 5 patch.

Civ5 Gods and Kings improves the Artificial Intelligence

Civ5:G&K improves the AI on all levels so that it is noticeable stronger. Civ5:G&K makes the AI more concentrate in the end game so that it focuses more and is faster on building the spaceship to Alpha Centauri. Civ5:G&K gives the AI the ability to consider how much it is willing to do a nuclear first strike.

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