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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.


Espionage - Espionage is a brand new system which allows players to obtain spies which can perform a wide variety of activities such as: Stealing Technology, Rigging City-State Elections for improved relations, Counter-Espionage and knowledge of certain CIVs intentions, intrigue. Intrigue tells you if someone is planning a sneak attack on you or various other Civilizations. Note that it only works versus A.I. (Computer) Civs. I like the espionage system. It is fair and fundementally balanced, because everyone essentialy obtains the same amount of spies. Also, unlike Civ 4 or SMAC you don't pay espionage or energy for spy actions. Granted, they have a more limited array of actions but overall I feel this is a better balance change. Unlike other Civ games, Spies are relocated via a HUD allowing them to move to Various Cities.
All in All, I think espionage is pretty balanced. It helps to counteract those builder empires. Spies have 3 ranks and can be killed if an enemy spy is defending the city they infiltrate. On Certain occasions you will be informed of the owner of an enemy spy should they be intercepted at your city. Thier are various buildings, and a Wonder that can counter Spies, Such as the Constabulary, Police Station and Great Firewall. Thier is also this new statistic, called Potential. The
higher a cities potential, the faster enemy spies can steal technologies. So when choosing which cities to defend with your own spies, you should usually choose the ones with highest potential.

Religion - Religion is the other main feature of Civ 5, and really adds alot of potential strategies. Unlike CIV 4, you must first found a Pantheon, followed by later enhancing your religion. In total you can have 4 beliefs, (5) as Byzantine.
Follower Beliefs apply to all Citys with a majority religion ,while Pantheon Founder and Enhancer beliefs only apply to the Founder of the religion. Thier are many beliefs to choose from, So I am not going to go into depth with them. I will state however that thier are a great deal of combinations which can cater to every single gameplay style in the game.
(Builders, Warmongers, Researchers, Expansionists) All benefit from these traits. All in all, my single favorite feature of the expansion pack is Religion. A new resource is also added (Faith), as well as Inquisitors, Missionaries and Great Prophets. All in all , if you want to get the XPAC, this is enough reason alone, but thier are more features to go into.

New Civs: The Netherlands, Celtica, The Maya, Carthage, Byzantium, the Huns, Austria, Ethiopia and Sweden.
Spain and Mongolia are also included and are now playable in multiplayer.
New Units: 27 New Units are included, of which 13 are UU for the sides, leaving 14 new units.
New Wonders: Thier are 9 new Wonders which allow for additional new strategies.
New Buildings: Thier are 13 new buildings, the majority of them UU.
New Tech: The tech tree has been heavily revised with many changes, thier are also 8 New Technologies.
New City States: Thier are now Several New City states, as well as 2 new types, Mercantile and Religious.
Mercantile Providing Gold and Religious providing Faith. (DUUH!)

Note that several Civs Unique Powers have been buffed/rebalanced (Barbary Corsairs is actually decent now)

Combat Changes: The Combat system actually feels like a different game. Combat has been completely revised, using a 100 point scale and deviating away from the previous 10 point system. OVerall it is more balanced and less reliant on luck/dice rolling. Combat Strength of many units have been revised. Melee Naval units have been added, which can pillage gold and board enemy ships at close range. Embarked units can defend themselves in melee and can stack with naval units for protection. Several New Combat Promotions are available.

Scenarios: Three new scenarios are included, Fall of Rome, Into the Renaissance and Empires of The Smoky Sky.

Social Policy Changes: Gods and Kings includes many changes to Social Trees and various balance fixes. I have only sampled the latter, It provides for a change of pace in gameplay and a new experience.

New Resources: 7 New Luxury Resources are available, allowing for more Smiley Face Gameplay, and a wider variety of trading options.

Tile Improvements: There are 3 new improvements, the Polder (UU), Holy Site and Citadel.
There are 4 new Natural Wonders, which mainly provide Faith.

I would like to add, that Civilization 5 Has gotten alot of negative reviews from Civ Veterans, mainly about how the AI is so easy to beat. Civilization AI has ALWAYS been easy to beat. It is simply impossible to create an AI that is as good as a player in a game like this, without the AI cheating.
which is my favorite title in the Civ Series, even the AI in that game was flawed. Im going to go on a limb here and suggest something. Games are usually funner when played together, as over
time AI actions become repetitve and predictable. People on the other hand, never fail to amaze me. For all those people critisizing Civ 5 mainly on the basis of bad ai, just hush.
It is a fairly trivial argument, seeing as how every game in the series has had cheating ai, that sucks. AI is extremely hard to develop for certain games, mainly the 4x RTS Genre.
My definition of a good AI is one that does not need to cheat in order to beat the player. Unfortunately it is extremely rare to see that in the game.
I will admit the AI is fairly easy to beat, even on Prince (and probably up to diety, with practice) My reccomendation to you is play online, hotseat with a freind, or LAN. That is the way you
will truly have fun with this game, by testing your mettle against intelligent human beings, not AI.

Overall I give Civ 5 Gods And Kings an 87/100. It would be much higher, because this really is not an expansion PERSE. I Prefer to call it a complete overhall that is immensely more fun then the
base game. So is it worth 25 bucks? If you have the money, most definitely. I highly reccomend you try out the demo , regardless of your bias towards other title in the series. (Cough Cough
Civ 4 BTS) I am immensely sorry that thier are no pretty screens, unfortunately do to time constraits I was not able to fit this in. This review was not intended to "win the contest" per se. It was intended
to silence the harsh critiscm of a game that is truly great, regardless of what people think. Gods and Kings feels like a different game, and I would not want to go back to Vanilla Civ 5 after
playing it. IF you managed to get through this immense wall of text, I salute you.