Now that the game is out (in the US)

[Nikolai]

For our American friends: What do you think of the XP after a day of playing? I see the response it quite positive over at CFC.

[Nikolai]

WPC's got a review out btw: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/show...p-Kings-review

[Guynemer]

I wasn't prepared for the changes made to Great People; only Artists can trigger a GA now, and GS add a certain amount of science, no longer an extra free tech.

[OzzyKP]

Yikes, I haven't come across that yet. That blows. In my first game I only got Great Prophets, and I was thinking "Damn, after a point, great prophets blow, they can't trigger golden ages" But they nerfed all great people? Ugh. Nerfing things is the last thing they should be doing in this game. Great people were already under whelming...

[OzzyKP]

Apparently Great Artists can't culture bomb anymore either. But Great Generals can...

[MxM]

Yikes, I haven't come across that yet. That blows. In my first game I only got Great Prophets, and I was thinking "Damn, after a point, great prophets blow, they can't trigger golden ages" But they nerfed all great people? Ugh. Nerfing things is the last thing they should be doing in this game. Great people were already under whelming...

They made them more different and more interesting to play. Most of my great people would go for golden ages, with exception of free technology later in the game.
Overall, my impressions are very, very positive, but I have limited amount of play.

[gdijedi7]

I like it.

Things do seem to take more turns to do, but they don't seem to take more years. They balanced that out well.

Religion is fun. I seriously ticked off the Celts by spreading Christianity into Hindu Dublin.

Spies are disapointing. They aren't units, and you can't build them. As far as I know, they just sort of randomly show up every once in a while once you reach the middle ages, and you're better off keeping them in your own country to try and kill enemy spies. Or friendly spies. Your friends have no reason to not spy on you, though if you kill their spies and forgive them for spying, they'll like you better.

The Steampunk scenario is cool, but is not a scenario so much as it is a mod. You start off with three settlers (After the lore says things have been going on for a while...go figure.) There are not many techs, and settlers take a long time to build.

All in all, I like Gods and Kings. I don't seem to get many great people, though.

[Guynemer]

Yikes, I haven't come across that yet. That blows. In my first game I only got Great Prophets, and I was thinking "Damn, after a point, great prophets blow, they can't trigger golden ages" But they nerfed all great people? Ugh. Nerfing things is the last thing they should be doing in this game. Great people were already under whelming...

Their great improvement (Holy Site, I think?) is pretty badass, especially if one completes the Piety tree. (I think, I'm going off of memory, just wrapping up at the office right now.) Put them wherever you'd normally put a trade post, and you make **** tons of cash, culture, and piety, which can be put towards more GPs (or other great people once you open up the lower tier of the social policies).


I don't quite understand the change to Great Scientists, though. Engineers and Merchants seem relatively unchanged (other than the GA thing); as any of the developers said anything regarding the Great Scientists?

[OzzyKP]

The folks at CFC were praising the move on great scientists, saying that bulbing tech was overpowered before. *shrug*

[gdijedi7]

I never used the bulbs, on the theory that you got more out of the improvement in the long term, so I wouldn't know.

[Ming]

For those that have it, here is a chance for you to have gotten the game for free....

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/1...n-V-Gods-Kings!

Just write a review and post it... you can be a winner

[mkorin]

After two games, I like it a lot. I like the Spy and can't figure out what good the religion is, but the gameplay is 1000 X better.

Mike

[Guynemer]

See, to me it is the opposite; the espionage is decidedly meh, but religion is enjoyable. There are plenty of bonuses to choose from, so you'll inevitably find something to suit your style and circumstance.

They could have done more with it, to be sure, but I quite like it. The decision to cap available religions to half the number civs is an interesting choice; I see how it helps to spice up the early game, but given that the religion powers are first come, first serve, and there are more choices than can be used in any given game, it seems possibly too punitive to those civs that fail to establish a religion.

[Wyrda Edocsil]

Religion is very well implemented - better than IV, IMO - but spies aren't nearly as fun as they were in IV. They just can't do very much. I think it would be great if they added some more options for actions in other civs' cities, like poisoning water and sabotaging production, or other things that were present in IV. The greatest improvement that I've seen so far is the rearranging of the tech tree. It feels a lot less linear and condensed than it used to, more like IV's. Some rebalancing and improvement to the AI is still necessary, and a bit more available information (in diplomacy and demographics, primarily) would be much appreciated, but overall, I think that, after the expansion, this game is better than Civ IV+warlords, though not quite as good as Civ IV+BTS, which was as near a perfect game as I've ever played.

[Proteus_MST]

I have to agree with Wyrda with regards to religion.
Developing your religion from the ground on with choosing a faith that bestsuits your situation is definitely something that could have been a great addition in Civ IV.

Well, as for other additions ... I am just at turn 70 in a marathon game on a huge map, so it will be a lot of turns till I discover most new additions, but I already like, that there are so many new resources. Already found Salt, crabs and truffles on my continent.

It also seems like the AI players are rather fast religion founders. I went straight to Pottery and to build a shrine, in order to gain faith and found my own religion. Well, thanks to a new type of Ruins that contained something that gave me 140 faith, I was able to found it already before my shrine was complete, around turn 50.
But Alas, I wasn´t the first one. When I founded my religion, there were already 5 AI players who had founded their religion before me (I can only assume that they stumbled upon the same type of ruins as myself, considcering how long it takes in marathon to accomplish anything meaningful)