Civilization V: Gods & Kings

Blog Post: Long Live the King: Gods and Kings Keeps the Strategy Crown Secure

Saturos07 — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 12:38:00 GMT

Thanks to the advent of high speed internet and online gaming networks, we live in a time where our games can be enhanced by all manner of downloadable content. Rather than releasing entire new games with some combination of the words "super", "hyper", or "turbo", Capcom for example can simply release Street Fighter DLC via Xbox Live or PSN. These addons can extend a game's lifespan and fill in the time between releases; however, most ordinary DLC give precisely this impression of "game filler" rather than "game changer". Of course, Civilization is no ordinary game series, and its latest addition, Civilization 5: Gods and Kings, stays true to the series tradition of consistently stellar releases. Not simply being content with the addition of 9 new playable civs, 4 scenarios and the religion and espionage gameplay systems (among other additions), Gods and Kings turns the game upside down and propels it into a new dimension, leaving the player wondering how they ever got along without it.

Truly, the most exciting time for a game is immediately following its release: pre-release hype hasn't worn off, the servers are full (for online games), and a sense of wonder and the yearn to explore captivates every player. As time goes on however, the game's boundaries and limitations are eventually discovered: glitches exploited, optimal strategies calculated, and like a chess playing computer creativity and imagination give way to a mathematically determined "best" way to play, diversion from which nearly guarantees defeat. Gods and Kings, I am happy to say, has tackled this problem straight on, primarily through the revamped religion system which puts its Civ 4 incarnation to shame. After building your first few faith points (a new resource) you choose a cult, which brings with it a chosen benefit (such as +1 production for every 3 followers). Once you earn a Great Prophet (a new great person which randomly spawns after a given amount of faith is earned) you can found a full religion, which allows you to choose two additional benefits and purchase missionaries to spread your faith, adding further depth to diplomacy. These benefits combine to give you an unprecedented level of customization for your civ, and ensure that no two games will ever be the same. This theme of customization and creativity is reflected elsewhere in Gods and Kings: the Piety tree, essential to the cultural victory, has been transformed into a hybrid Faith/Culture tree, and in a sense "nerfed". This does not mean that the cultural victory is now more difficult; rather, it forces the player to explore alternative paths to victory rather than funneling all production into culture and praying that nobody stumbles upon them and their single city conspicuously stacked with half the world's wonders. Gods and Kings is an effort to make every game of Civ less predictable, and the revamped religion system is central to it.

An improvement touted in the Gods and Kings trailers is that the AI is now more intelligent, particularly concerning military matters - no more stray Great Generals or disorderly units. My first few rounds of the game confirmed this; thankfully, you now have new tools with which to engage your foes through the Espionage system. Starting in the Renaissance era and for each era onward you recruit a spy. These units are (appropriately) invisible on the game map and are accessed via a separate menu, which displays myriad information such as the spy roster, target cities and uncovered information. With your spies you can steal technology, rig city state elections to alter influence both for yourself and others, see what your opponents are building and discover plots being made against yourself and other players, giving you a heads up to an oncoming attack. The espionage system is an engaging addition that provides an exciting alternative to waiting around for your opponents to make their move.

Speaking of making your move, combat has also received its fair share of changes and improvements, particularly naval units. There are now two varieties of naval units, ranged and melee, as well as the Great Admiral, the naval version of the Great General. Combine this with the fact that embarked land units now stack with naval units and maintaining a competent navy has now become critical to military success. Changes to land units such as a 200% increase in artillery damage toward cities, 100 base hp for units rather than 10 and the addition of units such as the Gatling gun are all part of an effort to force the player to think strategically: simply swarming melee units will not grant you victory. The player must maintain a balanced and diversified force, and long term strategic thinking as well as short term tactical brilliance are both requisite to victory.

This expansion was two years in the making (Civ 5 being released in 2010), and the clear amount of effort put into this game reflects well upon the time spent on it. Subtle improvements such as the redivision of the tech tree into different eras, the reassigning of city states to types which reflect their historical roles (Tyre for example is now a Mercantile city state rather than a Military one), and the addition of new luxury resources give this expansion a level of uncommon polish. Combine this with 9 new playable civs with intriguing abilities such as spending gold to annex city states, moving over mountains and stealing opponent city names, and you have an expansion that is not merely additional, but essential.

In conclusion, Civilization 5: Gods and Kings is an expansion that is not satisfied with merely adding to the game: it improves upon it in every conceivable way. This is the standard to which all expansion content should aspire.

Wiki: Civilization V: Gods & Kings Guides

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 21:30:00 GMT

Guides for Civilization V: Gods & Kings

Blog Post: Still The King Of Strategy

Adam Biessener — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:35:00 GMT

My love for Civilization V is enthusiastic and unapologetic. Gods & Kings is an outstanding expansion for players like me who found reasons to sink 200-plus hours into the base game. The major features it adds, religion and espionage, integrate smoothly into the Civ V experience and add interesting options without introducing unnecessary tedium or micromanagement.[Excerpt]

One of Civ V’s strongest aspects is how forthright and direct the consequences of your decisions are, and Gods & Kings maintains that core design tenet. Each belief incorporated into a religion or skulduggery undertaken by a spy has an obvious, powerful impact. Instead of adding together minor multipliers to tweak your research efficiency, you’re rigging city-state elections, stealing technology outright, converting whole cities to new beliefs, or enabling entirely new religious buildings.

Gods & Kings’ greatest success is how it enhances the Civ V experience without adding appreciable complexity. With rare exceptions, the player’s input into matters of religion and espionage are limited to single decisions every five to ten turns or so. As streamlined as it is, Civ V is still a massively complex strategy game. The way that the expansion keeps the player’s attention on big-picture global politics and empire development is a significant accomplishment.

Fleshing out a great deal of diplomatic nuance that the base game lacked is Gods & Kings’ third pillar. Though your responses to rivals’ statements are still binary in most cases, most have real consequences now. Chiding a belligerent empire’s aggression toward a friendly city-state could spark a war, while forgiving their actions dramatically hurts relations with that minor nation. Breaking a promise to stop expansion near a neighbor has wide-reaching negative diplomatic effects. Rather than the often-obtuse decisions by AI leaders in the base game, you can usually see the path of reasoning that led to the current state of geopolitics. Additionally, the quests given out by city-states to win their approval are much more varied, and foster richer interactions.

Balance is different in the expansion, and I’m torn on whether it’s an improvement or a step back. The addition of new luxury resources as well as the ready availability of happiness boosts through religion makes it much easier to maintain civic order. This makes expansion far simpler, and unfortunately the AI often can’t keep up. Even with a large, sprawling empire, I have been able to maintain happiness in the 30s and higher (levels unheard of in vanilla Civ V) while largely ignoring happiness buildings like colosseums and theaters. As in the base game, AI leaders regularly leave vast swathes of territory inexplicably uncolonized and consequently get buried under larger empires. Rapid expansion has always been the dominant strategy in Civilization, and the change to happiness in Gods & Kings swings the needle farther in that direction after the base game went to such pains to ensure that smaller empires had a viable path to victory.

The Civ V AI that many players despise is improved in Gods & Kings, but not by a lot. It still fails to capture cities it should easily roll over thanks to baffling tactical stupidity, and it still doesn’t expand as far as it should in most cases. At least you don’t run into unimproved tiles around AI capitals in the mid to late game anymore, and it’s much better about upgrading its units instead of sending warriors to die uselessly against crossbowmen.

My enthusiasm for Civ V has continued unabated for a full year now, and this expansion adds new fuel to the fires of conquest that still burn in me. Despite the days of playtime I’ve put into the base game, I can’t imagine going back after a few rounds with Gods & Kings. I strongly recommend this expansion to all Civ V players – though you may need to jump a difficulty level to account for how powerful the new toys are.

Blog Post: A Final Tour Of Civilization V: Gods & Kings

Matthew Kato — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 15:23:00 GMT

Today developer Firaxis and 2K Games released the last Civilization V: Gods & Kings developer diary which goes more into depth with the expansion pack's gameplay systems.[Excerpt]

Take a look at the video below in which producer Dennis Shirk and lead designer Ed Beach discuss the game's naval, religion, combat, and espionage systems.

For more on the game, take a look at the first part of the expansion's developer diary.

Civilization V: Gods & Kings comes out tomorrow, June 19. Please check back soon for Adam's in-depth review of Gods & Kings.

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File: Civilization V: Gods & Kings Developer Diary #1

Matthew Kato — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:55:00 GMT

Civilization V: Gods & Kings Developer Diary #1

Blog Post: An Audience With The Gods & Kings Of Civ V's Expansion

Matthew Kato — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:54:00 GMT

A new video diary from Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion pack developer Firaxis talks about the games' new religion system, civilizations, and more.[Excerpt]

The extensive video featuring producer Dennis Shirk and lead designer Ed Beach walk through a plethora of info about the expansion pack and its new content.

Civilization V: Gods & Kings comes out for PC & Mac on June 19. For more on the game, check out Bertz's previous thoughts.

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Blog Post: Civilization V Finds Religion In New Expansion Pack

Matt Bertz — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:46:00 GMT

For the first expansion to its well-reviewed turn-based strategy game, Firaxis is adding many of the things Civ fans normally expect from extended content[Excerpt] -- including 27 new units, 14 new buildings, and 9 new civilizations (including the Celts, Mayans, Byzantines, Dutch, and Carthaginians). But the changes that have me the most excited are the re-introduction of religion and espionage to the political mechanizations.

Rather than recycle the religion system used in Civilization IV, for Gods & Kings lead designer Ed Beach wanted to build a new system from the ground up. The result is a new resource, faith, that players gather just like they do with culture and science. Early in the Grand Campaign, players have the option from choosing between the 11 most common real-world religions or creating and naming their own belief system. By choosing two values, players earn specific bonuses unique to their young religion. Players can hasten the spread of their value system by purchasable missionaries and the grand prophet moving him into new cities.

If enough people in another civilization adopt your beliefs, it will be much easier to create allegiances.Though religious influence plays a large diplomatic roll in the early historical eras, Beach says it gradually loses its importance as you advance into modern times.

If you're having problems with a rival neighbor but don't want to start a war, you can weaken their position by embedding a spy in their city. In Gods & Kings, these sleeper agents can perform impressive feats beyond just nicking technology. Rival leaders can be severely compromised by fixing elections or trying to instigate a coup with a high level agent. Make sure the risk is worth the reward before acting, though, because if your spy fails he will be executed and your relations with the country that caught him will be in tatters. Spies will also report on faction activities like troop movement, which may give you insight into whether or not the faction is saying one thing to you while doing the opposite.

Firaxis also made some significant changes to the combat system to make it more engaging. The dev team raised the hit points from 10 to 100, which means some battles will last longer than a turn. This should help players who are caught off guard to call in reinforcements to repel an unforeseen threat. In addition, they split naval units into two categories -- melee and ranged -- to give sailors more tactical options on the high seas. Melee units can raid and even capture coastal cities.

All these changes have me excited to check out Gods & Kings when it ships later this spring.

File: Civilization V: Gods & Kings