Civilization V: Gods & Kings Review
18 June 2012 | By Joe Robinson
No Gods or Kings, only Pixels
It’s good to see an old fashioned PC expansion again. Whilst I’d be the first to admit that digital distribution has done wonders for post-release content and PC gaming in general, there’s certainly a nice sense of nostalgia from getting a big, beefy (and boxed) update. Gods & Kings is the first major update to Civilization V since its release back in 2010, and is a mixture between enhancing and overhauling existing elements, as well as adding new gameplay mechanics to help expand what you can do in a game.
Gods & Kings does several things: it overhauls the City-State mechanics by adding a larger variety of quests and new behaviour, it modifies combat slightly (both land and sea) to make engagements last longer and be less reliant on the background ‘dice-rolling’, and it adds new Religion and Espionage mechanics. Add to that new scenarios, units, technologies and other miscellanea, there’s no denying that this is a meaty expansion, to say the least. We can’t help but raise a question mark for the value aspect - £20 is a lot to ask these days, especially compared to the current DLC trends. Still there’s no sense that Firaxis have skimped out in terms of content, so there should be something for everyone here.
The Religion and Espionage mechanics are meant to work in tandem – Religion comes first, but as you progress through the eras it becomes less and less important, before finally Espionage first gets introduced and then that ‘takes-over’ in effect, although the two systems are quite different in what they do. Religions are customizable, and are related to a new ‘resource’ called faith. You start off by founding a ‘pantheon’, which is meant to replicate classical polytheistic religions, and from there you go on to found one of six ‘major’ religions available in the game: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. However, these names can be changed, and when you ‘found’ a pantheon and major religion you get to choose what bonuses they convey as well. Religions are founded, and further enhanced with the new ‘Great Prophet’ Great Person. You can also recruit Missionaries and Inquisitors (using faith) to further spread or root out other religions.
There’s a lot of similarity with Civilization IV – Civs of the same religion will have better relations diplomatically, and as far as Civ V specifically is concerned, this applies to city-states as well. There’s a new ‘Religious’ City type as well, and as part of the quest overhaul some neutral cities may ask you to spread your religion to their lands. The ‘faith’ resource seems a bit superfluous at the moment – there’s not a lot you can actually do with ‘Faith’ aside from saving up for Great Prophets, Missionaries or Inquisitors. Certain things will allow you to expand this, for example some Religion bonuses grant you a unique building, and you can even use faith to get other Great People in certain circumstances, but aside from that it doesn’t have much use. It’s also a shame that Firaxis have avoided touching on the other side of the coin – religious persecution, holy wars... whilst these aren’t things you want to promote too much, they would make the mechanic more rounded, to say the least.
Espionage kicks in during the Renaissance Era, and has more practical use. You start off with one spy (more are awarded to you as you progress through the eras and research certain techs), and you can use him to steal technologies from other civilizations, spy on other cities, even perform counter-espionage in your home territories. Their most interesting use is connected to City-states, where you use them to help artificially enhance your influence, by rigging elections and staging coups. Again, it’s a bit of a tame feature at the moment – you don’t spend much time with the Espionage interface, especially when you only have the one spy, and it’s the only new feature which isn’t available in Multiplayer. A shame, but a step in the right direction we suppose.
As you may have noticed, the two new gameplay features connect quite heavily with the City-state area of the game, and arguably this area is the one which has received the biggest overhaul. Before, it was usually a matter of how much gold you could pour into a city-state which determined how friendly they were towards you – no more. An expanded and overhauled quest system means that you’ll be doing things for independent cities more often, with a wider variety of quests. Some even have unique resources not found on the main map, which means the struggle for dominance, literal or otherwise, of these cities are more important. They’re not any more aggressive, in fact the ‘take out so and so quests’ have been removed, but they do prove to have more strategic value.
Last but not least – Combat. The changes here are more subtle than what’s been done in the rest of the game. In general, everything has more health and is harder to kill, even if you have a blatant advantage or superiority over your enemy. New units have been added, and the AI is certainly smarter than before, so all in all wars are more challenging. The naval side of combat has received the most love, with ships now divided into ‘melee’ and ranged, with melee ships able to raid and take over coastal cities all by themselves. There’s also a new ‘Great Admiral’ Great Person, so naval combat really does hold as much meaning as land engagements.
The real question is though – is this expansion worth your money? We’d say yes. A lot of these improvements were needed to make long protracted games more interesting, and there’s less of a sense of leaping through the eras (especially the pre and early industrial eras) without really getting a taste of them. Some areas still need more fleshing out, and there’s some things that haven’t been touched on at all here that could do with some work, but Civilization V is certainly better with Gods & Kings, and there is plenty of new content here to justify the cost. We hope they don’t wait so long before releasing another meaningful update, but so far, so good.
Becoming a dominant force for once is kind of a nice feeling. It’s not often people are sucking up to you.
Gods & Kings does several things: it overhauls the City-State mechanics by adding a larger variety of quests and new behaviour, it modifies combat slightly (both land and sea) to make engagements last longer and be less reliant on the background ‘dice-rolling’, and it adds new Religion and Espionage mechanics. Add to that new scenarios, units, technologies and other miscellanea, there’s no denying that this is a meaty expansion, to say the least. We can’t help but raise a question mark for the value aspect - £20 is a lot to ask these days, especially compared to the current DLC trends. Still there’s no sense that Firaxis have skimped out in terms of content, so there should be something for everyone here.
 |
| The 'beliefs' allow you to choose modifiers for your religion, and are unlocked over time. Note: another Civ can enhance a religion you founded |
The Religion and Espionage mechanics are meant to work in tandem – Religion comes first, but as you progress through the eras it becomes less and less important, before finally Espionage first gets introduced and then that ‘takes-over’ in effect, although the two systems are quite different in what they do. Religions are customizable, and are related to a new ‘resource’ called faith. You start off by founding a ‘pantheon’, which is meant to replicate classical polytheistic religions, and from there you go on to found one of six ‘major’ religions available in the game: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. However, these names can be changed, and when you ‘found’ a pantheon and major religion you get to choose what bonuses they convey as well. Religions are founded, and further enhanced with the new ‘Great Prophet’ Great Person. You can also recruit Missionaries and Inquisitors (using faith) to further spread or root out other religions.
There’s a lot of similarity with Civilization IV – Civs of the same religion will have better relations diplomatically, and as far as Civ V specifically is concerned, this applies to city-states as well. There’s a new ‘Religious’ City type as well, and as part of the quest overhaul some neutral cities may ask you to spread your religion to their lands. The ‘faith’ resource seems a bit superfluous at the moment – there’s not a lot you can actually do with ‘Faith’ aside from saving up for Great Prophets, Missionaries or Inquisitors. Certain things will allow you to expand this, for example some Religion bonuses grant you a unique building, and you can even use faith to get other Great People in certain circumstances, but aside from that it doesn’t have much use. It’s also a shame that Firaxis have avoided touching on the other side of the coin – religious persecution, holy wars... whilst these aren’t things you want to promote too much, they would make the mechanic more rounded, to say the least.
 |
| At this stage of the game, Religion is less of a thing, and less likely to prevent another Civ from attacking you |
Espionage kicks in during the Renaissance Era, and has more practical use. You start off with one spy (more are awarded to you as you progress through the eras and research certain techs), and you can use him to steal technologies from other civilizations, spy on other cities, even perform counter-espionage in your home territories. Their most interesting use is connected to City-states, where you use them to help artificially enhance your influence, by rigging elections and staging coups. Again, it’s a bit of a tame feature at the moment – you don’t spend much time with the Espionage interface, especially when you only have the one spy, and it’s the only new feature which isn’t available in Multiplayer. A shame, but a step in the right direction we suppose.
As you may have noticed, the two new gameplay features connect quite heavily with the City-state area of the game, and arguably this area is the one which has received the biggest overhaul. Before, it was usually a matter of how much gold you could pour into a city-state which determined how friendly they were towards you – no more. An expanded and overhauled quest system means that you’ll be doing things for independent cities more often, with a wider variety of quests. Some even have unique resources not found on the main map, which means the struggle for dominance, literal or otherwise, of these cities are more important. They’re not any more aggressive, in fact the ‘take out so and so quests’ have been removed, but they do prove to have more strategic value.
 |
| Me trying out the new Celtic Civilization. It’s good to be on top for once |
Last but not least – Combat. The changes here are more subtle than what’s been done in the rest of the game. In general, everything has more health and is harder to kill, even if you have a blatant advantage or superiority over your enemy. New units have been added, and the AI is certainly smarter than before, so all in all wars are more challenging. The naval side of combat has received the most love, with ships now divided into ‘melee’ and ranged, with melee ships able to raid and take over coastal cities all by themselves. There’s also a new ‘Great Admiral’ Great Person, so naval combat really does hold as much meaning as land engagements.
The real question is though – is this expansion worth your money? We’d say yes. A lot of these improvements were needed to make long protracted games more interesting, and there’s less of a sense of leaping through the eras (especially the pre and early industrial eras) without really getting a taste of them. Some areas still need more fleshing out, and there’s some things that haven’t been touched on at all here that could do with some work, but Civilization V is certainly better with Gods & Kings, and there is plenty of new content here to justify the cost. We hope they don’t wait so long before releasing another meaningful update, but so far, so good.
Becoming a dominant force for once is kind of a nice feeling. It’s not often people are sucking up to you.
CIVILIZATION V: GODS & KINGS VERDICT
The real question is though – is this expansion worth your money? We’d say yes. A lot of these improvements were needed to make long protracted games more interesting, and there’s less of a sense of leaping through the eras (especially the pre and early industrial eras) without really getting a taste of them. Some areas still need more fleshing out, and there’s some things that haven’t been touched on at all here that could do with some work, but Civilization V is certainly better with Gods & Kings, and there is plenty of new content here to justify the cost. We hope they don’t wait so long before releasing another meaningful update, but so far, so good.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Becoming a dominant force for once is kind of a nice feeling. It’s not often people are sucking up to you.
