Civ V: Gods and Kings Review

I'm putting on my Gamer Girl hat for the day and giving you my thoughts on Civilization V: Gods and Kings.  This expansion came out several months ago, but I was too busy to try it out (see: moving family 800+ miles to a new city, husband with a broken leg, book deadlines, etc).  My darling children gave me the expansion as Steam gift and I've been playing since Christmas Day.

Civ: V was already a great game, especially on a new, top-of-the-line, gaming system.  But, like all games and all RTS games in particular, there were annoying AI glitches and bugs.  The Gods & Kings expansion has gone a long way toward fixing these issues. Enemy civilizations will no longer ask for a declaration of friendship in one turn and denounce you the next turn. There are fewer "pointless upgrades" in both technology and city expansion.  There are more paths to victory.

The biggest improvement with this expansion, in my opinion, is the increased usefulness and variety of city states.  Prior to the Gods & Kings expansion, I would ignore cultural city states unless I was trying to a specific cultural victory achievement.  Maritime city states were merely prime targets for invasion as soon as possible.  After the expansion and the addition of mercantile and religious city state types, I've found myself actively engaged in winning over these "other" players.  City state missions have also become more worthwhile and varied, allowing players seeking scientific, cultural or diplomatic victories more routes to success.

The addition of religions and spies to the game has increased the complexity of the game, but not in such a way as to impede play.  I enjoyed trying to mold my state-sponsored religion to fit my civilizations goals. The faith based cultural benefits were useful and fun to tinker with. I absolutely adore using spies to fix elections in city states, steal technology, and capture other spies. If I could actually sabotage wonder construction or technology advancement, I'd think I'd be in RTS gamer heaven.

This is a true expansion, not downloadable fluff content.  The game has been changed in fundamental ways that invite a player to go back and play a previous civilization or map.  There are plenty of new civilizations to play, new wonders to build, and the technology tracks have been overhauled to be more comprehensive and fitting to their respective eras.

Civilization V: Gods & Kings is a comprehensive, well designed expansion to a masterpiece strategy game.  I highly recommend visiting the Steam store and downloading your copy.