Gods & Kings, the official
add-on for Civilization V, doesn’t bring too much change in the game play of
the game, but it brings a couple of new elements for the strategy. The main new
elements brought by Gods and Kings, and these are also the most important one
of this pack, are: the reintroduction of religion and espionage. Plus, this
pack comes also with nine new civilizations: Byzantium, Carthage, Ethiopia,
Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, the Celts, the Huns and the Mayans. But more about
all these you will find out in this article - check new source.
The reintroduction of religion
bring to the game a new resource, Faith, besides gold, happiness and culture.
In order to gather Faith points you will have to build temples and shrines
which will allow you to choose a new pantheon. After that there will appear the
possibility to found a new religion from the eleven available, each and every
religion having available a number of secondary characteristics, called
Beliefs. A nation can have up to five Beliefs, unique once elected – no other
religion can reuse them, each of them has bonuses or resources, lands or
structures, to spread in an effective way your faith using the missionaries and
the great prophets. Obviously, the religion has an influence in the game on
life, just like in real life can create alliance or destroy them.
The second strong point of the
game, espionage – unfortunately it hasn’t much impact as we expected. We don’t
have spies on the map like in Total War, simply a screen from which you can
send an agent in a rival city or a counter-espionage action. Thus, a spy can
steal information, technology or arrange election to bring at power one more
friendly union. However, these action don’t have a big impact, as the religion
has that is taken into consideration when it comes to diplomatic choices. Spies
also offer you occasional information about who is plotting against you, but
details are not useful to prepare effective attack.
Visually the game hasn’t changed
a lot, the soundtrack doesn’t bring anything new and the multiplayer options
will not attract you too much if you aren’t the type to wait patiently for the
actions of others.
Overall, Gods and Kings is a
normal add-on, a natural addition even if a little late for a game that already
has a couple of years on the market. But, in big lines this is a good game.