Honestly, after two half-playthroughs, I'm not thrilled with Brave New World so far. Two of the new systems -- trade route and great works -- seem like they add more fiddlyness than fun. I'm spending lots of time staring at the Possible Trade Routes screen and the Manage Great Works screen. And for what? Honestly, I think I liked how gold and culture worked in Gods and Kings better.
Well, to be fair, the Culture Victory via "Utopia Project" was pretty dull before Brave New World. But I'm not convinced that an Amphitheater that gives 1 and has one slot for a Great Work of Writing that will give 2 (and also we call two of it "tourism" as well) after I build a Writer's Guild and earn enough great people points for a Great Writer... is an improvement over that an Amphitheater that simply gives me 3 . Why all the extra work?
And trade routes...
* Why is it such a pain to protect my trade routes from random barbarians, unless I want to spend tedious minutes moving my units back and forth every single turn?
* Where should I build Marketplaces or the East India Trading Company? Will that be the difference between the AI making a trade route with that city vs. with another civilization? There's no way to tell!
* Would building a Caravansary/Harbor in this city allow it to reach a new destination that would be more profitable than one of my existing trade routes? There's no way to tell!
Things I like:
* The restructured social policy trees. Piety and Commerce had split focuses in Gods and Kings. This wasn't such a huge problem until they added bonuses for completing a tree, which made me feel bad when I only needed half of Piety or half of Commerce. So I like that they split off Aesthetics from Piety and Exploration from Commerce.
Things I haven't gotten to try yet, but look promising:
* The new World Congress/UN.
* Ideologies.
I suspect that this expansion, like the base game and Gods and Kings, will require one or two more patches before it reaches its full potential:
1. More clear UI and up-to-date Civilopedia.
2. Some pain points addressed (like the tedium of protecting trade routes).
3. Inevitable balance issues.
4. Inevitable "pacing" improvements. (Are techs usually coming too slow or too fast at certain eras?)
5. AI improvements.
6. Diplomacy improvements. Trade routes don't seem to interact with diplomacy at all, which is weird.
Well, to be fair, the Culture Victory via "Utopia Project" was pretty dull before Brave New World. But I'm not convinced that an Amphitheater that gives 1 and has one slot for a Great Work of Writing that will give 2 (and also we call two of it "tourism" as well) after I build a Writer's Guild and earn enough great people points for a Great Writer... is an improvement over that an Amphitheater that simply gives me 3 . Why all the extra work?
And trade routes...
* Why is it such a pain to protect my trade routes from random barbarians, unless I want to spend tedious minutes moving my units back and forth every single turn?
* Where should I build Marketplaces or the East India Trading Company? Will that be the difference between the AI making a trade route with that city vs. with another civilization? There's no way to tell!
* Would building a Caravansary/Harbor in this city allow it to reach a new destination that would be more profitable than one of my existing trade routes? There's no way to tell!
Things I like:
* The restructured social policy trees. Piety and Commerce had split focuses in Gods and Kings. This wasn't such a huge problem until they added bonuses for completing a tree, which made me feel bad when I only needed half of Piety or half of Commerce. So I like that they split off Aesthetics from Piety and Exploration from Commerce.
Things I haven't gotten to try yet, but look promising:
* The new World Congress/UN.
* Ideologies.
I suspect that this expansion, like the base game and Gods and Kings, will require one or two more patches before it reaches its full potential:
1. More clear UI and up-to-date Civilopedia.
2. Some pain points addressed (like the tedium of protecting trade routes).
3. Inevitable balance issues.
4. Inevitable "pacing" improvements. (Are techs usually coming too slow or too fast at certain eras?)
5. AI improvements.
6. Diplomacy improvements. Trade routes don't seem to interact with diplomacy at all, which is weird.