Ive just finished my first Brave New World game and would like to share my impressions. Ive played as Brazil on King and went for the new culture/tourism victory, so I will focus my commentary on the new features of the expansion related to this VC.
As Ive said, Ive played only one game and so, needless to say, everything I say in here is based on a very small sample size and is not the absolute truth. Also, Im not a very experienced player (I usually play on King), so forgive me if I say anything dumb.
The new Culture Victory
Overall, I like the BNW culture victory much more than the old one. It encourages me to be more active (and not just wait until the policy trees fill up while clicking next turn), so that I can get great works and artifacts and swap them, in order to get the theming bonuses.
I particularly liked the new archeologist unit, the most fun I had in the game was when I discovered archeology, saw all the antiquity sites in the map and began to spam archeologists so that I could steal all the artifacts before the other civs could get them.
I also enjoyed the ideology system (which, I know, is not totally related to the Culture Victory itself). It certainly has the potential to generate Great Wars and to end good relationships that had lasted the whole game, although that was not what happened in my experience, as I will tell later.
Trade Routes and World Congress
Changing the subject let me now talk about the other new features of the expansion, starting with the trade routes.
I love them. They completely change the way you make money in the game. And, wow, they can give you a lot of money. I also like that you can receive or leak science through them, it makes the game more realistic (on the real world, it would be impossible for a nation to be two eras ahead of anyone else in the world, as it sometimes happen in Civ games). However, the system needs to be fixed for the later parts of the game. The amount of science a civ leaks should be proportional to their science output or something. The way it is now I was producing 1000+ science per turn in the end of the game and leaking 4 science per turn (making it totally irrelevant).
Now, the world congress. Well, I liked it, it certainly made me interact more with the AI diplomatically and the World Fair/Games are a very good inclusion, making hammers a bit more important when going to a cultural victory (although I couldnt get the gold trophy in any of them).
But I guess I was expecting more. Not one time my proposals seemed to have a real affect on the game, and I proposed World ideology and an Embargo on Poland and passed both of them. After those two proposals, the polish, which had a different ideology than I, werent even hostile; this will lead me to my next point. Overall, I fell it was not as immersive a experience as it could have been.
A big problem: Passivity of the AI
In order to make my rant about how passive the AI was, I will briefly explain how the game was and how my opponents behaved.
I was playing on a Standard Continents map, and began in the smaller continent with only Portugal and Morocco. Those were the only two civs I met until I got to the renascence. Portugal was, as me, going for a cultural victory. Morocco seemed to be going the same way, although they had way less culture than me and Maria.
When I got Caravels, I discovered the other Continent, which was at that time divided between the Zulu and Poland, who had conquered 3 or 4 other civs.
I had the weakest army in the game until the late industrial era (by which time victory was already secure), and, still, not one time I was attacked. Worse, not one time I had a relationship worse than neutral.
To test this, I began to be a really bad friend, not fulfilling any of my promises, competing for City-States and so on. And the AI still wanted to be friends.
But then I thought: Portugal and Morocco are supposed to be peaceful leaders. Lets see what happens when I mess up with Poland (which by that time had conquered the Zulu, and thus her entire Continent). The answer was nothing. I even proposed and Embargo on them and they didnt react.
And the passivity was not only related to war. The Ai just didnt seem to be competing to win. To the point that I could have won the game in any of the possible Victory Conditions (apart from domination, I guess). I know this might be because I was playing on level 5 (King). But, come on, that is supposed to be harder than average, and Im not that good of a player. It certainly wasnt that easy in Gods and Kings.
All right, enough of my rant. As Ive said, there were a lot of things to like about Brave New World. And the things I didnt like can be fixed with a patch, so I will allow myself to be confident. Anyway, the new expansion brought a lot o f new stuff, making the game way more interesting and I cant wait to try it again.
As Ive said, Ive played only one game and so, needless to say, everything I say in here is based on a very small sample size and is not the absolute truth. Also, Im not a very experienced player (I usually play on King), so forgive me if I say anything dumb.
The new Culture Victory
Overall, I like the BNW culture victory much more than the old one. It encourages me to be more active (and not just wait until the policy trees fill up while clicking next turn), so that I can get great works and artifacts and swap them, in order to get the theming bonuses.
I particularly liked the new archeologist unit, the most fun I had in the game was when I discovered archeology, saw all the antiquity sites in the map and began to spam archeologists so that I could steal all the artifacts before the other civs could get them.
I also enjoyed the ideology system (which, I know, is not totally related to the Culture Victory itself). It certainly has the potential to generate Great Wars and to end good relationships that had lasted the whole game, although that was not what happened in my experience, as I will tell later.
Trade Routes and World Congress
Changing the subject let me now talk about the other new features of the expansion, starting with the trade routes.
I love them. They completely change the way you make money in the game. And, wow, they can give you a lot of money. I also like that you can receive or leak science through them, it makes the game more realistic (on the real world, it would be impossible for a nation to be two eras ahead of anyone else in the world, as it sometimes happen in Civ games). However, the system needs to be fixed for the later parts of the game. The amount of science a civ leaks should be proportional to their science output or something. The way it is now I was producing 1000+ science per turn in the end of the game and leaking 4 science per turn (making it totally irrelevant).
Now, the world congress. Well, I liked it, it certainly made me interact more with the AI diplomatically and the World Fair/Games are a very good inclusion, making hammers a bit more important when going to a cultural victory (although I couldnt get the gold trophy in any of them).
But I guess I was expecting more. Not one time my proposals seemed to have a real affect on the game, and I proposed World ideology and an Embargo on Poland and passed both of them. After those two proposals, the polish, which had a different ideology than I, werent even hostile; this will lead me to my next point. Overall, I fell it was not as immersive a experience as it could have been.
A big problem: Passivity of the AI
In order to make my rant about how passive the AI was, I will briefly explain how the game was and how my opponents behaved.
I was playing on a Standard Continents map, and began in the smaller continent with only Portugal and Morocco. Those were the only two civs I met until I got to the renascence. Portugal was, as me, going for a cultural victory. Morocco seemed to be going the same way, although they had way less culture than me and Maria.
When I got Caravels, I discovered the other Continent, which was at that time divided between the Zulu and Poland, who had conquered 3 or 4 other civs.
I had the weakest army in the game until the late industrial era (by which time victory was already secure), and, still, not one time I was attacked. Worse, not one time I had a relationship worse than neutral.
To test this, I began to be a really bad friend, not fulfilling any of my promises, competing for City-States and so on. And the AI still wanted to be friends.
But then I thought: Portugal and Morocco are supposed to be peaceful leaders. Lets see what happens when I mess up with Poland (which by that time had conquered the Zulu, and thus her entire Continent). The answer was nothing. I even proposed and Embargo on them and they didnt react.
And the passivity was not only related to war. The Ai just didnt seem to be competing to win. To the point that I could have won the game in any of the possible Victory Conditions (apart from domination, I guess). I know this might be because I was playing on level 5 (King). But, come on, that is supposed to be harder than average, and Im not that good of a player. It certainly wasnt that easy in Gods and Kings.
All right, enough of my rant. As Ive said, there were a lot of things to like about Brave New World. And the things I didnt like can be fixed with a patch, so I will allow myself to be confident. Anyway, the new expansion brought a lot o f new stuff, making the game way more interesting and I cant wait to try it again.
