Is this expansion any good? Review Brave New World

[Greasy Dave]

This game is fantastic. Updates will need to tweak balance, and I really hope they change tourism up a bit - I'm not a fan of mechanics that only serve to place negative on others, they are mostly invisible and less enjoyable. That said it still gets a 10/10 for me.

The main issue I had with vanilla and G&K was that I *never* played a competitive game into the modern era. Either was winning by a ton, or losing by a ton. In my first two BNW games it has remained competitive into the modern ear, with various civs pursusing various victory conditions, and it really felt like a strategy game right until I made a decisive move for the win.

Personally, I think this is due to the LACK of war mongering. With wars more rare, and more difficult, it means less runaway games caused by a few early victories. Personally, I love it.

this.

i cant agree with the criticisms about the ai being too peaceful. the ai doesnt dow as
octen as it did eary game. but it plays a smarter and much tougher type of hardball. i am coming to the end of an immortal continents game, alex owns all the cs's and tberes nothing i can do about it, theodora is set up for a culture victory, and i am building apollo. there is no need for dows to make any part of tbis game any more exciting. i play offline because i dont want any fixes or new balancing. what i bought is already 10 out 10. if gaming heaven was tbe louvre this game would be hanging in it

 

[eric_]

i cant agree with the criticisms about the ai being too peaceful. the ai doesnt dow as
octen as it did eary game. but it plays a smarter and much tougher type of hardball. i am coming to the end of an immortal continents game, alex owns all the cs's and tberes nothing i can do about it, theodora is set up for a culture victory, and i am building apollo. there is no need for dows to make any part of tbis game any more exciting.

Agreed 100%. There's more than one way to win, which means there's more than one way to be aggressive, and the AIs certainly seem to be living by that in my first game.

I also agree with the Snuffleupagus quote you pulled that it feels more like a game of competing, interacting strategies than mad dash to break away with the lead.

 

[eric_]

Still there is no point in discussing features that everybody loves.

Except to, y'know, share ideas about how to use them to win .

 

[pilot00]

I was expecting the new expansion with open arms and it didn't fail to deliver. All the concepts and ideas that they included are great (though the WC had me feeling I was playing Alpha Centauri again ).

However firaxis didn't disappoint again on the 'bugs and fails department'. The game needs some serious Ironing, somethings are impossible to even think that they didn't notice them. Anyways, as it is Id give it a 7, as it was supposed to be, Id give it an 8.5.

 

[Teleon22]

I gave it a 9/10. My experience might be different from yours however as I frequently play with a group of eight other people at a sent time, twice a week, for about two hours. Therefore, the addition of the World Congress, trade routes and the new focus on culture is simply awesome!!! Allow me to elaborate.

One of the eight guys I play with frequently is a warmongering son of a gun, and a few of the other guys and me started to fall prey to his vast armies raiding our territories and conquest of allied city states.

Brave New World however has empowered us through diplomacy to fight back without directly having to combat his typically superior numerical forces. In the first session of the World Congress my ally, was selected as the host and I had the second most delegates. We imposed a trade embargo and the high tax rate on units. Both resolutions were carried.

Our warmongering friend was clearly hurt by these resolutions as we could see a very clear drop in his GPT income. This in turn allowed us the breathing room we needed; even with our warmongering friend’s attempts on our trade routes.

The game is not yet over… however, I must say that I’m really, very much enjoying the new features.

 

[eric_]

That's awesome Teleon...I would be curious to know if/how it would affect your friend's strategy if in the early game a small alliance of builders flooded his territory with semi-lucrative (for him) trade routes...if he declares on one of you, you all declare on him, simply to deprive him of all that income, and then turtle/defend each other.

 

[GIO888]

If BNW was a girl her kiss would taste like French vanilla ice cream.

 

[DeutschDachs]

I like it a lot but now it feels like the beginning of the game is more cluttered and not as open ended as it was before. Warmongering seems like a terrible option, so the ancient era is always setting up trade religion and culture. Same for the AI. Not many early surprises anymore. Before you had to work for a cultural victory, now I feel you can just decide to have one midway through the game if your production is decent. Diplomaticvvictory is still just buying up city states right before the election. Idk i feel like I learned it all so fast and now there'snothing left .

Still great 8/10

 

[PrimoXanthous]

10/10 (I just didn't mind the bugs)
Before, After 5 months of playing GnK i Cant even make it through Industrial, its either Start a New Game or Quit to Windows. But now BNW give you a reason to stay late till Information and future Era. And also BNW adds a lots of new stuff which greatly improve the game, i really like digging artifacts all around the world and boosting my tourism with it. thanks Firaxis, well done

 

[Altisma]

7/10

The combat is still spam the archers, now its just a gold deficit to have early wars, the tech tree is still messed up, and the Science Victory still dominates over the other victory types. The new stuff is great and all but if you can't fix the current problems with the game through a patch then a expansion isn't going to receive perfect 9/10s from people who know how to play the game.

 

[NotSure]

Wideness and warmongering have been punished too much, and the AI is not aggressive enough.

If it weren't for this it would easily be a 10/10 for me. The new culture features are brilliant and the trade routes are a fun improvement. 7/10.

 

[dexters]

7/10

The combat is still spam the archers, now its just a gold deficit to have early wars, the tech tree is still messed up, and the Science Victory still dominates over the other victory types. The new stuff is great and all but if you can't fix the current problems with the game through a patch then a expansion isn't going to receive perfect 9/10s from people who know how to play the game.

Science victory actually takes much longer now. Diplo is much faster.

As for Warring being about spamming archers, I'm not sure what you mean. There was never any extended or large discussion about this ever being a problem, though ranged units under human control always can be quite devastating.

AI is much smarter about targeting your siege units and retreating now though. Obviously, still an AI, but I'm not even sure we're playing the same game.

 

[pilot00]

but I'm not even sure we're playing the same game.

Indeed, I have reached the same conclusion with 90% of the residents here

 

[NBAfan]

Civ 5 is a fantastic game for me now with BNW. It gets a 9/10 for me. Some dumb interface things keep it from getting my best score, but it's really good.

 

[TheHanzou]

I think this second addon is bad (at least for multiplayer). I cant really understand where the people that give it 10/10 etc are coming from. Here is why i think its bad:

1. Issues with stability and crashes remain the same, game freezes etc are the same as in G&K. Multiplayer Lobby and Options have been improved, but actually only very minor changes compared to what we should have been getting.

2. G&K added Religion and Espionage, which both where completely new mechanics that gave the game more depth. BNW did not add any meaningful mechanics. Caravans dont add anything to the game at all for multiplayer. They are just your +gold or +food now and as a mechanic offer next to no depth for the game.

3. World Congress: World Congress is the only halfway descent feature, but unfortunately it made all multiplayer games exept for FFA games unplayable. Whoever gets to it first (alone or as a team) has automatically won the game since they can select themselves as World Leaders which cannot be stopped by the other player/team. Compare that go G&K, where you would have to build the united nations, but couldnt vote for yourself, which made it a non option in 1vs1/team games etc, but atleast it wasnt broken.

4. almost no new Units: G&K revamped the combat a big deal and added nice new units. BNW did nothing. IT feels like barely anything changed. And its not like there was no room for new units, there was PLENTY of room for new units and Unit strenght reworks which could have improved the balance and add more depth to the game.

5. No revamp of tech tree: G&K revamped the tech tree a good deal, while BNW revamped almost nothing. And in some cases revamps were really needed.

6. Culture victory got even worse for multiplayer: in G&K other players couldnt stop your culture victory easily, they had to fight you over it. With BNW the problem is Tourism is fighting vs Culture. Tourism should be fighting vs Tourism. The way it currently is in multiplayer, the mechanic is absolutely ignorable and useless.

7. No Balance adjustments: Neither the ranged vs melee, nor the Civs, nor the broken Wonders, nor the underpowered useless ones got any fixes. Nothing got any fixes. Half the Civs are still useless, the top 10% are still miles ahead of all others. Spain is still broken, The great wall is still ******ed etc etc.

8. Social policies are still as dumb as ever later in the game. While the early game is now somewhat fixed, the later social policy trees still suffer from the same problem as they did in G&K. No point getting more culture than to finish 1 tree since the later trees offer so little its not worth spending any production on culture buildings. This approach was actually made even more viable now that you get free policies when you choose an ideologie.

So for Multiplayer ,why is it good? No new units, no new techs, Civ balance as bad as always, Culture even worse, Civs and Tech tree as unbalanced as ever, Caravans add no depth, World Congress is broken. Netcode and stability as bad as always. Why is BNW good? Because of pitboss? thats not a BNW feature, it was promised for launch.

Am i missing something? G&K was really a nice addon and it rekindled my love for Civ5 in Multiplayer a big deal, but with BNW i already have no interest in playing anymore because it feels like absolutely nothing changed. We bought it with 4 people, played it once and havent touched it since, its just not interesting at all.

 

[mosin]

i like trade routes because it gave much needed room for my horse units to maneuver and cut off.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I give the concepts a pretty high mark, but the AI being so passive means that IMO, it's basically not fun to play atm. So I averaged the score to 5.

If they patch in some sort of opportunism into the AI, it will probably be a 9. But for now, the game is much less interesting than G&K for me.

 

[Disgustipated]

I may have rated mine too soon. I'm kind of burned out on this expansion already. I wish I hadn't bought it. The same issues that caused me to quit before and go back to Civ4 are causing me to do it again. And I really only have about 15 hours into this expansion.

The biggest thing is turn times. I know you can't expect the ai to work instantaneously, but being limited to standard maps isn't fun. Even standard map turn times are excessive. If only I could find something to do during those long turn times. I may have to put this game on hold until I get a supercomputer.

Secondly I have yet to finish a game. The game isn't very fun past the industrial age. Often times I don't even get that far. But my biggest issue in this game may be that I suck at it. For some reason Civ4 is an easier game for me. I can't seem to get my empire and my economy going in this game, especially with this expansion (which has forced me to play a lower difficulty than I used to).

 

[bevelnator]

9/10
A couple gripes (Lake Victoria not counting as freshwater for farms mostly) but it is amazing in what it adds to the Civ series.

Alright who voted 1/10

 

[Clement]

For me it's an eight, compared to what i thought of it when Civ 5 first came it's really been improved, it's still far too simplistic in many areas like diplomacy, it still feels like a board-game and has arbitrary design such as the indestructable cities, we also had to wait two years just for international trade-routes, the game as it is now though is an enjoyable experience so congratulations to the developers, frankly they deserve a medal for turning around and salvaging what i feel was a pretty awful game on it's release.