Gods and Kings impressions so far

[Bisqit]

So i know we don't know everything about Gods and Kings but I'm curious as to what you guys think of it so far with the information we do know.

Initially, when I played Civ 5 i hated it. It felt lacking. I gave it a chance a few months later and once you adjust to the new features it has, then it starts to shine. It is difficult to adjust to for a hardcore Civ 4 player but Civ 5 is an awesome base game. Yes the ai has major issues and there is a lack of features but i feel like Gods and Kings will finally add that depth I've been craving and get me hardcore addicted to this game like I was with Civ 4. I put like 500 hours into Civ 4 and 85 into Civ 5. I always thought that if Civ 5 added religion, espionage, better ai and just a more polished game overall that it would top Civ 4. If Gods and Kings lives up to everything its promising then I will make the full switch to Civ 5. I can't play Civ 4 anymore because of the new features of Civ 5 even with the lacking content but I'm confident that this new expansion is catering to the hardcores like most of us and I'll never go back to 4. HOPEFULLY! *fingers crossed*

So what are your guy's thoughts so far? My hope is that Gods and Kings will erase the faults of Vanilla Civ 5 by adding religion, espionage, deeper diplomacy, polishing the ai so they're not idiots, and polishing multiplayer, just overall add the much needed layer of depth. Gods and Kings will hopefully be how Civilization 5 should have been when it originally came out. Don't get me wrong with this post, however, i do love Civ 5. I think it's an awesome base game to build off of. Anyway sorry for the rant, I'm curious about all of your thoughts with this expansion.

 

[sadsquid]

Pretty much the same as you. I feel that Civ V is a good game, with some flaws and omissions. Gods and Kings looks like it'll fix a lot of that.

From what I've seen, religion and (especially) espionage look better than they were in Civ IV. I'm also glad that diplomacy and city states are getting some work done. All the small tweaks and balancing changes made in G&K will be appreciated as well. Oh and the scenarios look cool, seems like they've put quite a lot of effort into the smoky skies one at least. Overall, I'm pretty optimistic about it

 

[AriochIV]

I'm pretty happy with the list of features in Gods & Kings, as I think they fill in some of the empty spots in the game pretty well. I find myself wishing for them as I play Civ V now.

I hope that the reworking of the tech tree will make the later game flow better -- right now it feels really awkward (even though it's much better than it was as released).

I still feel the poor AI and broken (meaning poorly thought out and poorly implemented) diplomacy system are still the weakest parts of the game, and unfortunately I don't expect either to change much in G&K. But even if the AI is just a tiny bit less incompetent or feels just a tiny bit less random, that will be an improvement.

Game performance improvements would be welcome as well, but I'll believe that when I see it.

 

[Jo the spearman]

I didn't hate CiV when it came out but I found the game being more and more bland as I kept playing. The IA just didn't know how to play and the pace/balance was awful. I had to play on immortal to get a seemingly enjoyable game experience.

The patches transcended the game and the CiV we know today is a completely different game than the release one. But it still lacks content, balance and pacing; not mentioning the multiplayer which I stay carefully away from.

Gods and Kings looks like the best expansion to a Civ game to this date. The amount of improvements is outstanding and there's no doubt it will make CiV a great game and closer to the "perfect Civ". But there's still a lot of work to do. We can easily bet on a second or third expansion if Firaxis can't find enough good ideas to make a Civilization VI.

 

[SomethingCronic]

I think this is the game it should have been.

The base game is good (after all the patches), but it seems clear to me they wanted to put some of these GAK features into the game earlier but couldn't - we only have to see the missing artworks such as the evolving advisors to see this.

Not to mention the patch when they put in what the AI's relations status. I remember it being sold to us as 'we don't need the relations notification because you can tell their attitude when talking to other civs' - but there was a big gap in the diplo panel clearly made for showing Civs attitudes to us.

The gold to influence city states is clearly a cop out because they couldn't get a proper system in place in time. If interactions with city states are to be as good as they say then it will transform our relations with them and make the game great.

This isn't a rant BTW. I wouldn't have done 2000+ hours if I didn't like the base, but this certaintly looks like we're getting what we wanted on day one.

 

[MajorPOOP]

I think this is the game it should have been.

The base game is good (after all the patches), but it seems clear to me they wanted to put some of these GAK features into the game earlier but couldn't - we only have to see the missing artworks such as the evolving advisors to see this.

Not to mention the patch when they put in what the AI's relations status. I remember it being sold to us as 'we don't need the relations notification because you can tell their attitude when talking to other civs' - but there was a big gap in the diplo panel clearly made for showing Civs attitudes to us.

The gold to influence city states is clearly a cop out because they couldn't get a proper system in place in time. If interactions with city states are to be as good as they say then it will transform our relations with them and make the game great.

This isn't a rant BTW. I wouldn't have done 2000+ hours if I didn't like the base, but this certaintly looks like we're getting what we wanted on day one.

WOW that's like 3 ish hours a day every day since release

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2

 

[SomethingCronic]

WOW that's like 3 ish hours a day every day since release

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2

1542 Hours according to Steam, I overestimated.

I've left it running throughout the day/overnight a few times too occasionally.

 

[TM Moot]

vanilla civ5 was pants (i can well remember the hype and crushing disappointment)

patches and dlc have helped since

1st XP will help plenty, although if the AI & Diplomacy aren't improved then adding more features won't exactly help

2nd XP will complete the game...then move on to civ6

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I didn't *hate* Civ5, but nor did I *love* it the way I did Civ4 when it was first released. The various mods which came out for Civ5 (like Gazebo's "City State Diplomacy" Mod) definitely helped to increase the like factor though.

That said, I am *definitely* liking what I'm hearing about the new features in G&K-especially religion. This is almost exactly the way I wanted them to pursue religion in Civ4-especially as regards the use of Prophets to found religions (something I achieved with my True Prophets Mod) & allowing religions to be more tailored to your needs (which I *tried* to do via an expanded Religious Civic system). In fact, the Gods & Kings system makes me want to go back & have another go at my own religion mod for Civ4 ;-).
Espionage, too, feels like its "Beyond the Sword", only better-the whole thing of intrigue sounds fascinating, especially in the way it can be utilized to expand diplomacy!

Only one thing disappoints me, though, & that is-even though I'm glad they've reduced the focus on gold for City States, & greatly expanded the mission system (though we've yet to see how expanded it is), I do wish they'd made use of Gazebo's fantastic Mod, & made it an official part of the game!

Aussie.

 

[Babri]

The xpack sounds great especially the addition of religion & changes to combat. However one thing that is worrying me is too genric names for UUs & UBs & some other units like Horse Archer, pyramid, WW1 infantry etc.

I really hope they change it because it negatively effects roleplaying & immersion. Also they have not spoken much about performance improvements, I really hope they have improved it so that I can play Large & Huge maps without waiting too long for turns to finish. I am keeping my hopes high !

 

[Heinage]

I feel a lot of the same things most of you have posted already here. Looks like many of us are in alignment with how we feel about Civ V and what we think GaK will do for the game.

One thing I will still hope for in Civ V one day, sorry make that 2 things, are:
- more realistic trade routes (including international ones), because currently I lack the feeling of globalisation which has been prevalent throughout human history
- expanded UN with resolutions.

These 2 things are both reasons why I believe a second expansion is almost unavoidable, though I would be happy enough to have these added through means of DLC instead (I think I hear a faint "nooooo" coming from some of you on the other side of the world). Reason I say DLC instead of 2nd expansion is because I find a 2nd expansion sometimes adds too much (think...corporations)

 

[TM Moot]

One thing I will still hope for in Civ V one day, sorry make that 2 things, are:
- more realistic trade routes (including international ones), because currently I lack the feeling of globalisation which has been prevalent throughout human history
- expanded UN with resolutions.

2nd Expansion to be titled.. "Merchants and Doctors"

I've been banging about the lack of Trade and Health since forever..

Trade was a HUGE feature throughout history and is still fairly important now
Likewise Health.

I like the fact that civ5 is implementing Religion and Espionage differently to previous versions, hopefully the same can be done for Trade and Health. Add 20 or so secondary leaders and a few new civs and bingo...2nd XP

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I like vanilla V well enough, but it felt like a dumber game than previous iterations. It turns out that I don't much like the AI trying to play like players rather than trying to impersonate historic figures. I still played it a ton though because I had become fatigued of civ IV over the years.

I was hostile to the thought of DLC initially, but I came around to it.

G&K has features that I look forward to using and the new civs sound even more unique and interesting than the DLC civs.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

2nd Expansion to be titled.. "Merchants and Doctors"

I've been banging about the lack of Trade and Health since forever..

Trade was a HUGE feature throughout history and is still fairly important now
Likewise Health.

I like the fact that civ5 is implementing Religion and Espionage differently to previous versions, hopefully the same can be done for Trade and Health. Add 20 or so secondary leaders and a few new civs and bingo...2nd XP

Trade, yeah.

CivV doesn't need Health though, IMHO

 

[smallfish]

No more sword rushes.

 

[DemonMaster]

Hurra, Hurray, Evviva, يا هلا

 

[bcaiko]

I'm very impressed that the developers of the expansion seem to have really taken to heart the problems the community has with the current version of Civ5 and set out to fix those things in addition to the new mechanics (which look awesome). The expansion will likely have its flaws (what game doesn't?), but I'm really digging on the new mechanics, and if they fix even half the issues the developers are targetting, I'll be really stoked.

I like Civ5 a great deal, but I'm truly looking forward to the expansion.

 

[TM Moot]

Trade, yeah.

CivV doesn't need Health though, IMHO

i think Health would add a second balancing factor to go along with Happiness (which you could expand to both global (revolutions!) and city (rebellions!))

Health would make buildings and city placement more critical (not so important now)
and you could always add in plagues, epidemics and pandemics etc..

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

First time i played CiV i found it incredibly emmersive. About a hundred or so games later that's worn off a little but this expansion sounds like a fresh start and a huge rebalance.

I cannot wait for the Steam christmas sale. Damn student loans...

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

I like Civ V and have grown into it really. I haven't played much Civ IV as I was hooked on Civ III for years and very much was involved in the modding community there; in it's turn, Civ III took me a while to grow into after spending a heck of a lot of time playing CivII.

I do think that G + K adds so much more to the game; I can't remember being this excited about a release for many many years and simply can't wait for it to come out.