Why BNW?

[I was NC]

I realize it's an old question (been away from Civ for a few years), and there are official/PR answers, but I'm curious to know players' perspectives. Having BNW is a requirement for the Community Patch, which sounds really good.

My play style is balanced, like to get a core early four cities, build a several wonders, have a few wars, expand late for strategic resources, and usually quit once it's clear who will win.

 

[dasaard200]

When I bought the Game in '14, it came with G&K; so i disabled G&K to learn vanilla, the rock bottom basics : movement, combat, tech tree, 1 UPT, etc .

After a while, I moved up to G&K and discovered the comments and discussions pages; and WOW, G&K was a marked improvement ! This carried me through Chieftian and Warlord for a few months, smoothing out some rough edges in my style .

A few dollars later, BNW was had, and it IS (currently) the cat's pajamas !! Having grown up with RISK, AvalonHill, and TSR boardgames, I kept thinking to myself "ONLY 4 LOUSY CITIES ??, AND ONLY 8 TECH TREE TRADE ROUTES ??, (expletives DELETED!) I have MY CIV going to take over the World !".

I MAY raze a city for a really good reason, one Game I had the Polynesians had up to 8 cities AND NO PORTS !! That was a fractal Pangaea, but this was rediculous !! Large and Huge maps and *MODS !* have added spice to my Prince and lately King Games; Looting is a good way to win a Cultural VC . I turn time and Diplomacy VCs OFF; too short and boring .

Atilla, Gengis, and Cheops are pikers; they never think BIG ENOUGH !!

 

[Redaxe]

There is a lot of content in BNW that is missing in GnK - is that what you are asking?

For instance - more wonders, units, techs, civs, scenarios (Conquest of the New World Deluxe is a must - its the equivalent of Civ 5 Colonization)
- A revamped culture victory with the tourism mechanic
- Trade Routes are a welcome addition and are tightly integrated with nearly every aspect of the game
- Ideologies which help keep the late game from getting dull (sort-of)

Either way the game is far better with BNW - its dirt cheap now so just get it.

 

[I was NC]

There is a lot of content in BNW that is missing in GnK - is that what you are asking?

Yes, exactly, thank you very much!

 

[genyl]

not only adds content but also rebalances the game significantly. It is a must.

 

[Redaxe]

not only adds content but also rebalances the game significantly. It is a must.

The re-balancing was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. Playing Tradition with 4 cities seemed for most of the time to be the overwhelming approach to playing Civ5 BNW. Liberty was very map dependent and Honor and Piety trees are not worth bothering with (unless you are roleplaying) - otherwise they hinder your game.
Also a lot of civs had pretty lacklustre balancing - France lost its aggressive edge, Assyria is disappointing, Byzantium and Iraqoius were both terrible etc...

That is probably the one criticism of BNW - it tends to favor small 4 city empires. By the time a larger empire starts to outperform a smaller civ the game is basically over.

Trade Routes - which I loved the concept do have the problem of being biased towards small civs. In BNW they removed most of the gold from tile yields and gave it to trade routes - but a 4 city civ gets as many trade routes as a 20 city civ so the larger civ has to manage with less gold income which isn't fair.
So there are a few annoying imbalances. But on the whole the game is a big improvement - its worth it to try the culture victory alone. And as a I said the Conquest of the New World Deluxe is the best scenario in the game and possibly one of the best in the series.