Will Gods & Kings add depth to the game?

[gladoscc]

I'm excited by the new expansion pack, but actually reading its contents it just seems to add more content, but not more depth.

With the ability to choose what 'traits' you want for your religion, it feels like Social Policies to me, just going around and mix'n'matching advantages. Civ 4's religion is more about diplomacy, positioning, if you want to focus on religion or not, etc, while I imagine in G&K people will just pick Scientific advantages because if you have adequate levels of everything else, science is the way to go and is one of the few ways to beat harder difficulty levels.

Look at the current social policies. Many people have pre-set pathes to take. With religion, it's going to be the same thing. Be ready to see "Most Optimal Religion".. In Civ 4, you're not going to get somebody number crunching and going "You shouldn't try and spread [religion]!"

The new naval system just makes water like land, simplifying it. We all know how much the AI sucks, but I don't think dumbing it down for AIs is the way to go.

And the new combat system seems to be making the current combat AI look less ********. If the current combat AI placed a catapult next to your horseman stupidly, with G&K your horseman won't kill it and the catapult will retreat.. if the AI manages to not block itself.

Overall, I feel the new path just adds novelty factor and won't really increase the depth of CiV beyond a few percentage points.

 

[Uberfrog]

I think it will. Religion as described sounds like it will potentially add more options to accommodate any victory condition: I can see the various Beliefs giving new ways to advance your civ in whatever direction you choose, be it financial (tithes from "Church Property"), military ("Just War", etc), cultural ("Flourishing of the Arts") or straight up expansion (happiness from "Ceremonial Burial"). Adding alternate ways of pursuing these goals adds depth almost by definition, as the new features work towards the existing, integral systems of the game.

I think the "optimal" path to take will depend on the victory you're going for. While it is likely that fairly rigid strategies will emerge, just like for Social Policies, my impression is that that's always going to be true for the diehard strategy guide-writers. I'm looking forward to role-playing a bit more.

In any case, it is certainly deeper than Civ IV's religious system, which was pretty much a straight-up diplomacy modifier, with some bonus gold for the founder and, yes, set bonuses from the religious Civics.

Similarly, while a bunch of the espionage features can just be called "new stuff", the city-state dynamics (coups and elections) are certainly an improvement in depth over the current bribing system.

Combat-wise, I'd say that I never saw why naval units had to follow different rules in the first place. Defending embarked units with warships and having melee units just makes sense. The boost to HP will benefit the AI chiefly, but also human players. I've lost count of the times I've lost my battle line to a stupid mistake. It should also stop the whole 10-archers-killing-a-tank thing.

 

[Brichals]

I think it looks like it can add a lot of depth but will need to be balanced. I don't expect a balanced release. If they can smarten up the combat AI, then you have greatly increased the depth of CiV right there. Civ4 for me was too open ended, I don't want 5 to go that way. More options doesn't make more strategic depth because the options are already too much to comprehend. Like chess, very rigid rules but limitless possibilities still.

 

[Alk3Crimson]

Just because it is comprable to social policies, doesn't mean they are the same thing. Another layer of meta customization gives you more ability to create a "flavor" for your civ. I don't see how it could possibly not add more depth.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Having optimal religion choices is like having optimal wonder choices. They might work until somebody else picks one and you have to choose something else. Unlike Social Policies (which, while I might end up picking the same ones, I never pick in the same order twice), you can't have the same religious benefits in every game.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If you think CivIV's religion mechanic is "deep," I don't know how you could possibly think this new way isn't. Now, it might or might not work, but that's a different story.

 

[craig123]

If you think CivIV's religion mechanic is "deep," I don't know how you could possibly think this new way isn't.

Well some people insist SODs were "deep". It's usually a case of being too biased against Civ5 to accept that any positive changes were made over its predecessor.

 

[theadder]

The game needs a lot more mechanics in play at any given time and it looks as if they are giving us that.

If they keep this up then the game could be very good.

Everyone forgets that Civ IV, when the original game was first released, was missing a lot of the things that everyone remembers from the later expansions.

 

[Babri]

A bit offtopic : The xpack sounds very interesting however I hope that they make major performance enhancements as mid-late game on large map the game takes too much time to process turns which is immersion breaking for me.

 

[CivilizedPlayer]

At the OP:

Civ 4's religion is more about diplomacy, positioning, if you want to focus on religion or not, etc

Well that's exactly what the G&K religion is. Up until the Rennaissance era, one of the main factors in diplomacy is whether or not you share a religion. So in other words, this one is about diplomacy and positioning. The only difference is it has more depth because it allows an additional layer of customizablility (and who doesn't want to be the proud ruler of the Zoroastic Arabian Empire?).

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Pffft. I'm going for a North Korean style God-King cult of personality.

 

[civvver]

To me the bigger issue is revamping social policies (which won't be done) and the tech tree. The tech tree has too few paths. Eventually you get bottlenecked into one or two techs are the end of every era. There's no research variety. Part of that is probably because you can't trade techs also. Tech trading was a gigantic part of civ4. Probably the biggest depth omission from 5.

 

[dexters]

To me the bigger issue is revamping social policies (which won't be done) and the tech tree. The tech tree has too few paths. Eventually you get bottlenecked into one or two techs are the end of every era. There's no research variety. Part of that is probably because you can't trade techs also. Tech trading was a gigantic part of civ4. Probably the biggest depth omission from 5.

I think minor changes will be done. People are already questioning piety's place with religion and how it may perhaps become overpowered.

Clearly they need to make an SP produce some faith, or it would be the only currency in the game that doesn't have a social policy affiliation and piety looks like the place for that to go in.

I would not say Social Policies aren't being changed, between that, Patronage needing a change with city states being changed and Commerce still being a largely useless SP, there's plenty of need to change things up.