Managed to breathe life into a nearly dead game. The religion and Spy system made the game a lot more fun to play. The religion was entertaining to observe as multiple countries would send ministers to others and spread their religion like a plague. It was like a silent war. It has diplomatic repercussions of course, as many don't like me going into their town and preaching. The spy system was exciting and fun at first, but quickly died out. It's still a very useful tool, and you really need it to prevent attacks and such, but it wasn't very fun after a while. It got rather annoying that other countries would always steal your city state with their spy and there is nothing you can really do about it, as there is no way to fight another spy in a city-state. The new civs were interesting to learn, and I enjoy most of them over the original provided ones. The new scenarios were shockingly fun, where as the old ones always seemed very dull. The new units made the game a lot more competitive, making that small lead in technology really pay off rather than everyone having the same units 4-5 branches behind you. The water battles were far more fun and required a lot more work and strategy than before. I used to never use naval units unless it's required, but now I can't live without them. It's really fun. I love the new wonders, and technologies as well. All these additions certainly drag on the game on a lot longer, but it's more worthwhile and less dull.… Expand

This game is like freaking crack cocaine. Hell, worse than that. It's so god damn addicting it's ridiculous. It's multiplayer just makes matters worse. In less than a week I've clocked 25 hours, and that's only because I could control myself and take breaks every now and then. DO NOT play if you have something else to do.

The new expansion turns Civilization 5 into a modern, improved version of Civilization 4.

That is, overall, a good thing.

It is a real shame that we have to pay for what should have been in the first place.

Civilization 5 is an absolute blast to play, I must admit.

One of the best strategy games of all times !
Highly addictive, great quality, the only problem I can find in this game is that once you start playing it, you just can't leave it alone

A solid expansion, well worth the cash. Should it have come with the game at release? Probably, but it's probably better they waited and sorted out the bugs so we'd have it to play in the meantime. Religion was very well integrated, better than in IV. The espionage is a nice touch, doesn't take up too much time per turn but your decisions are very important (much like a lot of Civ V's aspects). Nice additions to the tech tree, definitely more balanced. To all the people whining about long turn times and glitchy multiplayer, I have yet to experience any of these issues. Get a better internet service provider, or just get a better plan cause I have yet to drop a game with this expansion. As for the game chugging, upgrade your computer or try overclocking a bit, mine runs smooth as a whistle on max settings AND online. Noobs are still just angry cause they can't stack anymore lol. It's pure strategic bliss. Get it and your weekend will go by wayy too quickly.… Expand

To start this off: I am a HUGE Civ fan. I listen to Civ podcasts all the time, i watch let's plays and I have over 500 hours in Civ 4 and 700 in Civ 5. I am a civ nut. If you don't like Civ 5 this probably won't change anything for you and I highly doubt anything ever will, honestly. But if you do like Civ 5 this expansions is great. So far I've played it almost 10 hours playing 3 games with 3 different Civ's. The new religion is really cool and offers a lot of diversity to how you play the game. It really opens up a ton of strategies that weren't possible before. The espionage system, sadly, is not as cool. It's still alright because it allows you to do some unorthodox strategies that you simply wouldn't have been able to do before espionage, but ultimately it is very shallow. The new units and combat revamp add a lot of life and depth back into war and the city state changes were all around a huge upgrade. Definitely get this if you like Civ 5, it will make you fall in love again because of all the new strategies you are able to do.… Expand

After the release of Gods and Kings, Civ V has become one of the best turned-based strategy games of all time. Don't listen to the Civ III and IV fans who complained about this game earlier. It's a fantastic game. The only cons of this game as of the latest update is that this game requires a high powered pc to play on higher settings, and the game is almost too addicting! ;) ***ALSO, IF YOU GAVE THIS GAME A 0, YOU ARE AN IDIOT, PERIOD. UNLESS THE GAME ABSOLUTELY DIDN'T WORK, A ZERO IS NOT WARRANTED. METACRITIC NEEDS TO REMOVE THE ABILITY TO GIVE ZEROS TO KEEP IMMATURE CHILDREN FROM RUINING THE INTEGRITY OF USER REVIEW SCORES.***… Expand

My love for the Civilization series started as a kid playing the first Civilization on my Amiga. I've seen features appear and disappear trough the various installments, but never did so many features go missing as it did between the forth and fifth game. Therefore I was excited when this expansion was announced, as it was bringing back espionage and religion, two things that had in fact been introduced in an expansion to Civilization 4. The question; Is it worth buying something that maybe should have been included from the start? In short, YES! This expansion adds another layer of strategy to the game, and also fixes some of the imbalances in the tech tree and dominant strategies. Also worth mentioning is the 9 interesting new nations that are focused on either city states or the new religion mechanic "faith". There are also a bunch of new units that "plugs" the gap between the late 19th century and the start of the 20th century. All in all, a great expansion to an already great game!… Expand

The wonderful thing about this expansion is that even though it feels a bit light by "expansion" standards, the civs that are introduced with it make the game so much more colorful. The longer you play against these new civs, the more ingrained their personalities and tendencies become in your strategy. It's still not perfect, as diplomacy is still broken. Adding more civs to a broken diplomacy system just makes me more angry, but I can look past that...I usually get my way in the end. Religion feels unnecessary, but ultimately fun to use as a domineering dictator! Espionage (the use of spies) is a slow, drawn-out mechanic and can vary up diplomatic relationships, but ultimately doesn't impact the end-game. If you are a fan of Civ 5 and find yourself coming back to start new games over and over, buy this expansion. I can't imagine playing Civ 5 without it now that I've purchased it.… Expand

This expansion wasn't intended to "fix" these features of the game you didn't enjoy, but rather add and implement new features into the game and they did it quite well. Every review I saw below was from people that disliked the original Civilization V, so how could they even like the expansion? If you enjoyed Civ V, then you'll love Gods & Kings. It adds some variety to the formula you've been tiring yourself on for hundreds of hours over the course of two years. It breathes new life into the game, and i foresee myself staying up until 3 AM once again, playing this game. Now, the espionage feature is a bit lacking, very limited, but its intended to make it possible to redeem yourself from a slow start. This feature is more of a sympathy thing with a few perks in between. Now, Religion is where it gets interesting. With faith you can produce any of the other resources like gold or culture, to add a new twist on how to receive these items. this is ultimately effective and plays off well. So, like I said above, if you loved Civ V, then you'll love the expansion. If you didn't like Civ V, you won't like the expansion... It's as easy as that.… Expand

Playing on a huge map with friends (if you want a long game you can disable all other victory types but domination and enable complete kills), the lush terrain which makes the game pleasing to look at, the hexagon grid forcing everyone to move naturally and making combat more tactical - it actually feels like you're playing a board game on a massive scale (The Campaign for North Africa anyone?), city population slowly increasing, cultural borders slowly filling out the land, religions slowly spreading and their effects being noticed in the later game, the tech tree slowly being explored, everyone beginning to diverge into their victory path and unique gaming style, the endless combinations possible with 30+ civilizations and the tons of terrain options available... God I love this game. It's nothing but number crunching/ bit mining (I don't know what to call it), it's like nurturing a plant that you've sowed. I think turn-based strategy games should be this intuitive and easy to grasp - like chess (just learn how each of the six pieces move and the concept of check and checkmate, and you're set for ~10^120 unique games of chess). I never seriously played Civ IV because it was hideous to look at (although I do miss the narration by Spock and the classical music... but I could do without the things I thought were stupid from my limited play of the game: how your city would riot if you took a different tech path or something like that) or any of the other previous Civs. Before anyone calls me a casual I'll have you know that I also enjoy games like Crusader Kings II and Dwarf Fortress which I do think are more complicated and deeper than any Civ game.… Expand

This is a great expansion for Civ 5. It makes the game a lot better. It adds new technologies, balances the social policy tree and adds religion to the game. If you liked Civ 5 this expansion is a mus have. If you did not like Civ 5 you will not like this expansion either.

Civ5 was a disappointment, but since then with the patches and DLC's, and now with this expansion, the game is finally standing up as an alternative to Civ4 BtS. Religion and espionage is revamped for the better. Religion now give you options to help you toward your victory goals and not as boring as it was in Civ4. On the other hand, espionage is now done in 1 screen but the simplicity make spying more streamlined. Many bugs was fixed, and exploits was taken care of in the policy trees and tech tree. AI's diplomacy has improved a lot, and the new combat system is getting better. They also changed the little things to make the gaming experience easier. For example, units gifted by city states are put right at your city so you don't have to walk them around anymore. Also AI's come up to you to renew open border and trade deals. Overall, all the devs efforts on Civ5 up until now deserve a 10 from me.… Collapse

Overall a great edition to the series, but about ten dollars overpriced. Even with all it's overhauls and additions, I don't think that the publisher has much legitimacy to charge anything more than $25 or $20 (not sure what the dev costs where but I doubt they were enormous). Unless you're a big MP fan, wait till this goes on sale. Now content... Religion and Espionage have been integrated quite well but don't feel very satisfying as they probably should (still better than magically founding religions in Civ4 though). I like the faith system, it's simple yet varied, as well as the complex spy actions. One of the nicer changes I think is the naval combat, now with Great Admirals, more ship types and greater bombardment power. Taking a City-State by pummeling it with frigates and then sweeping in with privateers to storm it's docks is a very satisfying feeling. New Civs and music are awesome and fresh, adding a great deal of variety to the game-play and audio pleasure. As far as AI goes, I don't see much of a difference, although, it does seem more organized and a bit more buffed so good enough I suppose. The new tech tree is fantastic, it feels much more realistic and intuitive than the previous one and allows for a much more interesting modern and ancient ages as far as wars go (composite bowman, Gatling/machine guns, WWI Units etc.) Don't worry too much about re-balancing, there's not too much and not too little if you know what I mean. Bottom-line, if you're a hardcore fan or a big MP player, buy it! If you're a causal player or unsure, wait till it goes on sale. Don't miss it though, for me it pretty much completes the game, though the edition of corporations and space exploration would satisfy my last wishes for content. This is definitely a great step forward from clunky and easily-cheapened Civ4 (although, it will always be a classic, and a good one at that). Happy Ruling.… Expand

A few questionable design choices exist here and there, like the social policies being completely flat bonuses, but overall, it's a very fun game that's easy to get into and hard to master.

After 6 hours of gameplay, I can say that I am satisfied with Gods and Kings. It may not be perfect, but it takes an "ok" game and make it a good one. I even find the religion thing as a whole better than it was in Civ 4. The level of customization for your civilization is great. Its not just more gold and happiness anymore. They also made slight changes to the tech tree, making it harder to get Civil Service with the Great Library. Diplomacy is enhanced and the AI is better at waging wars. Maybe my mind is playing me but it seems that the espionage stuff is more like Civ 3 than Civ 4, which I find a little bit disappointing. I prefer the spy as a unit on the map, discovering blurred tiles and acting on the field, not only in cities. But nevertheless, I am looking forward to test it at a lan party with my friends this weekend.… Expand

My history with Civ: I have played all Civ series and Alpha centauri.

After first playing Civ V I thought it wasn't good enough of a series for the masterpiece Civ IV was. There were a lot of bugs, balance issues and a wierd diplomacy system. But after spending some time to understand it I begun to think that it has more tactical value than IV because of the combat system. It reminds me of Panzer general in some way. The expansion addresses a whole lot of issues that the Vanilla had: - great improvement in the AI (it will no longer just walk into the range of my units, also combines his units in a good manner) - Diplomacy far more intelligible - RA spam is no more - Open border selling span is gone because now you need an embassy and it comes later into the tech tree - Religion is far less passive than in IV and has a lot more diversity - City states are no more easily bought with money but you really need to do quests now.

Over all i think the developers really tried to balance it and listened to the community. I hope more people will try it out… Expand

Being a loyal Civ fan since the beginning, I played five games of the original Civ V. The warfare system was vastly improved, but the economy was well-out of balance, there were some bugs, and--for me at least--it lacked intricacy that needed to be there to flesh things out. Civilization: Gods & Kings improves a lot with the original. The economy is vastly improved and better balanced (mainly due to the addition of "belief benefits"), with the religion aspect adding a great deal of detail to what was previously a little too basic.

Added to this, new units are inserted, AND they are inserted with some measure so that they improve the balance of warfare rather than overwhelming it. The addition of an Admiral was also a nice tack-on.

The spy system is the one thing I am disappointed with in this game. It feels clunky and isolated from the rest of the game--perhaps because it is. Admittedly, it does add just a little bit more complexity alongside the rest of the expansion, and this all goes towards improving Civ V significantly.… Expand

Game is outstanding like all games from Sid Meier. Innovations brings new solutions and also brings something new in this serie. The only minus is no religion and espionage.