This expansion adds two very interesting features which made Civ 5 much less entertaining than its predecessor. However, as far as I've gone into this game, it feels like the Social Policies when announced: interesting but actually severely lacking. It doesn't bring back the challenge from Civ 4, it's just another bunch of dumbed down features, fitting for a dumbed down game.

In a few words: don't even bother if you were disappointed with Civ 5.… Expand

I went into this with low expectations. I heard that the expansion didn't fix any of the AI problems or add anything really new to the mix. I'd like to explain why that's wrong. You start of the game and you off the bat see that there are 9 new civilizations to meet with. They are all well done in how they look and sound besides maybe the Mayans which are a tad lackluster. Religion is the most paramount thing in the beginning. You start off by making a pantheon, which later leads to creating your own religion. The only thing that I would have liked with the religions is the option to import a picture of my own instead of picking one of the main religious symbols for already held religions. At first, it seems as though religion does nothing. This made me really disappointed for a while, until later when I had converted whole countries over to my side and they were steadfast allies through thick and thin. However, places that already have a religion to spread will become very upset if you spread yours in their land. I'll come back to that near the end of the review. After you play with religion for a bit, spies come out of the woodworks. The spy menu is one of the reasons this isn't a perfect expansion. It looks and feels like a facebook game in the way it's handled. This would bother me much more if it wasn't for the fact that, once you get used to it, it's kind of nice to not have to manually tell the spies where to go. (They are spies after all. You should just tell them where to go and what to do.) They can steal technology and tip off players on oncoming death by war. Which leads me to my favorite parts of the expansion. The diplomacy seems to be more deeper. When someone says to not build more lands near them, you can promise not to. After a certain period of time, when it is seen that you are not spreading your lands about, you will get an increase in your relationship with them for staying true. However, on the other side of that coin, if you were trying to force your funny named religion onto other people who didn't want it, swore that you wouldn't do it again, then did it again because you have a short memory span, then they will be very upset. The best part of my play through was getting tipped off by my best ally, Attila, that the Sweeds were trying to attack one of my main cities. At first I wasn't sure if it was trickery on his part or if he was just trying to help. The first time I ignored him. Later he comes back and warns me that they are planning total war with me and I should prepare. This time I took what he said into consideration and build a basic combat unit in each of my cities. Knowing the combat system from vanilla Civ 5, I was positive that they'd send a single unit in, I'd smash its face in, then they'd beg for peace. Then war was declared.... I look up upon the city that Attila had warned me they'd strike, and there were two generals manning trebuchets, three long swords man, a musketman and archers following suit in the background. I pissed myself. I scrambled to find an ally near me and took comfort in Theodora to protect me. It seemed nice of her, seeing as I broke promises to her and surrounded her lands full of cities that kept trying to convert her. While she fought with me, she actually came over. I was surprised at the amount of competence in the AI for a change. I attacked Swedens trebuchet and it retreated; smart move on the AI once again. After a while though, I guess my ally learned that she could have my lands with the help of Sweden and no longer have to put up with forced conversions. She turned on me, and for the first time in Civ 5, I lost my city. Bittersweet moment there. The new combat 100 point system is much better. An example would be a warrior attacking a tank no longer does 1 damage out of it's very minimal amount of life and threatens it's stability. It makes it much more balanced and worth it to upgrade. Altogether, I have to say that the game is a must-buy for any players of Civ 5. PS Dido might have a stupid name, but her voice whenever she makes a deal with you is adorable. ... Maybe it's just me.… Expand

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

1) It doesn't fix the tactical AI, (it's still bad), just gives them more HP.
2) It doesn't fix the diplomatic AI, (it's still schizophrenic).
3) ICS is still the dominant strategy, as global happiness just doesn't work, especially with all the new happiness resources.
4) Turn times are still atrocious. Unless you're from the future, this game will chug on your machine.

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

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

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

Until last week, I'd never played a Civ game. What was I thinking??? To be quite blunt, the poor user scores confuse the life out of me. I've played some seriously poor games in recent years, yet this ranks right at the top of the good (if not great) games. It offers so much entertainment and scale that only a PC game could offer. I've seen screen shots of Civ games in the past and thought 'Jesus that looks intimidating'. But the reality is quite different (from my point of view at least). The game gives you as much hand holding as you need to find your wings, then it's up to you to experiment with tactics. I love the TW (Total War) games and this kinda resembles the overview map mode game play, which ticks so many boxes for me. It builds upon the all the features I enjoy from TW and adds so much more to the mix. I've had sleepless nights and waking hours considering the best plan of action and this is with just one starting faction! This game has legs and I can see why so many people praise the Civ series. People have passion for Civ 4 and criticize Civ 5 for missing/failing to extend the experience. Having no frame of reference, I can't comment. All I can say is if you haven't played a games from this series and fancy giving it a go, Civ 5 has the ability to change your gaming outlook on turn based strategy. It's a shining example of why gaming is so special. A perfect score from me.… Expand

This game includes the spies and religion they cut out of the first release to sell later. It's full of bugs just like before. Everything is jacked up. You can't even play this in multiplayer unless everyone else joining has it too. They all have to have your identical DLC. Games a train wreck.

The idea is great, and to finally get religions made me exited. Then I installed it. Woah, bugs galore. Putting the bugs aside (such as animation problems), it still does not address the shallow gameplay and quirky AI. Is the expansion worth it? Only if you really, really like Civ V.

This expansion is good in many ways, but for $50 a little overpriced. Gods and Kings adds religion and espionage, as well as a few userface changes. The religion addition was very enjoyable, allowing you to create your own religion and send it into other countries to spread it worldwide. Of course, this could effect diplomatic relations with other countries, which made religion have a lot of potential to play. Espionage, however, was a little dull. Aside from selecting which cities your spies were located, you don't have much choice in what they do. This made espionage rather boring and hardly worth using. There were some civilizations added which also help to increase the enjoyment of the game.

Overall, it's a great expansion, just a little pricey.… Expand

Gods and Kings is a true expansion pack, not a minor DLC as we keep having from other games.
The expansion really adds to the game, giving you a bunch of new features to play with, and it makes the strategy-setting more complex and, in result, better. The features include not only the religion, but also new civilizations, units, wonders, the expanded diplomacy... It really improves the game!
In regard to the price, I think that 24 dollars may be a little too much for an expansion, as you can buy a lot of full games for that price, so I'd wait for some sale (like Black Friday) to get it with a good discount.
But it is definitely worth 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

I was really looking forward to this expansion. I took of a couple of days just to play it 24x7. I think the the expansion is okay but not up toward their standard. It seems like the AI has changed dramatically. The AI army seems stronger like 10 times then before. I needed like way more units just to kill one. I just dont think it is realistic. I wish they had a option to play against the old AI engine at the start of the game. Right now I feel like this is CIV 4 with all the expansion packs. I feel like there a lack in innovation with this release. There are a lot more civs and tech but still feel like there missing so much more then there could of been. I really hope another expansion comes out soon to make this live up to the sid standard.… Expand

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

It expands the Civ V at new levels, it adds the things were missing on original release. And not only has things as were on Civ4, it has that things in a better way. This expansion is a must have if you like Civ V.

If you liked Civ5 you'll probably like this expansion too. It adds religion, spying and some minor tweaks to the game but doesn't change the core game mechanics too much. The biggest flaw of Civ5, horrible AI unit movement in war, is still there.
If you can get it cheap it's worth buying but you can easily cope without it. If you are a civfanatic you've already bought it.

Gods & Kings does a lot right, but stumbles a bit when it comes to the ostensible focus of the expansion - religion and espionage. Let's start with the good. You get a lot more bang for your buck with this expansion rather than the previous model of 'sell a civ for $5'. There are several decent civilizations added, expanding your options for play, new luxury resources to take advantage of, and 2 new city state types along with more in-depth interaction. Various other gameplay changes such as a slightly retooled combat system, new buildings/units/wonders, and an overhaul of certain key aspects will probably require you to change your strategies a bit. The scenarios included are interesting and detailed, particularly the steampunk themed one. Now for the bad. Religion is a bit more hands off than I'd like - most of the game is spent waiting around for your 'faith resource' to accrue, then choosing perks from a list. If religion sounds suspiciously like another culture bar, that's because it essentially is. After you have enough 'faith resource', you wait for a great prophet to be generated. Once he is, you found your religion (naming it 'Pastafarianism' or 'Atheism' is only funny once, trust me) and choose some unique traits. The 'build-a-religion' thing is a pretty cool idea, but when certain traits give +10% wonder building, and others give +1 food from camps, you can be pretty sure where everyone playing to win is going to head. From there you can go on and spread it to neighboring cities, but unfortunately, religion starts to die off in importance in later eras of the game and slowly becomes replaced with Espionage. I understand the Real World reasoning behind it, but instead of two full gameplay functions, it feels like I'm only getting 2 halves. Espionage is done completely within the menu interface. I found it to be sort of interesting, but again, very hands off, as once you move your spy to a city, they do things automatically with no further input. All in all, Gods & Kings is a decent expansion, but it's mainly due to the other stuff that's bundled with with it rather than the key features. Hopefully future dev tweaking and balancing will make religion and espionage more interesting than they are currently, as well as fix the numerous bugs that shipped with the last couple of patches. If you enjoyed Civ 5 as-is, you will probably like this expansion quite a bit. On the other hand, if you were disappointed in Civ 5 due to gameplay , strategic depth or another similar reason, Gods & Kings unfortunately doesn't really do anything to resolve the underlying issues.… 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

A nice comprehensive package. New civs are great and they are heading in the proper direction with relig. and esp. I wish esp was fleshed out a bit more. Some other options for spies would have been nice. In this case a step backward (toward civ4) is the step forward. AI is still as dumb as a bag of hammers and AI diplomacy is still as fickle as ever. Overall a good expansion worth having though.… Expand

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.

This dlc has good enhancements and gives many options to customize some religion features. An option to rename pantheon and other religious features to something even more general (or suited to one's comfort, sensitivities and enjoyment) would have been nicer for some more sensitive people. Not everyone would like to build a "polytheistic pantheon" or "pantheon to the gods" before founding a monotheistic religion (some religions teach that polytheism came after monotheism). But hats off and thanks to devs for already taking it this far with religious sensitivities (by allowing renaming and making many aspects more general or customizable). I just hope modders can do something about that and take it even further. There is already a thread about this on civfanatics site.… Collapse

This DLC was not worth the 30 dollars, it had a nice tech tree overhaul but religion has no impact on the game whatsoever, its by far one of the most useless systems added to civ 5, and its an extreme let down considering i love the civ series.

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

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.

The best thing about this expansion is the civilizations that are added. All of them are interesting to me and I have enjoying trying some really short games with each of them so far. As far as improving the AI as the developers said they would, it is definitely questionable. Did they make the AI more difficult? Yes. Do I agree with the methods they chose to do that? No. First of all, the developers decided to add hit points to the units of AI controlled units. While this has not been confirmed, I have also found that the AI produces units much faster than they should be able to. While playing with Byzantium (which is a fun new civ to play) Rome declared war on me early in the game. Rome had only one city with minimal improvements around it. Also, there was only one hill in their area. Their production should have been extremely low. Somehow, Rome had 12 military units less than 100 turns into the game. These were not just your low-level warriors, but also two ballistas, two spearmen, and a few bowmen. It would have been impossible for me, to create this many units if I had my city surrounded by hills with mine improvements. I was able to hold off the Romans in a war of attrition, but cheating AI's have a way of making me really angry. The religion feature is WAY TOO SLOW. It takes forever to earn faith points unless you put all of your civs resources into it. Spreading your religion is also to slow. For over 30 turns I waited for the city that was closest to the holy city to adopt the religion. It didn't happen. I had to send a missionary which took forever to purchase because I had to use faith points to get him. I haven't even got to espionage yet because I've been trying to figure out the religion aspect. It's a good idea. they just need to speed it up 2 or 3 times what it currently is. There was one problem I had with one of the new civilizations. Sweden's special ability is pretty stupid in my opinion. They are a civ I would like to play, but their special ability is useless to me.… Expand

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.… Expand

I'm still a big fan of Civilization IV, so I consider myself "one of those" that was disappointed with the mainstream-approach (aka dumbing-down) the developers took with Civ 5. Although this expansion addresses some of the complaints die-hard Civ players have had with the newest addition - specifically religion and covert operations - it seems too little, too late to rescue the base game. If you prefer Civ 5 over its predecessors, however, you may find this expansion breathes new game play styles and strategies into sessions.… Expand