In anticipation of the upcoming Brave New World expansion pack for Sid Meier's Civilization V, I've been working on some mod projects.

Today, I published a small resource mod called "Just a pinch of salt" that adjusts the yield of the salt luxury resource. By default, salt is a very strong resource to start near, as it provides +1 food and +1 gold base yield. Since it shows up frequently on plains, these tiles give your fledgling city a 2 food, 1 production, 1 gold tile out of the gate. With the addition of a mine, the food and production yield goes up by 1.

Extra food from salt requires building a Granary.

This mod aims to scale back the power of salt a little bit by removing the base +1 food modifier and moving that bonus to require the construction of a Granary building. In addition to it's existing bonuses, the granary now adds the +1 food to salt.

• Salt: +1 Gold base yield.
• Granary: +1 Food from salt worked by the city.

Total salt yield after building Granary and mine.

Once you have mined the salt and built a granary in the city, the total output of the salt tile is the same as in the unmodded game.

The mod can be downloaded from Civilization V's in-game mod browser by searching for "just a pinch of salt", or through Steam by visiting MegaBearsFan's Workshop (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=145306648).

In anticipation of the upcoming Brave New World expansion pack for Sid Meier's Civilization V, I've been working on some mod projects.

Today, I published a small resource mod called "Copper Buff" that improves the effectiveness of the copper resource in the game. Currently, copper is a fairly weak luxury resource, since it doesn't get buffed by any buildings in the game. This mod adjusts the Forge and Mint buildings to provide a bonus towards nearby copper as follows:

• Forge: +1 Production from copper worked by the city.
• Mint: +1 Gold from copper worked by the city.

Both buildings can be constructed in a city if copper is present within the city's borders.

Forge and Mint improve nearby copper.

The mod can be downloaded from Civilization V's in-game mod browser by searching for "copper buff", or through Steam by visiting MegaBearsFan's Workshop (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=144822605).

Now that Gods & Kings has rearranged the tech tree, I decided I would revisit my old Code of Law mod and update it for the new expansion. That updated version is now uploaded onto the Steam Workshop.

The primary intent of this mod is to move the Courthouse building away from Mathematics so that players do not gain access to the building that nullifies unhappiness from city occupation at the same time that they unlock the first siege weapon. This way, overly-aggressive players who beeline to Iron Working and/or Mathematics so they can capture cities will have to take a minor detour through the culture and science path of the tech tree in order to be able to annex those cities and start using them as unit-farms.

Earlier today, I uploaded my newest mod for Sid Meier's Civilization V onto the Steam Workshop.

This new mod is titled "Fat Man and Little Boy". The effects of the mod are as follows:

Completing the Manhattan Project now grants a free Atomic Bomb unit in the city that built the project. The unit will be received regardless of whether the player has access to Uranium (usually required to build an Atomic Bomb). In addition, the first player to complete the Manhattan Project will be given two free Atomic Bombs, which are appropriately named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy".

I’m a big fan of the new Civilization board game (as well as the computer game). I stated in my review that if an expansion ever came out, that I would pick it up immediately. Well, last fall, Fantasy Flight Games released Fame and Fortune, and I didn’t waste any time picking it up. Unfortunately, we have a lot of board games that we play, so I’ve only gotten to have a handful of Civ games with the expansion. This is one of the reasons that I’ve waited so long to write a review; I was hoping to get a few more games under my belt before settling on a final opinioin. But since I recently reviewed the Gods & Kings expansion for the PC game, I thought I'd go ahead and throw my opinions on the board game expansion out there too.

Table of Contents

• New Content
• Base Game Upgrades
  • More incentive to explore
  • Sacrificing figures to buff your cities is a mixed bag
  • Capitals that actually grow
• Two new features that change the game
  • Great People have great power!
  • Investing in your empire weakens your "economy"
• The new civs are fun, but watch out for those Greeks and Spaniards!
• Overall game balance and fun
  • More players = more fun?
• Miscellanious thoughts
• A successful expansion to a successful board game adaptation