In my review of the Brave New World expansion for Civilization V, I expressed some disappointment that some of the legacy civilizations didn't receive significant updates. I also complained about a few mechanical issues such as how the "warmonger" mechanic works and the value of trade routes. Well, Firaxis has released a major update to the game earlier this fall that addresses some of these complaints.
Several of the vanilla civilizations received a major overhaul. As I mentioned in my review, Germany and America seem to have been completely one-upped by the Zulu and Shoshone. Well, Germany has been given a major update, and America has received a small tweak in order to better differentiate them from the BNW successors. In addition, Japan has received a small (but significant) buff.
Germany was probably the civ that was in the most dire need of a facelift, since the Zulu leave them completely in the dust. Both civs had a huge military flavor, discounts for unit maintenance, and a unique Pikeman replacement, and the Zulu had Germany beat on all accounts. In order to differentiate the two, The Landsknechts unique unit was replaced with a new unique building, the "Hanse". [More]
d72a2b1a-ba97-4211-8b58-43b09c6b97b2|5|5.0
Tags:Civ V Fall Patch, patch, Civilization V: Brave New World, Civilization V, Sid Meier's Civilization, Civilization, Firaxis, 2K Games, expansion, PC, Steam, strategy, grand strategy, turn-based strategy, Germany, Japan, America, Zulu, Shoshone, Indonesia, tourism, tactics, trade, trade route, archaeology, culture, gold, warmonger, Landsknecht, Civilization IV, Civilization V
One of my biggest criticisms with the Gods & Kings expansion pack for Civilization V was that none of the features added really felt all that fresh. They were just redesigns of old features that were present in previous games. Granted, they were also the most highly-requested features by the player community, but as concepts, nothing really felt new or original.
The new expansion, Brave New World changes all of that by adding never-before-seen concepts to the game, and they add a great deal of flavor and dramatically change the way that the game unfolds.
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A few more of the missing concepts from Civilization IV are re-introduced with a new coat of paint in Civilization V: Brave New World: trade routes and a world resolution system. Both systems are implemented differently than in the previous game, and both are kind of hit-or-miss this time around
I have long been asking for the introduction of some kind of international trade route mechanic to be added to Civ V. Without such a feature, the vanilla game (and Gods & Kings) were missing one of the key incentives to maintain peaceful relations with your neighbors. Well now we have such a feature. In some ways, it's a step forward from Civ IV's completely non-interactive trade routes, but it's also a bit clumsy.
Coastal cities might seem weaker due to the lack of gold on sea resources, but sea trade routes are more profitable and have longer range than ground routes, so coastal cities are still valuable.
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003f33b0-d930-43c5-8b65-1d2ae950b00a|2|5.0
Tags:Civilization V: Brave New World, Civilization V, Sid Meier's Civilization, Civilization, Firaxis, 2K Games, expansion, PC, Steam, strategy, grand strategy, turn-based strategy, tactics, trade, trade route, archaeology, literature, art, music, culture, United Nations, UN, world congress, gold, William Morgan Sheppard, Civilization IV, Civilization V
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.
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Investing your gold coins provides permanent bonuses, but subtracts them from the coins you have available for the Economic Victory.
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I noted in my original review of Civilization V that I expected an espionage system of some sort to be added in an expansion. I also stated, in a February edition of the Civilization Polycast webcast that I expected an expansion to be announced soon. I was right on both accounts!
I’ve spent a lot of time with Gods & Kings in the few months since its release, but I’m disappointed to say that it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations.
The expansion isn’t a complete let-down though. It does include some significant enhancements to the core experience.
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683c642f-1a9e-43a4-b6c8-4e88c8cbe789|2|5.0
Tags:Civilization V: Gods & Kings, Civilization V, Sid Meier's Civilization, Civilization, Firaxis, 2K Games, expansion, PC, Steam, strategy, grand strategy, turn-based strategy, tactics, religion, espionage, navy, review, Civilization IV, Civilization V
I finally published my full review of Total War: Shogun 2 recently in preparation for writing this review of that game’s second expansion: Fall of the Samurai. Fall of the Samurai is the second expansion for Shogun 2; the first being a “prequel” Rise of the Samurai. I skipped Rise, but when I saw the trailers for Fall, I just had to hop onto Steam and download it.
This expansion is the most contemporary Total War game to date, taking place during the same time period as the American Civil War. We’ve already had two Total War games that utilized rifles and cannons. I started my fandom of the series with Empire and went on to play Napoleon. I enjoyed both games, but eventually started to find the battles became very automatic and mechanical. There just wasn’t too much tactics beyond just lining your infantry up and shooting at the other guys.
Having not played the earlier games very much, like Rome, Medieval, and the original Shogun, I was really impressed with how fun Shogun 2 was. The traditional melee units made the battles much more engaging and fun, and really made me realize just how bland Empire actually was.
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30f43459-cee3-48d3-922e-018cc75805c3|1|4.0
Tags:Total War, Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, PC, Steam, strategy, grand strategy, expansion, real-time strategy, history, Japan, the Creative Assembly, Sega
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