Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods And Kings Download For Mac
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings is the first expansion pack for Civilization V - the critically acclaimed 2010 Mac Game of the Year. This is a mod based on the book series by George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the HBO show Game of Thrones. This mod requires the Gods and Kings Expansion. Quite Wonderful www.gamespot.com - GAMESPOT.COM One of The Best Civilization V Mods - PCGamer.com One Fantastic Mod raidwarning.com - RaidWarning.COM. Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings is the first expansion pack for Civilization V - the critically acclaimed 2010 PC Game of the Year.
I could spend months writing about “Civilization V”…yes, it’s that big of a game. I gave the base game a 9/10 in the review I published last year, but held off on buying any of the expansions due to financial reasons. Low and behold, Steam came through with a summer sale that allowed me to upgrade to the “Gold Edition” for a measly five bucks and catch the “Brave New World” for twenty. For those of you confused by all of the DLC the game contains, the “Gold Edition” includes all of the smaller DLC packs and the first major expansion “Gods & Kings”. Basically, everything up to “Brave New World”, which is the second major expansion in the series. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be briefly touching on each of these two major expansions and providing my thoughts on each. I probably could have separated them both into two separate articles, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll cheatbe efficient if I want to.
Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods & Kings and Brave New World (Windows, Mac)
Gods & Kings
“Civilization IV” was well received for a lot of reasons, the inclusion of religion mechanics being among them. For purposes I can’t fathom, the developers removed religion from “Civilization V”. I honestly didn’t mind this approach as the game is still a mighty beast worth taming, but I was glad to see religion being reintroduced in the “Gods & Kings” expansion. While religion plays a major role in this expansion, military and combat mechanics have received a bit of attention too. Players will be able to make use of new units (27), buildings (13), civilizations (9), city-state types (2), and wonders (9) in their conquests. Those numbers don’t include the special units and techs found in the expansion’s three new scenarios.
Religion acts a bit like culture in that it is its own separate entity, complete with various bonuses depending on the faiths that you choose to adopt. In this expansion, there are about eleven different faiths to choose from. Unlike culture and combat, it does not have its own victory trigger. Rather, religion serves to compliment your civilization with various buffs, which are customizable depending on your needs. Faith is accumulated through various buildings (like culture) and those points can be used to purchase certain units, among other things.
Faith can be used to purchase certain buildings as well, like cathedrals.
In the early stages of the game, players will be trying to found pantheons (beliefs) and eventually, religions. Founding a religion involves choosing an icon and a name for it. Before you ask, yes, you can give it a custom name like “Dad’s Gaming Addiction-ism-ish-stuff” or just “Bob”. Once a player has established a religion, they’ll be trying to spread it far and wide through passive and active means. Why you ask? Depending on how you shape your religion, you might gain a certain amount of gold for each follower you have, just to name an example. Since more followers equals more free stuff, you’ll obviously want as many citizens to flock to your cause as possible. If you don’t want to go the economic route, you can instead shape your religion to accommodate your military or cultural needs.
Diplomacy and espionage make their way into the game, giving players more to think about when they decide to wage war and make peace. Like past “Civilization” games, spies generally serve to gather information on enemy civilizations and even steal their technologies. A well-timed spy mission could cause a city-state to switch alliances, though it’s a risky business and can result in your spy being caught and killed. Needless to say, this end result won’t win you any proverbial “Civilization of the Month” awards.
Combat has received an overhaul and for the better, I think. The game has shifted from a ten point scaling system to a one hundred point scaling system. What does this mean? Well, a unit that used to have ten health points now has one hundred. Instead of doing three points of damage, a unit might inflict twenty-nine. This system makes units last a bit longer, giving the player a chance to get attached to them. I can’t tell you how many units I lost due to some unlucky encounters / die rolls. Now I have a better chance to upgrade them and keep them alive. Naval units are now either melee or ranged, with the former being allowed to plunder / capture coastal cities if they are weak enough.
Brave New World
Where “Gods & Kings” focuses on military and religion, “Brave New World” addresses culture. Culture received a pretty big overhaul and introduces things like ideologies to the mix. Before touching on that, it’s important to note that this particular expansion introduces new civilizations (9), wonders (8), scenarios (2), gameplay systems (4), and a plethora of new units. I wasn’t big on culture in “Civilization V” and considered it more of an afterthought, but this expansion really made me consider changing my usual technological / military stance to one more focused on tourism…I’ll get to that in a minute.
Ideologies, if I could sum them up, are social policies that players will be trying to develop and spread throughout the world. In this case, you’ll have your choice between Freedom (Democracy), Autocracy (Fascism), and Order (Communism). Players will receive a prompt to choose one once they’ve reached the modern era or have built three factories. The ideology you choose will influence how others look at your civilization…like ideologies will be more friendly towards you, for example. You can’t go changing ideologies on a whim (not unless your public opinion is in the gutter), so choose wisely. Each of the three ideologies have their own tech trees to where players can purchase tenets, which act similarly to the social policies found in the base game.
Culture plays a huge role in this particular expansion pack.
Public opinion ties in with ideology and represents just how happy the people are with how you’re running things under that belief system. Public opinion decreases when other civilizations pressure your cities with their culture and tourism. As I mentioned above, if your public opinion drops too low, you may end up with cities that revolt and convert to the prefered ideology. Obviously, losing cities is something any civilization would hope to avoid. Switching ideologies when public opinion is low is possible, but you’ll lose any tenets that you may have purchased under that ideology’s tech tree. This makes tourism a mighty offensive weapon, as it allows you to apply pressure to neighboring cities and possibly acquire them, all without firing a single shot. Likewise, this makes culture a very important defensive shield, as it helps to stave off the cultural influence of other civilizations.
The World Congress, one of the ways a player can achieve a diplomatic victory, gives players more of a reason to lay out the “Welcome” mat. At a certain point in the game, all of the civilizations will be revealed and meet every so often to decide on important game changing decisions. It’s similar to what “Galactic Civilization II” did with the United Planets Council, if you happened to play that 4x space sim. Eventually, the World Congress becomes the United Nations. On a semi-related note, spies can be converted into diplomats, which serve to report how a particular civilization might vote on a key issue during the next meeting.
Use diplomats to see how other civs will vote on proposals.
Archeology finds its way into the mid-game, allowing players to dig up rare finds from events that occurred earlier in the game. Yes, you read that right. A battle that occurred thousands of years ago could potentially be a resource for your civilization via the archeology mechanic. I find that pretty darn cool, if you youngins even still use that word. They act a bit like wonders and great works in that they provide bonuses to the cities they’re moved to. Archeologists are now the only ones who can create landmarks, something that great artists used to have the ability to do.
Editor’s Note: Keep in mind that I didn’t cover everything found in both expansions, but those are the hi-lites.
Final Thoughts
Both expansions add a ton of depth to the game. Just when I thought the game couldn’t get any more complex, the developers find a way to make my head throb. That’s not a complaint mind you, but it does serve as a warning for the faint of heart who have no idea what they’re getting into. They both introduce mechanics that change the way you’ll play, and that can take some getting used to. Combat, for one. Battles take a bit longer, but make for satisfying victories should you come out on top. Trade routes become much more prominent in “Brave New World” and are necessary if you want to keep that economic competitive edge. While you can send trade caravans to your own cities and pick bonuses of your choosing, you’ll earn much, much more if you establish routes with another civilization. There’s a reason now to play nice…something I generally don’t do.
The one hundred point system also makes barbarians a pain to exterminate.
At first, I gawked at the price tag on both expansions. Both cost around twenty to thirty bucks at launch and with the core game currently priced at thirty (down from the full fifty/sixty dollar price tag), you’re looking at about a hundred bucks for all three. That’s a rather large investment for one game, but I can see why they are priced that way. There is a ton of new content in both expansions, moreso than a lot of other DLC packs I’ve seen floating around for five to ten bucks. The game is roughly two to three years old now, so the frequency of sales has increased as of late. I highly recommend picking both up during a sale, if you don’t have the money otherwise. Both are worthy additions to your collection and a must for serious “Civilization” fans.
Final Verdicts: 9/10 and 9/10
8000a fluke manual. Editor’s Note: I’ll let you figure out which is which.
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You can check out video play sessions here:
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Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings is the first official expansion pack for the Turn-Based Strategy game,Sid Meier’s Civilization V.* It features the introduction of religion as a major gameplay component to the game, through a faith-based mechanism. It also adds additional diplomatic abilities to those found in the base game. Additional features include, a variety of benefit types for the establishment and adoption of religion, spies that both level with mission completion and that can be a liability if captured, several new playable civilizations, improved battle abilities, and new units, buildings and wonders.
Expanded Power with Religion and Enhanced Diplomacy
The Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings expansion pack* introduces the power of religion and improved diplomatic abilities to Civilization V. Religion, used as a major tool, was left out of the 2010 base game release, but now joins culture, technology, diplomacy, and warfare as the fifth pillar of the game’s turn-based statecraft and empire building game mechanic. Use of religion begins during a civilization’s infancy, with the player interweaving select core beliefs with particular realities of their civilization. This in turn unifies people and generates faith, setting the stage for the emergence of unit’s like The Great Prophet, Missionaries and The Inquisitor, along with the founding of a religion. Religions available initially correlate to actual world religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Shinto, etc., but they are designed to be renamed and customized with player chosen tenets. Civilizations that found religions enjoy certain exclusive benefits, while a later series of benefits connected to a religion can be enjoyed by any civilization that is converted to it. This includes rival civilizations. As the timeline of the game progresses to the renaissance and beyond, religion becomes less important, but remains a surprisingly powerful tool.
The Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings expansion pack also improves on the base game’s use of diplomacy, especially in the area of espionage. With spies players can do a wide range of things, including steal technologies, provide intelligence, rig elections, and even counter the actions of foreign spies planted domestically in their own cities.
New Unit Battle Abilities and New Civilzations
Although religion and diplomacy are potent tools of state craft, war is inevitable. This is why Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings includes expanded abilities to units in battle. Improvements include: expanded general health of units to ensure more time for strategy and changes to forces during exchanges, the inclusion of early multi-winged aircraft, expanded offensive abilities of naval units pitted against other ships and against land targets, and improved defensive abilities of ground units during transport by sea.
Gods and Kings also includes additional civilization not included in the initial release of the base game. In many cases, following the theme of the expansion pack these new peoples possess an extreme potential for influence by/and manipulation of religion. A sampling of the new civilizations available include, the Celts lead by Boudicca, the warrior queen of the proto-British Iceni tribe, and the Maya featuring Pacal the Great the long-time ruler of the powerful city-state of Palenque.
Key Game Features
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods And Kings Download For Mac Torrent
- Introduces religion, wielded through faith, as a crucial tool of the state into the Civilization V game franchise
- A multi-layered belief system that allows for civilization-specific benefits, as well as benefits to any game civilization holding that belief
- Changing benefits to religion depending on the time period of the game
- An improved diplomacy and espionage component that allows for technology theft, foreign intelligence and election rigging, and domestic counter espionage
- Improved capabilities of battle units including, improved general health, the inclusion of early aircraft, and expanded abilities of naval and ground units
- Several new civilizations available for play, including Celtic – featuring the warrior queen of the proto-British Iceni tribe Boudicca, and Mayan, featuring Pacal the Great the longtime ruler of Palenque
- Many new units, buildings and wonders
Additional Screenshots
Gods And Kings Exodus
Requires the base game Civilization 5 Mac Download to activate.