Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion announced

Spies and religion are returning to Sid Meier's Civilization V in its first expansion pack, which will also bring revamped combat and bags of other new things. Named Gods & Kings, is due to emerge from developer Firaxis on PC in "late spring."

Alice O'Connor

February 16, 2012 6:00 AM

Spies and religion are returning to Sid Meier's Civilization V in its first expansion pack, announced today, which will also bring revamped combat and bags of other new things. Named Gods & Kings, it's due from developer Firaxis in, oh, less than one turn--in "late spring." As you might guess from the expansion's name, religion is a pretty central feature. Using a new resource, you'll be able to found your own customized religion and create Great Prophets to spread the good word. Spies are the other big returning Civ series feature, having been curiously absent from the base game. "Spies can be unlocked to establish surveillance of foreign cities, steal advanced technologies from your strongest competitors, or garner influence with City-States through election rigging, or even a coup," publisher 2K Games explains. Many Civ V players had hoped a future expansion would shake up the combat, and Gods & Kings promises to have "reworked" it and shook the AI up to compose better armies. Naval combat also gets tweaked, splitting ships into melee and ranged types. Gods & Kings also brings 27 new units, 13 new buildings, 9 Wonders, and 9 civilizations, including Boudicca's Celts, William of Orange's Netherlands, and Pacal the Great's Mayans. Then there are foreign embassies, new scenarios including "a Victorian science-fiction scenario," and look, there's loads of stuff, check out the announcement post on the 2K blog for more. "Our team has a strong vision for bringing religion and espionage to Civilization V and the incomparable Civ community has expressed their enthusiasm for these features as well," said Sid Meier. "We're excited to deliver this robust expansion pack that will give players countless hours of new gameplay experiences and more reasons to take just one more turn."

The first Gods & Kings screenshot

Alice O'Connor

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Shacknews

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February 16, 2012 6:00 AM

Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion announced.

Spies and religion are returning to Sid Meier's Civilization V in its first expansion pack, which will also bring revamped combat and bags of other new things. Named Gods & Kings, is due to emerge from developer Firaxis on PC in "late spring."
- moogle
  
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  February 16, 2012 6:01 AM
  
  Soooo Pitboss?
  - Deathlove
    
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    February 16, 2012 6:03 AM
    
    OverloadUT, it is 6am your time, answer the question!!!!!
    - Haxim
      
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      February 16, 2012 6:15 AM
      
      He posted over at civfanatics already this morning! He just chooses to ignore us :(
      - bolange
        
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        February 16, 2012 6:16 AM
        
        We shall not be ignored!
      - OverloadUT
        
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        February 16, 2012 8:49 AM
        
        Dude I went back to sleep. I had to wake up at 430 for this announcement!!
        
        Deathlove
        
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        February 16, 2012 8:52 AM
        
        sounds like your CMS could use some timed-posting abilities
        
        NOW STOP DODGING THE QUESTION
        
        OverloadUT
        
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        February 16, 2012 10:08 AM
        
        As ajvitaly mentioned below, Pitboss will be coming and it'll be a free patch for the base game. So no, it won't be part of the expansion because we want people to be able to use it in the base game as well.
  - ajvitaly
    
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    February 16, 2012 6:54 AM
    
    He has already said it is coming in a free patch / DLC. As is unit animations in multiplayer.
- Haxim
  
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  February 16, 2012 6:13 AM
  
  Alice, any word on who the design lead is for this expansion (if there is one) since Jon Shafer's been gone for a while?
  - herradura99
    
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    February 16, 2012 7:30 AM
    
    Ed Beach, according to the Kotaku article. http://kotaku.com/5885161/heres-how-civilization-v-gods--kings-will-reinvent-the-series
    - Haxim
      
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      February 16, 2012 8:24 AM
      
      Interesting!
      I see they have a bio up at Firaxis: http://www.firaxis.com/company/bios.php?bioid=124
      After spending 15 years working on engineering software projects for NASA and the wireless industry... His current interests lie in AI and gameplay programming.
      Sounds promising for the AI.
      He's also designed a few boardgames: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/674/ed-beach
      Here I Stand seems to be a pretty highly rated wargame, so that sounds promising for combat as well.
      - Deathlove
        
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        February 16, 2012 8:26 AM
        
        I think to win over the hardcores, they need to fix the "AI IS COMPLETELY STUPID AT ATTACKING TOWNS" thing, and this definitely looks to be a good step in that direction.
        
        ajvitaly
        
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        February 16, 2012 10:38 AM
        
        Just in general, the AI needs to be able to play smarter and rely less on gameplay advantages like head starts and/or production and science bonuses. It is pretty ridiculous to play the AI on emperor or immortal when the late game rolls around. The AI will literally have enough military units to cover 3/4 of all the tiles within their border.
- ajvitaly
  
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  February 16, 2012 7:14 AM
  
  It all sounds like great additions, I hope they can balance the AI more though and include more options for multiplayer games (AI difficulty, different number of players on a given map size, etc.)
  - aethyr
    
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    February 16, 2012 8:09 AM
    
    Sounds like it's still 1 unit per tile, it seems like maneuvering troops around each other gives the AI problems. I'm not too optimistic, but I would love to see Civ V resurrected.
    - ajvitaly
      
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      February 16, 2012 8:59 AM
      
      It doesn't go into detail, but it says "revamped combat." Could be limited stacks in later eras of the game, which is where it's needed most.
      - OverloadUT
        
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        February 16, 2012 10:11 AM
        
        I can tell you one tiny aspect of it: embarked units will now be able to stack with a naval unit to protect the embarked unit as well as making naval assaults more viable.
        
        RikiTiki2
        
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        February 16, 2012 10:14 AM
        
        aww man, i liked keeping a trireme around to insta-kill tanks and helicopters at sea
        
        ajvitaly
        
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        February 16, 2012 10:15 AM
        
        This is good.
- amrbean
  
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  February 16, 2012 7:22 AM
  
  Any word on pricing?
- RikiTiki2
  
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  February 16, 2012 8:17 AM
  
  revamped combat?
- [deleted] 92559685
  
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  February 16, 2012 8:51 AM
  
  [deleted]
  - Motoryogurt
    
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    February 16, 2012 5:34 PM
    
    I pretty much got this game out the gate with the promise of Pitboss being released 1 month after the game hit stores...still waiting for them to finish the basic features they said they would include.
- Fayk
  
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  February 16, 2012 8:58 AM
  
  is this the expansion that makes the mac port not utter shit? :(
- Hyper-r3v
  
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  February 16, 2012 10:43 AM
  
  Oh, is this the expansion that adds the revolutionary new feature called Save Game to multiplayer?
  - FesterBlatz
    
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    February 16, 2012 2:41 PM
    
    I save in multiplayer games, and can resume them at anytime...
    
    I only LAN though, different online?
    - Trips
      
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      February 16, 2012 3:01 PM
      
      I've done that online.
    - Hyper-r3v
      
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      February 16, 2012 3:09 PM
      
      There is autosave, but those are always being overwritten. Last time I played there was no option to manually save a multiplayer game.
      - Thick Axelrod
        
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        February 16, 2012 3:33 PM
        
        Ctrl+S, brah.
        
        Hyper-r3v
        
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        February 16, 2012 5:24 PM
        
        Let's not pretend that this is a functional Save/Load system. Yes you can save with Ctrl+S but you can't load those saves without moving and renaming those files too fool the game into think they are an Autosave. It's a work-around. The game does not have a built-in Save system that lets you give a descriptive name to your game which can be loaded without messing around with files outside the game. Do I really need to point out how absurd that a multiplayer game published in 2010 does not have built in capability to save and load multiplayer games, especially when Civ games can easily last many hours or even days.
        
        Disclaimer: It's been a while since I played the game so if they have actually put proper save functionality in the game, I stand corrected.
        
        beatbox32
        
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        February 18, 2012 6:25 PM
        
        Well you could have saved your typing fingers some strain by just posting your disclaimer since this has been fixed for awhile now.
- systatic
  
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  February 16, 2012 6:06 PM
  
  Fuck yeah! I bought Civ V a while ago, but just haven't been able to tear away from IV yet. I thought the transition would be easier. When this comes out, I will migrate.