Civ V : Gods and Kings

[Queso]

Not on sale in the EU yet, but have any of you in North America installed it yet? What's the initial verdict?

 

[phobic99]

I'm not a pro Civ player by any means, heck, I'm not even that good at all but I recently started playing Civ V again in antipication for the G&K expansion. I played my first new game in G&K as Carthage and I'm really enjoying it. There are some interesting changes that I'm sure you've read about but I'd say it's well worth it. Sorry if I didn't go into to much detail but if you have any questions, ask away.

 

[Zauberer]

I am enjoying it as well. I enjoy the new units/civilizations. I'll need to play more to get a sense of any AI improvements, but thus far, my impression is that it's better. I'm really excited to try the steampunk scenario.

 

[Queso]

What about the game engine itself? They were saying that the combat algorithms had changed to encourage more balanced armies. Are these hidden in the calculations or is it more that unit promotions offer a bigger variety of choices that benefit neighbouring units (like the medic promotion in vanilla Civ 5)?

 

[HarryPot]

I'm not a pro Civ player by any means, heck, I'm not even that good at all but I recently started playing Civ V again in antipication for the G&K expansion. I played my first new game in G&K as Carthage and I'm really enjoying it. There are some interesting changes that I'm sure you've read about but I'd say it's well worth it. Sorry if I didn't go into to much detail but if you have any questions, ask away.

I am enjoying it as well. I enjoy the new units/civilizations. I'll need to play more to get a sense of any AI improvements, but thus far, my impression is that it's better. I'm really excited to try the steampunk scenario.

What I'm really curious to find out is wether they changed something to make the game run faster at later stages in a game. In Civ V each turn took ages at the ends of games.

Any news?

 

[deadwulfe]

Not sure if this is the same thing you're talking about with the wait between turns.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/review-gods-kings-is-an-essential-civilization-expansion/

The most impressive aspects of Gods & Kings take place “under the hood.” When I started playing the original Civilization V, two aspects of the game frustrated me. First, my computer started struggling with even modest-sized maps by the Renaissance era, and the 20th Century was virtually unplayable due to excessive time waiting between turns. Second, the computer-controlled opponents were extraordinarily passive, only declaring war on me occasionally, and never on each other, which made the game more artificial. Both are improved in Gods & Kings. I was able to finish games on maps that had previously given me trouble, and the AI was more aggressive, and more successful in that aggression, than I had seen before.

 

[cerote]

I'm loving it. The AI seems to be attacking more efficiently. They used to only use one unit to fire at my city each turn. Since expansion they surrounded my city and almost took it out in one turn.

 

[Queso]

What I'm really curious to find out is wether they changed something to make the game run faster at later stages in a game. In Civ V each turn took ages at the ends of games.

Any news?

I notice that the vanilla Civ 5 got patched earlier this week too. It might be that those improvements have been included in that release rather than the expansion. As the Civ 5 engine now loads the OSX menu bar briefly shows it as Gods and Kings, which implies that they've backported some of the improvements.

I haven't had a chance to sit and play it this week, so can't confirm if it has made any difference to the speed of play. Just waiting for G&K to get released over here (tomorrow according to MacUpdate).

 

[HarryPot]

I just started playing it. Currently at turn 65 in a Standard map.

It feels so much smoother. I'm really liking the new fighting strategy.

Just for being more specific, I have a 2011 MBP, running the game with everything at Medium, except for General Detail, which are set to High.