A Firm Reason to Play this Game
I bought the original Civilization V with very high hopes. Granted, I was in no way a long-time fan of the series, but I have played and enjoyed a lot of Civilization III, IV and Revolution respectively. Civilization IV especially is one of the biggest and most satisfying time-sinks I've ever played. It's definitely worth mentioning at this point that I was not happy with the quality of the latest in the franchise. I'll admit, it certainly wasn't a downright bad game; however it left me disappointed and with a bad taste in my gaming mouth.
Putting it briefly, the main issues I had with Civ V consisted of the lack of the great concepts not brought forward from Civ IV (the biggest being religion) and the downright bonkers, perhaps almost demented, AI of the rival leaders. They weren't reliable for anything and would denounce or declare war on you for no apparent reason at all. I was also not a fan of the City States idea, having to constantly feed them money to earn their love. Additionally, what with all the oversimplifications of the interface and game itself, it felt like Firaxis thought they were producing a follow up to Revolution for console, not IV.
For the most part, Gods and Kings appears to have fixed the vast majority of these aforementioned problems I have, making the game actually playable for me. Not being able to be sure who your allies or enemies are removes a real sense of strategy and fun from the game, as declarations of friendships and temporary alliances seem to mean nothing in the expansion-less Civ V. Leaders now behave in a way seemingly befitting to their character, with Gandhi being a peace loving leader and Genghis Khan being an expansionist, backstabbing bastard (I hold no grudges, honest). The previously barren diplomacy menu has also been improved, with the addition of various new commands, such as the building of embassies in capitals, a great way to boost relations after first contact or wartime.
More importantly I feel is the integration of religion into the game, which was cruelly ripped out of the base game. In Civ IV, religion was a very heavy part of diplomacy, and essentially decided who your allies and enemies were, and was even very influential in earning a diplomatic victory. In Civ V, religion is a lot more subtle, but still provides a lot of benefits to your empire. Unlike in Civ IV where the founding of a specific religion was triggered by the founding of a particular technology (e.g. Theology for Christianity), the "Faith" resource has been added to the game. After you have accumulated a certain amount of faith, you have the ability to found a "Pantheon". This is potentially the first step in founding a religion. I say "potentially" as there is a cap on how many religions can be founded per game, thus it is very much a race to find god. Once a Pantheon has been founded, you not only have the ability to pick a small perk for your empire (usually terrain based e.g. +1 faith per desert tile) but also the chance for a Great Prophet to spawn starts, once you have accumulated enough faith. As long as you get your Great Prophet before too many other empires do, you will have the option to found a religion. Religion is fully customizable in this game, even down to the name and symbol. When you have your religion, you have the option to pick two more perks, that being a founder belief , and then a follower belief. The founder beliefs vary from influence benefits to the goddamn city states to economic benefits depending on the amount of converted citizens within the city. The follower beliefs available vary from producing more of a particular resource (e.g. culture or faith) from a building to being able to purchase religious buildings with faith. In total, there are five available perk slots for each civilization, the last two unlocked by a subsequent Great Prophet. Byzantium have access to six as part of their racial bonus (I play too much World of Warcraft).
Religion plays a very passive part in this game, and spreads automatically through a "pressure" system. Although I personally cannot see what determines the level of pressure within a city, it can certainly be manually spread faster through the use of missionaries (only acquirable through faith purchasing) or extra Great Prophets. Those bloody heathen citizens can also be removed from your city by the use of an inquisitor, which removes any pressure from a minority religion. The inquisitor is acquired through the same method as the missionary. All in all, I am very pleased with the way religion has been executed in this game.
As you may already be able to tell from this review, when it comes to city states, I was certainly not a fan in the original Civ V. In the base game, I always paid absolutely no attention to them whatsoever. However, this was a completely different story in my experience with Gods and Kings. By the late Renaissance era, I had alliances (100+ influence) with every city state that surrounded my empire. This was at least five or six different cities. For those who don't know, it requires a minimum of 60 influence to be allied with a state, although if it is already allied by another civilization, it can be won over by acquiring more influence than your rival empire. Therefore due to the way the military system works in this game (no unit stacking), this gave me a ridiculous tactical advantage as I was essentially untouchable. This was done by a bit of occasional feeding (but hey, I could afford it), but mostly through the new ways thanks to this expansion. An example of this is that a lot of city states ask for a religious faith or set up a kind of contest as to who can generate the most faith in a set amount of turns. As you can tell I was a faith producing machine at this point in the game, hence why keeping influence was so much easier than previous games I had without the expansion.
All in all, although I still feel Civilization V isn't quite as enjoyable as Civ IV, I feel that you owe it to yourself to pick up this expansion if you wish to actually get some moneys-worth out of the game. Most of the cheap frustrations of the base game have been fixed, and the game now has more variety thanks to additional Civilizations, technology and social tree revamps, and a large number of new wonders and buildings (such as The Leaning Tower of Pisa and Shrines). However, it is only right of me to warn you of a few technical problems I, and seemingly others have suffered. Due to me playing on a less-than-stellar machine, there were some very long turn times late game. In addition, the game crashes to desktop on occasion, and after forum research I know I am not the only one. Hopefully the CTD problem in particular has been fixed since I last played the game.
Other than a few technical gripes, I feel that the overall gameplay experience has been fixed. Therefore, go forth, and build an empire that will stand the test of time.