Admiral units can bring the features of generals to your fleets at sea. Navel combat will now have a melee option as well as long range, and ships will be able to capture cities. Religious cities will earn faith points for you, and mercantile cities will add two new luxury items that can only be gained from city states. Two new city state types - religious and mercantile - are being added. Some quests will be specific things for you to do, and sometimes a city might just align itself with the player with the most culture. Now there will be a quest system that will be the main way to earn their favor. Previously, it was too easy to just toss money at them and make them your friends. Occasionally, you might learn something that they are planning against another player, and you can earn some favor by giving them a heads up.ĭiplomacy with city states is going to rely less on gold in Gods & Kings. If you are playing against AI, your spies can tell you what they are planning to do. Spies are no longer an actual unit on the map. Espionage is a simple menu interface where spies can be sent out to other cities to gather intelligence or steal technologies. Religions can be spread with missionaries and inquisitors, and holy cities will have a strong impact on cities that are close by. The follower belief will affect any city that follows the religion. The founder belief is something that will affect just the founding city, which from now on will be the holy city of that religion. Each religion can start off with one founder belief and one follower belief. You can choose from eleven real-world religions, or you can come up with your own. This great prophet can be used to found a religion. There are over a dozen pantheons to choose from, and once you pick one, no other player can choose it.Īs the game progresses and you accumulate faith points, you will eventually be able to create a great prophet. One of the options shown to me was called Mother Goddess and it provided an increase in food production. A pantheon is a basic religious belief that gives you a related stat bonus. In the early game, once you accumulate a small amount of faith, you can found a pantheon. They are gained over time and adding special buildings to cities can increase the amount of faith they produce. The religion system adds faith points that work very similar to culture. If you’re a fan of the Civilization series, this is the Civilization V that you have been waiting for. Espionage, religion, and combat all get some long-desired overhauls with this expansion, and the AI is being re-balanced as well. There are also new leaders to pick from, 27 new units, 13 buildings, 9 wonders, and 9 more civilizations.
Not only are these two beloved systems being brought back in with Gods & Kings, but they are being reworked to make much more sense. Dedicated Civilization IV players really missed the espionage and religion mechanics that were left out of Civ V.