Great expansion pack for Civ 5, adds a lot of depth into the religion aspects of the game as well as adding some cool new units. It also brings back spying from the older civ's which allowed you to look at other civ's cities.

This expansion pack is a fantastic addition to Civilization V adding some more complexity to the task of managing your civilization.

By far, the best addition are the religions and the fact that you can personalise them with different traits depending on what is more important for you in each specific game. Expanding religions is a good point also.

However, I won't give it a 5 star because spies lack a bit of deepness. It is only one simple screen where you can send your spies to one particular place and leave him/her there to get something back. Nothing more than that.

Anyway, it's worth the money just to come back and play another game to this great game.

An absolutely epic expansion to an absolutely epic game. This doesn't just ADD to the original game, it adds to it & ALSO makes the original game even better. Highly recommended!

A great game and add on. Adds a new way to win and New strategies to reinforce the old ways and new civs to play as and new maps.

Gods and Kings adds some realy nice features to civ5 you don`t want to miss when you played with them more than once, but from my point of view nearly all of these features should have been in the base game right from the start. Religion and Spies for example are nothing new if played previous civgames. Anyway even if gods and kings isn`t as good as Beyond the Sword was for civ4 it`s still worth the money specialy if love Civ5

This expansion adds new factions and an interesting new feature, creation of religion. Starting from ancient period you make pantheon that can give you varying benefits, like getting more faith points from quarries inside of your influence range. Later on one can create and customize new or old religion, whatever fits his desires. And as one gets to industrial and modern age those same faith points can be used to create great persons, in earlier eras they are used only for buying religious units (missionaries and prophets) and religious buildings (mosque, cathedral etc).

This expansion has enough to offer for new players, as well as for veterans, enough content to last them many hours of gameplay.

Every Civ V Fan Should buy this Expansion Pack not only because it adds new gameplay elements to the game but because its like a big solid patch.

Combat Between units is rebalanced, economics its enhanced, as well as time passing makes more sense, now is much harder to reach modern techs before they should be discovered.

The Religion add is much better than that found in Civ IV much complex this time as you can really customize your religion traits according to your map, population, diplomatic and resource situation.

Pros

- Added deep to Game is welcomed.

- Rebalance of Combat.

- Customizable Religion is very nice.

Cons

- The Price is a bit high as ist not really a massive expansion, feels only as a good DLC.

A must have expansion for anyone who even mildy enjoyed the original game. Greatly improves the AI, adds the Faith resource along with the ability to create your own religion, and introduces spies giving you the ability to do a little espionage on your enemies or even rig elections to gain favor.

This add-on adds a lot of new features. The dynamic religions are way better than the old static stuff in Civ4 and add a lot more drama. The new options with the city-states increase their value a lot allowing for better strategies.

The prolonged battles (units now have 100 health instead of 10) offer a more flexible approach to tactics. I really like it (so far)!

Great expansion - adds tonnes of content and new gameplay mechanics, definitely worth getting if you're a fan of Civ V!

At first, I thought that the expansion for CIV 5 was far too expensive for what I thought to be a simple add-on of a few new features. I was right about the fact that the game feels exactly the same with or without the expansion, but boy was I impressed with the work on the AI.

The game is still not perfect, but now, it seems that old features are actually WORKING. Diplomacy has been polished quite a bit. The AI knows more how to use his units and is able to mount assaults. Balance has also been reworked to a quite interesting degree.

For example, I'm playing a marathon on King difficulty, turn 500, and I'm not yet the uncontested leader of the world. I even lost a couple of units out of desperation in wars and I don't have every single wonder of the world. So I'm quite impressed by the expansion and I can finally say that I'm playing a real Civ game. Moreover, the next expansion could really well beat Civ 4 on almost every terms.

Jam packed with new features, civilizations, and concepts, this expansion pack is not a mere DLC. Much like the past Civilization history, expansions drastically change the gameplay and it's for the better. The new religion system adds more strategic depth and new civilizations is always fun.

The other DLCs are optional, but this one is necessary for a better Civ 5 experience.

Gods & Kings offers more choice in pretty much every respect. More buildings, units, leaders, technologies - if you felt Civ V was getting a little tired or that the Civs just weren't quite what you were after, then G&K should help rectify that!

As for the return of Espionage and Religion - it's handled a lot better than with Civ IV. You get to choose your own religion and it uses a resource separate to most other aspects (which can then be used, later on, to buy Great People), whereas Espionage operates pretty much exclusively from a single menu in which you can control your spies.

Overall, a pretty good expansion pack. A few more Civs or some alternate leaders couldn't have hurt, but if nothing else it's really quite good for just seamlessly adding in some needed diversity.

As an added bonus, all copies come with a G&K soundtrack within the expansion files!

This expansion for Civilisation 5 is not bad, but it doesn't really excel either.

I like a lot of the new civilizations, and they have some interesting new units. The new steampunk style scenario is good too. Also they seem to have added a lot of functionality to the mod system, which means there is an awful lot of things you can now download from the Steam workshop, which is a bonus.

The religion system I found, didn't really add too much to the game, it just seems to be tacked on, and It didn't really effect the way I play the game. You can get some benefits like +5% production etc, but didn't really do much.

The new units are pretty cool, and the revamp of naval combat and units is good too.

There are various other tweaks and additions, like new land generation, so you do get i'd say your money's worth, but it just doesn't go that bit further!

Let me tell you something right now: If you weren't into the modding scene, this expansion pack is desperately needed for you in case you plan to, or already have played CivV. It gives a whole new level to the original game and produces some desperately needed fixes (especially with the combat mechanic).

In essence, this expansion gives you many more options on how to confront a given situation - the new religion management was sorely missed from the Civ4, but in my opinion was improved and you can now completely customise your civilization's beliefs and the spread of thereof. You can go with a religion that is good for expansion, or a domestic belief that will only help your cities and perhaps make your enemies easier to conquer, should they fall under your religion. The best part about it is, that now we finally have two separate counters for influence and faith (before these were effectively the same).

The combat mechanics were retouched and now warriors won't fall quite as easily as before, so battles won't be over in about two turns. This forces you to strategize on the placement of your forces, as now they have a good chance to escape behind the front line and heal up. Now the composition of the land is even more important for battlefield actions, since a small group of mixed units can force a much bigger army to be destroyed or flee if they try to fight over a forest, river, and then a mountain range while you harass and reposition your inferior forces. This isn't some fancy illustration, this actually happened to me while fighting on two fronts - the enemy got into my rear, an two spearmen, an archer and a nearby city with the aid of the terrain stopped an onslaught from my neighbor. They held them off for just enough time for my horsemen to fight off another enemy, heal up and come to their aid before being defeated. Of course, I was flanked by an allied city state, and the enhanced city state relations management did much to get me to this state with them. Now, money does not give you as much favor with them, and they much prefer special achievements, like helping with barbarians, building certain wonders, acquiring great people or resources and so on. In that case, I did it mostly with my religious expansion, so you have many different options.

All in all, it's a great expansion that really makes the game better for it. Where the base game was bland, the new expansion now gives a bit of flavor. I'm very happy with it and if you're a civ player, you'll probably be too. There are much more additions than I listed but I can assure you they all contribute to a better experience.

This micro-expansions returns an old mechanic to the game which allows for new win conditions and has a weight on diplomacy. Apart from the religion aspect which can be customized according to your civilization's needs. The expansion also brings new civilizations and city-states which may now have a new type (religious), new buildings, unit and wonders. Diplomacy is much clearer in the expansion than on the original game and other civilizations no longer hold grudges against you that last for over a hundred years.

To sum it up, it's a solid expansion and definitely worth trying if you're a civilization fan, but it's still no Civilization IV.

As someone who has, for the longest time, loved the Civ series I was always rather disappointed with Civ 5. It promised so much but was shallow and empty when compared to Civ 4.

No longer do I feel this is the case. It's possibly on even levels with Civ 4 or even higher.

Immediately you are bombarded with new features in anything from new tech to new wonders to the new features of religion and espionage.

The main feature, for me in any case, was religion. This is superior to religion in Civ 4 in so many ways. The most obvious being, of course, the way you can customise a religion. In my first game I played as a sprawling religious empire with my religion extending to all corners of the globe. I received huge levels of income in many forms as a result.

On my second game I customised my religion to suit a small but focused nation with only a few cities. No longer did I need to spread my religion. I became entirely insular.

I love that you can make that choice with religions.

The espionage system, on the other hand, is sleeker and faster than previously but, sadly, it was simplified for Civ 5. It has lost a great deal of utility and instead become a "great leveler," if you will, for technology. Whilst this was definitely needed in the game it's a shame it was simplified to this. I might simply be wrong due to not reaching later than the industrial age, however.

Overall this is a brilliant expansion. You'd be mad to not get it if you love the Civ series.

Some neat little changes to the game here, several new civs, and most importantly, an espionage system, and a religion system. I quite like how religion is handled, particularly the way it spreads between cities, and the differentiation of bonuses for those who found the religion, and the cities that embrace it.

There's a few new buildings and units and such like, too. I'm not 100% sure its worth the full release price, just because there's not a huge amount of content. But if you enjoy playing Civ 5, or have in the past, I'd recommend you snap this up sooner or later. Especially if you spot it on reduced price.

A really solid expansion. The religion is not just a diplomatic modifier anymore, but something competitive that can give bonuses to different civilizations. It does have some diplomacy functions, but does so much more. Espionage has a lot of extra options too and sea power is more interesting than before. I'd recommend it to any Civ fan.

Gods & Kings is a lot closer to Civ IV in intention but still keeps the curiously different angle that Civ V took. I liked the addition of religion - which was pretty much my favourite part of the Civ IV system. Yet, don't expect Civ IV with hex, this keeps the less macrocosmic scale and less sandbox feeling of the sequel. A great addition to the game, but its still a different experience - with Gods & Kings Civ V is a part of the way to Civ IV and BTS.

Civ V was released and many people, including myself thought that it was a major step down from IV in depth- and made it VERY simple which would shape pretty much every game to be played in the same strategy.

This DLC adds a lot of depth to the vanilla version of Civ V. - Puts it one step closer to Civ V by adding relgion and spying. The spy elements are still simple in comparison to the older civ games, but at least there are more doors that are opened.

Religion gives you another resource, "Faith", which you can use to improve your civ (civ-wide fish food +1 etc)

City States have been improved in adding more tasks to do *and not KILL the enemy state, but BULLY them heh!*, a nice addition.

AI diplomacy has been improved slightly, but it is obvious that it could be improved (eg there should be more consequences / options for if you caught the AIs spy again, and want to go escalate a little. maybe demand bits, or war within the chitchat?)

The added elements do not unbalance the game, but as a DLC this DEFINATELY improves the vanilla game!

Gave it a 4 cos it felt like the expansion held back on something. definitely worth a buy though!

Wow- what can I say? Any fan of Civ V should pick this expansion up ASAP. Civilization V: Gods and Kings adds whole new elements to a game that was already immersive and clever. Religion now plays a part in how you lead your nations, allowing you to gain Great Prophets, which allow you to flesh out your religion and add bonuses to it.

There are 9 new civs, which, if you have all the other expansion packs, puts the number of civs at a higher number than ANY other game in the same category. I myself have tried out a few of the new ones (Ethiopia, Austria, and Byzantium) and I have to say- the Civ team did a great job! Added to the new civs are new buildings, techs, units, great people, and, most impressive of all in my opinion, the awesome steam punk scenario.

A great expansion for a great game. It fixes MANY of the annoying things in the base game (such as costal cities being damn near invincible. The Religion and Espionage systems are brilliant and add a whole new level of depth to the game. I highly recommend this expansion