Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings [Online Game Code]

by 2K Games

Product Details

• Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address.
• Note: Gifting is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B0085O6NG8
• Release Date: June 19, 2012
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,246 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #40 in Video Games > PC Game Downloads > Simulation
  • #60 in Video Games > PC Games > Games > Simulation

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings is the first official expansion pack for the Turn-Based Strategy game, Sid Meier's Civilization V.* It features the introduction of religion as a major gameplay component to the game, through a faith-based mechanism. It also adds additional diplomatic abilities to those found in the base game. Additional features include, a variety of benefit types for the establishment and adoption of religion, spies that both level with mission completion and that can be a liability if captured, several new playable civilizations, improved battle abilities, and new units, buildings and wonders.

Expanded Power with Religion and Enhanced Diplomacy

The Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings expansion pack* introduces the power of religion and improved diplomatic abilities to Civilization V. Religion, used as a major tool, was left out of the 2010 base game release, but now joins culture, technology, diplomacy, and warfare as the fifth pillar of the game's turn-based statecraft and empire building game mechanic. Use of religion begins during a civilization's infantcy, with the player interweaving select core beliefs with particular realities of their civilization. This in turn unifies people and generates faith, setting the stage for the emergence of unit's like The Great Prophet, Missionaries and The Inquisitor, along with the founding of a religion. Religions available initially correlate to actual world religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Shinto, etc., but they are designed to be renamed and customized with player chosen tenets. Civilizations that found religions enjoy certain exclusive benefits, while a later series of benefits connected to a religion can be enjoyed by any civilization that is converted to it. This includes rival civilizations. As the timeline of the game progresses to the renaissance and beyond, religion becomes less important, but remains a surprisingly powerful tool.

Introduces religion to Civ V statecraft gameplay tactics.
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Improved use of spies allows for even more in-depth strategy.
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The Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings expansion pack also improves on the base game's use of diplomacy, especially in the area of espionage. With spies players can do a wide range of things, including steal technologies, provide intelligence, rig elections, and even counter the actions of foreign spies planted domestically in their own cities.

New Unit Battle Abilities and New Civilzations

Although religion and diplomacy are potent tools of state craft, war is inevitable. This is why Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings includes expanded abilities to units in battle. Improvements include: expanded general health of units to ensure more time for strategy and changes to forces during exchanges, the inclusion of early multi-winged aircraft, expanded offensive abilities of naval units pitted against other ships and against land tagets, and improved defensive abilities of ground units during transport by sea.

Gods and Kings also includes additional civilization not included in the initial release of the base game. In many cases, following the theme of the expansion pack these new peoples possess an extreme potential for influence by/and manipulation of religion. A sampling of the new civilizations available include, the Celts lead by Boudicca, the warrior queen of the proto-British Iceni tribe, and the Maya featuring Pacal the Great the long-time ruler of the powerful city-state of Palenque.

System Requirements

Minimum OS - Windows XP (SP2) / Vista (SP1) / Windows 7 CPU Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 64 2.0 GHz RAM - 2 GB RAM Disc Drive - Required for disc-based installation Hard Disk Space - 8 GB or more Video Card: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better, or Core i3 or better integrated graphics Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card Peripherals - Mouse and keyboard

Recommended OS - Windows Vista (SP2) / Windows 7 CPU Processor - 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU RAM - 4 GB or more Disc Drive - Required for disc-based installation Hard Disk Space - 8 GB or more Video Card - 512 MB ATI 4800 series or better, 512 MB nVidia 9800 series or better Sound Card - DirectX version 11 Peripherals - Mouse and keyboard

Key Game Features

• Introduces religion, wielded through faith, as a crucial tool of the state into the Civilization V game franchise
• A multi-layered belief system that allows for civilization-specific benefits, as well as benefits to any game civilization holding that belief
• Changing benefits to religion depending on the time period of the game
• An improved diplomacy and espionage component that allows for technology theft, foreign intelligence and election rigging, and domestic counter espionage
• Improved capabilities of battle units including, improved general health, the inclusion of early aircraft, and expanded abilities of naval and ground units
• Several new civilizations available for play, including Celtic - featuring the warrior queen of the proto-British Iceni tribe Boudicca, and Mayan, featuring Pacal the Great the longtime ruler of Palenque
• Many new units, buildings and wonders

Additional Screenshots

Improved unit capabilities. View larger

New playable civilizations. View larger

New units, buildings & wonders. View larger

Addictive turn-based gameplay. View larger

Steam account required for activation and installation.

Sid Meier's Civilization V base game required for play.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Worthwhile Expansion. June 19, 2012

By James

Amazon Verified Purchase

Here we are at Civilization V's first expansion after only seeing smaller DLC packs since it's launch over a year ago. This expansion actually does what expansion packs are supposed to do, and that is add on content to keep the game fresh, fix bugs and gameplay issues and give you a reason to spend more money on a game you already have. And it does it quite well.

Civilization V Gods and Kings includes the addition of Religion as well as Espionage as we have seen in earlier instalments in the franchise, but does so in a completely new and innovative way that we have not yet seen. These additions included in this way allow you as the player to experience a copious amount of new content through two completely new major gameplay features, and while they seem familiar and are easy to learn they are fundamentally different than the earlier versions thus exciting and fresh. I won't go into anymore detail as they are listed on the page and I don't want to ruin any of the "exciting and fresh" but that is what I found them to be. But these two features dramatically change the game, and personally added a lot of much needed replayability to the "vanilla" version of the game.

There are several new leaders to be played all heads of their respective civilizations and with that all new leader bonuses and special units. This of course adds a lot more variety to the game (I.E. replayability) as well as variety in abilities and units that you or your opponents (or allies technically) have thus in turn possibly changing your strategy around. These new additions simply add base depth to the game, and fortunately allow a lot of players favorite Civ's/Leaders from previous games to make appearances. And of course some of the new leaders special traits involve bonuses in the new Religion/Faith system.

There were several new maps and scenarios added in this expansion pack, these features are also just added depth and variety. New artwork/Units/moves/abilities, ect. As well.

All in all this expansion pack does what it is supposed to do, or atleast what I had hoped it would do and that is expand on the game, adding new features as well as variety and making the game more enjoyable and most importantly more replayable. Civilization V Gods and Kings for its cost adds a lot of content and doesn't seem to break anything or have a downside game wise, so if you are wondering whether it's worth it as a long time Sid Meier fan as well as just a Civilization fan I find this expansion to be a welcome addition.

Original Civ V rating 4/5, a slight dissapointment considering the earlier instalments and not as enjoyable as the fourth game. Though it was pretty good considering other games on the market.
Civilization V with Gods and Kings 5/5, this expansion fills a lot of gameplay holes, adds a lot of variety and makes the game overall a more enjoyable experience. I find myself not simply running out of things to do to stay entertained with these new strategies and ways to go about the game.

If you enjoyed Civilization V, or feel you would have if it had a little more work done with it and had some expanded gameplay features then this product is definitely a recommendation.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than before at least August 27, 2012

By D. MacDonald

Amazon Verified Purchase

Religion is back and I have to say I like the new system. It accentuates your racial differences and allows you to go all out or round out your racial characteristics. Diplomacy is still utterly useless and you still can't trade technology directly which breaks much of what I've liked from past and similar games. Overall Civ 4 is a better game in every way save the map generator which is nicer in this game. Unlike others I actually like the new military system a lot. It would just be nice if your "friends" wouldn't stab you in the back after thousands of years of partnerships.....dumb dumb dumb

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Made a great game excellent. January 27, 2013

By John W. Blassingame, Jr.

Amazon Verified Purchase

This was an easy download. Adding this to Civilization made the game more complex, more interesting, and just loads cooler. This for a game I've been playing since 1990.