Civilization 5 Gods & Kings [Trainer]

Game Review:
When you crush someone, even an entire civilisation, it’s always best to wipe the slate clean of everything they believed in. To help with this, a mysterious city state has revealed itself close to Civilization V’s borders – an expansion that’s ready to introduce religion to an already tumultuous world.

Two years on from the Meier stable’s last missive, Gods & Kings can be seen as an act of appeasement. It reintroduces systems such as Faith and Espionage that many Civ IV acolytes felt had become part of the game’s bedrock – and who thought that the successes of Civ V in combat and game flow rang slightly hollow in their absence.

Firaxis’s approach to religion provides a nuanced and personal approach to a monolithic subject matter – letting you tend to your religion from its earliest origins. Faith is a resource like Gold or Culture, and can be gathered from the things you build and the social policies you take on – ultimately letting you create a Pantheon and choose from a long list of potential Beliefs. Each belief can provide bonuses to your Civ (say, a God of the Sea who can help with your food supply), and when a Great Prophet starts knocking around you can make your kooky belief system official. I call mine Awesomeism – and delight in strapping extra founder and follower beliefs to it, and of course using it to infect the cities of non-awesome infidels.