Yesterday, the new expansion pack for Civilization 5 came out: Gods and Kings. I had to have it of course and Steam was happy to download it while I worked. As soon as I was finished, I started up a new game. As expected, time flew and it was a lot of fun.
Dutch. I decided to go with the Netherlands as my civ since they are new. They have a nice bonus which gives you 2 happiness even if you trade away the last of a particular luxury resource. If I have 1 Silver left, I can trade it for another resources and get 6 happiness instead of just 4. They also have a special boat and tile improvement, which I have not seen yet.
I've always liked playing the Netherlands ever since Colonization. I guess it's their general focus on trading which appeals to me. In this game I am going for an economic focus as well.
Religion. As the title suggests, Religion is one of the newly added systems. It takes Faith (a new resource) to unlock Pantheons then full fledged Religions. My explores happened upon a ruin which gave me 40 faith, enough to establish the worlds first Pantheon. For my bonus, I chose Idolatry. This generates +1 faith for every gold and silver deposit you control. I happened to have a number of Silver deposits near Amsterdam.
I don't really plan on playing a religious focused game, but one of the perks is Church Lands which generates money for me. That fits nicely with my economic aspirations.
Enemy. It seems I am not alone in this part of the world. Japan settled very close to my capital city of Amsterdam. They also picked a spot between me and a Gold deposit, so you know that is going to cause some trouble. In fact, Japan launched a series of wars against me, since they wanted my lands as well. I was able to fend them off, but just barely.
I always start off slow when it comes to my military and the AI certainly knows this. In Civ 5, taking a city is pretty hard, especially early. Besides having a unit stationed in the city, the city itself gets an attack. The combination of the two can really tear up weaker units.
Diplomacy. I have made some friends: the Americans and India. It's neat that if you become friends with someone, their friends may notice and offer you friendship requests too. They list the fact that you are a friend with theirs as a reason. I do not have the technology for alliances yet, so we will see how this translates to wars later in the game.
Stolen Realm - Review
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