The single unit per hex combat in Civ V rewarded mixed unit tactics on the land but the strategy for navies was simply to build the most powerful ships available. If you’re a warmonger at heart – Gandhi, I’m looking your direction – the way you conduct war is more complex in this expansion. Why can’t they poison the water supply? Or plant a nuclear device? Or drink a martini shaken but not stirred? The usefulness of what spies can do doesn’t really make up for the time needed to manage them. “The Mayan Pacal is plotting against Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.” “Attila the Hun is building up to sneak attack Austria.” You can choose to share that info with the intended victim to curry favor, but the frequent reports of the AI’s shifting plans lose value fast. I was excited by this feature at first, but in practice your spy will just spam you with the schizophrenic plans of the AI leaders. If a spy is in an enemy civ’s city, he can steal technology after several turns, as well as dig up plots the leader is cooking up. Put a spy in an independent city state and she will rig the election, making the city your ally. Through a menu, you can move these spies to any city on the map. You get your first spy in the renaissance era, and an additional one every era after, which adds further complexity to the end game. The addition of espionage attempts to make diplomacy between civs more nuanced. You can even deviate from the real-world names provided such as Confucianism or Christiantiy and rename the religion – just please resist the urge to name your religion Bob’s Tantric Sex Doctrine. The number of available religions is always fewer than the number of rival civs in the game, so you want to found one early or be forced to adopt a rivals. Designing your own religion through choosing the beliefs to fit the needs of your civ, or your particular playstyle, was a great call – a city following your religion could make a certain building more powerful, while each converted city can provide +1 happiness to the founding civ. The late game of Civ could sometimes be boring when going for a culture or diplomatic victory, but the managing of these new units peacefully competing with other religions can be just as fun as plotting a military invasion. You accumulate faith points through building shrines and spend them on founding first a pantheon, then on a full-on religion, then on Great Prophets and missionaries to spread the Word. The mandate to spread your religion returns from Civ IV, finally allowing some non-combat options for the peace-minded players out there.

Civilization v gods and kings