Civilization V: Gods and Kings.

[lugaru]

With as many hardcore and oldschool strategy fans as we have on the forum, I'm surprised not to see more discussion. Personally I find Civilization 5 to be a little bit shallow, but that has not prevented me from putting in a whole bunch of hours.

So far I had a good game with the Azteks that kind of slowed down in the end. I did one with Boudica that just fell apart due to invasions. I played as the USA in multiplayer, spreading the religion of Obesity across the world (offensive?) and was winning but we ran out of time. My most recent game was with Marea Teresa of Austria, and her ability to buy city states is fairly awesome. In the end I lacked the technology to seal the deal but got to lay the smackdown on Atila the Hun, wiping him from the map. Here is my review... anyone else playing Civ 5 with or without the expansion?

http://www.theconnoisseurs.com/index.php/be-merry/games/957-civilization-v-gods-and-kings

[captmorgan72]

I bought it, installed it, played it and realized my puny computer can't handle it. Back to Rise of Nations for me.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I have been playing vanilla Civ 5 recently.  It is a fun game, but I find the global happiness, which acts as a de facto limit on how large your empire is allowed to be, very frustrating.  I actually lost a game solely because I didn't have enough trading partners to get enough luxuries to expand my empire by more than a few cities while all my neighbor had 2-3 times as many cities as I and armies to match.

I still say it's a good game, but that one thing drives me nuts.  It seems like too artificial and arbitrary of a limit designed to force players into a specific playstyle that I personally do not favor.

[lugaru]

Yeah, I've been exploring mods to tailor the game a bit more to something reasonable. Also I might be throwing my hat into the ring now that an expansion is out.

Meanwhile I am using a couple of mods but nothing special... info addict (more graphs), names for prophets (they are nameless to not offend anyone), RED (mostly cosmetic, small units in larger groups makes battles look cool).