Brant Guillory – 9 July 2013

The much-anticipated Civilization 5 expansion Brave New World was released today.  Here’s a first look at some of the new features from the game itself.

There are new civilizations in the game, including some that were previously city-states, such as Venice.

New features:  In the top left, you can see a new “Tourism” resource that’s produced in the city; in the production queue you can see arrows that you can actually click on to move items up and down in the queue; and in the top left, you can see a slot available in the Palace where you can either place a specialist, or a great work of art.

There are new natural wonders, like King Solomon’s Mines.  Sadly, it doesn’t seem to come with Sharon Stone.*

*Big props is you remember her from the cheesy-’80s we-wish-we-were-as-cool-as-Indiana-Jones movie

The cultural overview has been overhauled.  Fortunately, you can set your advisors for “New to Civ” or just “New to Brave New World” in addition to “Bugger off!”

Look at the top info bar, where you can manage your trade routes, which are now focused on international trade, instead of just establishing internal trade.

You also have a new stat to manage “tourism” – a new resource you can use to overwhelm you opponents.  Although there are great works of art and archeological digs, “tourism” might best be conceptualized as “pop culture” in the way it seems to behave.  Think of late-80s influences on the Eastern block with rock-and-roll, Coke, and Iron Maiden all sneaking into Warsaw Pact countries.

The policy screen has been overhauled as well.  There are now different policies and a new thing called “ideology.”  There’s also been a change in policies in that some Wonders don’t unlock for you unless you select a certain policy.

The Shoshone Pathfinders have the downright nifty ability to pick and choose what they get from ruins / goody huts.  Buuuuuut… you only get to choose each one once. there’s seems to be some sort of ‘reset’ that lets you use the same one again after a few turns.

There’s a new pantheon – look at the bottom of the list for “Tears of the Gods”

Venice doesn’t get settlers.  They get “Merchants of Venice” that act like regular merchants, or they can make some interesting connections with city-states.

With the new “trade routes” feature, it now become a city-state quest option.

We’ve created our first cargo ship, and now can create a trade route.

The Merchant of Venice can “buy” a city-state for you – look on the left at the actions menu.

Presto!  Zanzibar belongs to Venice as a puppet.