Three social policies have been removed and reworked into the Ideology system. Now once you reach the Industrial era you can spend you social policies on expanding upon a either the Freedom, Order, or Autocracy ideologies which are basically religions with more of a focus on financial, scientific and military benefits. For example while religion allows you to generate happiness based on your peoples love of gardens, one of the options in the Freedom ideology allows for an instant 6 militia soldiers. However, just like in life people can never agree on anything, so now there is the world congress. Essentially it is the United Nations. Everyone gets delegates to vote for them, while the civ that hosts the World Congress has twice as many. The congress can vote on things like placing trade embargos on civs, choosing one world religion or ideology or even banning certain luxury resources, ultimately it allows for a way to cripple the growth of certain civs and gain an advantage in the world without exerting military force.
While money doesn’t buy happiness, in Civ 5, money buys buildings that make people happy. Now, in Brave New World there are more ways to make money. International Trade Routes. You build a caravan and then give him a nearby city to go to. You will make money and so will they each turn as part of the trade. In addition to monetary gain, science is also traded, the more techs the other civ has the more science you receive. In addition to the trade of fact, faith is also transferred, the other civs are influenced by your religious convictions. Careful not to let a town of wayward souls trade with zealots less they convert.
Brave New World is shaping up to a welcome expansion to Civilization 5. The new mechanics add new ways of thinking to a game I’ve put so many hours into already. I can’t wait to get my hands on the full game and try out the new civs with the new mechanics and take my first step into this Brave New World.
