Hey duders, l bought a gaming PC around about Christmas time so obviously l've missed out on some classics. Civ 5 is on sale at the moment and my question is whether should l just buy the base game or buy the game with all the expansions but it is double the price. l would genuinely just go for the cheaper option but l heard the game isn't as deep and enjoyable without the expansions?

Cheers, any advice is appreciated.

P.S l know not to trust Gandhi

The base game will give you plenty of time and gameplay to get familiarized with how Civ works. After you've got a better hold on the game's mechanics, you can broaden it with the expansion packs. Gods & Kings is OK, but Brave New World introduces many changes that make the game much better. IMO, that one should be your priority, followed by G&K. As for individual civs... that's up to you. If you feel that you've tried already the ones that come with the game and the expansions, then get them. They are just more civs.

Also, I don't know if you're talking about the current price on Steam, but the Complete Edition bundle is only €4 more (or regional equivalent/1:1 conversion) than the base game, for only €10. That gets you everything Civ V, or at least everything that matters.

Gods and Kings and Brave New World are essential. Or you can buy the complete edition for a better deal.

If you've never played the game before then no you probably don't. That being said I would never go back to vanilla civ and I would recommend picking them up.

You can just start with Brave New World. It even includes a lot of the features from Gods and Kings. Both are good though, but I think the only essential expansion is BNW.

@neocalypso said:

Yeah, if you haven't played a Civ game before, then I could easily recommend that a new player just mess around with vanilla Civ 5 for a while to get a feel for it. Then a few months later consider getting the expansions if you're still playing the game regularly and want to make the game more interesting.

Brave New World is essential. It takes the game from being okay to being one of my all-time favorite turn-based strategy games. It adds a significant amount of depth and makes the whole game feel a lot more worthwhile to play.

Short answer is yes. Both Gods + Kings and Brave New World. Game is much deeper with the substantial changes and additions those two expansions add, especially in the mid-late game stages.

As JoeyRavn mentioned, Civ V: Complete is on sale for $12.50 on Steam right now. You'd get all the fun extra Civs as well, adds to the variety of the game over time. If the difference between the base game and a couple of expansions was $20-$30 I'd say hold off, but getting everything for under 13 bucks is easily worth it.