14 DAY TRIAL // I loved the idea of one military unit per hex that the development team at Firaxis introduced for Civilization V, because it dealt with one of the biggest problems of the series: the tendency to create enormous killers stacks that were hard to counter in any simple and elegant way.
Unfortunately, the Artificial Intelligence that powers the game failed to deal with the innovation in a solid way, especially when it comes to tactical engagements, which means that gamers complained about it and the team, of course, promised that patches and expansions would deal with the issues.
Gods & Kings has, as far as I can see, failed to do that in any significant way and I saw that plainly when I was forced with the armies of four other empires after trying to swallow up a number of independent states.
The Swedish were the first to attack me and their move, even if it involved two trebuchets, three pikemen and more archers, failed miserably because they left their siege engines exposed.
That allowed me to use my lone unit and the fire from one city in order to take them out before they could fire, and then simply defend my city and sally forth from time to time in order to take down the rest of the force.
Meanwhile, the Carthaginian forces failed to link up or cut my supply line, while Asoka also held significant armies in reserve while my capital city was largely undefended.
The defensive was incredibly easy to execute and there were clear ways to disrupt my moves and take my cities, which the computer completely missed.
I managed to keep a stalemate in this Medieval World War I with little trouble (playing on Normal) and I then moved to the offensive with rather predictable results.