Civilization V was one of the best games of the year when it was released in 2010. There was some noticeable omissions, however, that kept the game from being the best it could be.

Now it’s 2012 and 2K has announced the first expansion pack for the title – “Gods and Kings.” It is currently slated for a late Spring 2012 release.

The expansion will bring the usual added tech, units, buildings, wonders and playable Civilizations. How many new things are being added? The expansion is adding 27 new units, 13 new buildings, 9 new wonders and 9 new playable civilizations. Some of those include the Netherlands, the Celts (yay!) and the Mayans.

Now onto the big changes – they are adding in religion back in a resource. Players will be able to create their own religion and grow it from simple roots to a world-controlling empire. If that doesn’t excite you, you obviously don’t play Civilization.

One thing that Civ V did mess up was its combat system. It could be easily exploited either way. They are going to fix that with an AI that places more emphasis on balanced army composition. They are also adding melee naval units which is really going to throw a lot of players off, including yours truly.

I never used diplomacy much in my Civ V games as I tend to just launch full out tactical nukes on my enemies while they’re still in the Industrial Revolution. To perhaps sway bloodthirsty Civ players like myself, they are making diplomacy far more interesting now. How are they going to do that? They’re adding back in espionage aka spies. The expansion will allow players to establish embassies in rival civilizations and spy on them to collect intelligence.

They will also be adding new city-states to complement the new religion feature. They are removing the exploit where players could just pay off city-states to be their friend. Players will now have to help out the city-states in their petty squabbles of wanting to kill each other.

Finally, they are adding three new scenarios with one of them already sounding amazing. The three new scenarios are the Fall of Rome, the medieval era and a Victorian sci-fi setting.

We have no idea how much the expansion is going to cost yet, but I’d wager it about $20 to $30 for all of the content listed above. It’s more than worth it since the improvements and additions are already making me want to get back to playing Civ V this weekend.