Civilization V: Brave New World expansion announced

2K Games has announced Civilization V: Brave New World, the second expansion for the strategy game.

Brave New World is being developed by series steward Firaxis and will be out this summer for the PC and Mac.

The expansion is geared around tweaking the game's culture and diplomacy mechanics and also offers nine new Civilizations, eight new Wonders, and two new scenarios.

Brave New World introduces the World Congress and the concept of international trade routes. The World Congress will convene on issues like trade sanctions, hosting the World Games, and the use of nuclear weapons. 2K promises that players will be able to trade votes and engage in other shenanigans, and the World Congress will also tie in to winning a diplomatic victory.

International trade routes can be used to generate wealth, but will also spread religion, cultural influence, and science. Trade routes are increased by developing technologies, building wonders, and making use of each civilization's unique abilities. Longer trade routes carry more risk but will yield more lucrative supplies, and trade routes can also be used on players' own cities to distribute supplies internally.

Brave New World also adds the new culture victory. Civilizations work to spread their culture around the world, creating great works with great artists, writers, and musicians, and then hosting them in museums, opera houses, and the great library. Archaeologists can also be used to recover valuable artifacts. The first civilization to gain a majority influence across all other civilizations will achieve the culture victory.

The two new scenarios are titled War Between the States and Scramble for Africa, with the former letting players pick a side in the American Civil War and fight for control of Richmond and Washington. Scramble for Africa has players working against other civilizations to explore and establish control in a dynamically generated Africa.

New wonders include the Parthenon, Broadway, and the Uffizi. One of the new civilizations is Poland, led by Casimir III.

For more information on Civilization V, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.