Expansions are back, but what makes them great?

[Administrator]

I had to kill Dom Pedro II of Brazil before I could realise that he was actually my kind of people. That's the power of Civilization games, right? Victory leads you away from the PC and over to the bookshelves where you learn about the tech you used and the people you crushed. And man, I crushed Pedro II quickly: around the two-hour mark in an 11-hour game. The rest of us civs were starting to get armies and economies going. We were starting to expand and to sprout new cities and to think about the finer things in life. Pedro, though? It was clear that Pedro wasn't going to make it. He had two cities and, in the bizarre economy of Civ 5, a population of about four or five citizens. He came last in all the lists that mattered. He was gloomy and heavy-browed when he popped up in negotiations, like a department store Santa who was aiming for 'portentous' rather than 'jolly'.
So I wiped him out. I told myself it was as a service to him, although I might cannily have been eyeing the resources he was sat on, and been wary of Brazil's late-game culture bonus Carnival, which has earned this particular civilisation the nickname Pedro's Party People. Whatever the reason, once Pedro was gone I hit the books, and what I learned was rather disheartening. Pedro II seemed like a really good guy - he shouldered the sacrifices of a leadership role he'd never wanted, and he held together an empire that was on the verge of disintegration. He became buddies with notable humans like Louis Pasteur, whose milk tricks I have been enjoying for years. He abolished slavery. Those sad eyes, that hooded brow? They were his trademarks in real life, too. He was kind, thoughtful, troubled even, and by the time I learned that the man I'd just killed was known by his country as 'The Magnanimous', well, that's kind of the worst thing you can learn about the man you've just killed.
Since then, I always choose Pedro whenever I play Civ 5 - partly because of the Carnival bonus, certainly, but mostly because he's come to define the game for me. But here's the really crazy thing: up until the Brave New World expansion, Pedro wasn't in Civ 5. Expansions, eh? Magical things, and we've had some beautiful examples of late. Do expansions get enough appreciation?
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