INTRO:
Civilizations IV debuted with sophisticated gameplay that one would think could not get any more complex. Then came the Warlords expansion, most of which seem to add more of the same that is fundamentally already in the base package. However, the additional content does encourage players to rethink their playstyles and usual choices. The most exciting additions though, were the vassal system and unique buildings.
POSSIBLE ISSUES WITH PREVIOUS SESSIONS:
To experience most of the new content, the player may have to restart a new session. This can irk players that are already some distance into their current session when Warlords is released.
Even if such a player decides to continue existing sessions anyway and is eager to experience some of the new content that does not require the starting of a new session, he/she may encounter technical problems. Game-saves that load sessions that were made with the base-game can be corrupted. The game may also crash due to some peculiar incompatibility between these sessions and the new content.
The developers had seemed aware of these problems and designed fixes where feasible, but issues can still crop up periodically if the player is adamant on continuing previous sessions.
Although an apologist can argue that these issues can be avoided by starting a new session altogether, these issues still suggest that the developers had not designed the expansions with existing sessions in mind.
NEW LEADERS & LEADER TRAITS:
If the player starts a new session with the Warlords expansion, he/she can pick new leaders for some of the existing nations. Most of them have existing traits, but some have new ones. For example, England gets Churchill, which has the new “Charismatic” trait. The “Charismatic” trait grants happiness bonuses as well as an experience discount on unit promotions.
These new traits would be of value to players who like to create custom-made leaders for mods of the game.
Some existing leaders for existing factions have also been updated; this was seemingly to either differentiate them from their alternates, or to address historical issues with some leaders.
For an example of the former, George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt both formerly had “Organized” as one of their traits, but George has been updated to have the “Charismatic” and “Expansive” traits instead.
For an example of the latter, Mao Zedong formerly had the “Philosophical” and “Organized” traits, which was perhaps more appropriate during his earlier years. He has been updated to have the “Expansive” and “Protective” traits, which are perhaps more appropriate for most of his career (if one is to look kindly upon his legacy, of course).
However, the addition of new leaders to existing nations may give some of these nations an uneven advantage in terms of choices. For example, Russia would have up to three leaders, all of whom have traits that they do not share with each other. This means that the playstyle of the Russian player can be difficult to predict until his/her/its leader choice is revealed.
On the other hand, one can argue that the identities of the leaders of these nations can be revealed at the start of any session via a mere look at the diplomacy screen, so players who picked these nations would not get an unfair advantage in concealing their choices. Yet, they do have this advantage if the option to reveal these choices is not enabled.
NEW CIVILIZATIONS:
The Warlords expansion also offers a handful of new civilizations. Historical buffs would say that these are a long time coming, considering that their civilizations were quite significant in the history of humanity.
Gameplay-wise though, they may seem a bit too similar to existing nations if one is to consider the playstyles that they cater to. For example, Korea would satisfy players with playstyles that have them veering towards China in the base game.
Moreover, most of these additional civilizations originate in ancient times, which mean the roster of civilizations with early-game advantages can seem rather expansive compared to the others.
Still, to put a positive spin on these additions, they do give a Civilizations fan more fodder to be amused with. Yet, if there is a problem with these new civilizations, it is that they have only one choice for their leaders.
NEW UNITS:
The additional civilizations come with their own unique units, which, like the other existing unique units, are intended to add flavour to their civilizations as well as give them clear advantages in certain ways.
Among these, the Berserkers of the Celts are particularly notable for their seemingly unfair advantage when used against other civilizations during the Ancient stage of sessions. Having a tremendous bonus against other melee units and a bonus when attacking cities can seem too much. They even have the Amphibious ability, which makes rivers and coasts useless as defences against raids by Berserkers.
There are also additions to the roster of regular units. Trebuchets have been introduced as an alternative to catapults; trebuchets are more effective in city attacks and are generally better siege weapons, but they are more expensive.
The Trireme has been added as an Ancient-era naval unit, which fills the absence of offensive-capable ships during this stage of a session.
NEW WONDERS:
The race for Wonders is an exciting part of Civilizations’ gameplay, and it so happens that Warlords would introduce more Wonders.
However, to be specific, there are only three additions, which one would wonder (pun not intended) why they were not in the base game in the first place. This is especially considering that these are rather well-known Wonders, such as the Great Wall.
Speaking of the Great Wall, it is the only one of the three that does not turn obsolete when certain technologies are discovered. This increases its long-term value when compared to the other two, though one can argue that the other two offer benefits that can be too overpowered in the long-term.
GREAT GENERAL:
Great Persons were a splendid addition to the gameplay of the Civilizations franchise. Warlords would expand this feature further with its (perhaps) titular content, the Great General.
Much like the other Great Persons, the Great General is a special unit that can grant considerable advantages to its owning civilization. However, it differs from other Great Persons in how it is generated.
Instead of the relatively peaceful means to generate progress towards getting other Great People, the Great General is obtained by generally waging war. To be specific, the progress towards obtaining a Great General is measured by the amount of combat experience that units have gained through battles.
Once the (ever-increasing) threshold of combat experience accrued is breached, the Great General appears at the player’s capital city.
The Great General can be expended in ways that are similar to those for other Great Persons. It can be expended to construct a Military Academy at any city, which grants the city a bonus to the production of military units. It can also be stationed at a city as a special worker to grant bonus default experience to units that are created at the city, though the bonus is rather small (perhaps for the sake of gameplay balance).
However, the Great General can be expended in one extra way. It can join an existing military unit and grant it an immediate increase of 20 points of experience. Alternatively, it can join a unit that is in a tile with other units, for which the 20 points are distributed evenly.
In either case, the unit that the General is attached to gains access to special promotions that it can receive later. These special promotions include additional tiers to existing promotions, such as Combat VI and Medic III. Other special promotions include Leadership, which grants a bonus to experience gains by the unit, and Morale, which increases the movement of the unit by one tile, which can go a long way.
PROBLEMS WITH GREAT GENERALS:
Unfortunately, if the player is hoping that adding a General to a unit would make it perform more reliably than other units, he/she may be disappointed to know that the General is ultimately powerless against bad luck.
The resolution of combat is still a matter of the results of random number generators (RNGs), which can give wildly unexpected results to fights. Although the attachment of a General makes a unit tougher and more powerful, it does not become any luckier. Bad RNG results can still cause the unit to be taken out of battle quickly.
Furthermore, as the order of engagement in Civilization IV has the strongest units go first, this means that the General-empowered unit tends to take the brunt of the first painful blows if it is included in a stack of units.
VASSAL STATES:
Perhaps the most convincingly refreshing addition to the gameplay of Civilizations IV is the mechanism of vassal states. Where the other content in the expansion is fundamentally not any different from what the main package already offers, the ability to form vassal states can be a game-changer.
Curiously, the mechanism of vassal states sits between that of the formation of alliances through diplomacy and annexation/surrender through war.
A civilization can become the vassal state of another through diplomacy, essentially becoming the lesser partner of a deficient alliance. Like alliances, if the vassal nation is attacked, the master immediately becomes an enemy of the attacker. If the master declares war on another, the vassal nation follows suit, with no say on the matter.
Compared to alliances, offering to become the vassal state of a more powerful nation in order to gain protection is more likely to work than offering an alliance agreement. This is because the would-be master nation obtains quite a lot of benefits, which will be described later. However, the vassal suffers some penalties as a price of servitude.
Alternatively, the vanquisher of a nation can give the choice of becoming a vassal state to the defeated. This is usually done when obtaining a vassal is more feasible than wholesale annexation. Annexation can be terribly difficult if the vanquished nation has very strong culture, which can feed resentment. Therefore, obtaining vassal states through war is perhaps a more sustainable option.
However, the vassal is still very much in control of its own affairs and can plan an insurrection. Worse, the vassal can still attempt to dominate its master culturally.
As for the benefits that the master gets, it automatically gains a one-way open borders agreement with modifications. The master can move military units into the vassal’s territories as well as make use of its static military assets, such as fortresses. The master’s military units also heal at a regular rate when in the vassal’s territory, as if they are on home soil.
The master also gains complete intel on the vassal’s territories which is perhaps handy if it is expecting secession. Furthermore, the master gains increased happiness ratings across its territory, presumably because of the people’s pride of their nation being able to dominate another. (On the other side of the relationship, the vassal suffers reduced happiness as a consequence of having to sacrifice their sovereignty.)
Most importantly, a sizable portion of the vassal’s territory and population contributes towards the master’s score for the purpose of achieving victory via domination; the vassal itself is locked out from such a victory.
In return for these benefits, the master incurs higher maintenance costs for its cities, which can seem like an odd drawback. Furthermore, having vassals may incur the ire of civilization leaders that despite servitude to others.
There are other curious limitations to the vassal system too. The master can demand that a vassal gives up control of resource nodes, but this is not a given; the vassal can refuse, which leads to outright war and the breaking up of the vassalage. This is perhaps in place in order to prevent the master from gaining the unfair advantage of taking resources from another nation without having to plough through the other.
UNIQUE BUILDINGS:
In the base version of Civilization IV, the unique differences between different civilizations go only as far as unique units. Warlords would extend the unique differences to buildings in cities.
Like unique units, these unique buildings are distributed throughout the many ages of humanity, which grant advantages to different civilizations at different stages of humanity.
Interestingly, the Egyptians get the Obelisk, a unique version of the Monument. The curiosity to be had here was that the “Obelisk” was the original name for the buildings that are now called the “Monument”. This change was perhaps intended for historical accuracy.
Anyway, these special buildings can grant some hefty advantages. For example, the Aztecs have the Sacrificial Altar, which is their alternative of the Courthouse. This allows them to sacrifice their populations with lesser happiness penalties, which can allow for some effective (and rather cavalier) strategies.
However, these buildings tend to come with additional costs to balance their advantages. The exception is again the Sacrificial Altar, though perhaps this was intended to balance against the risk of the aforementioned strategies.
ADDITIONAL SCENARIOS:
One of the valuable aspects of Civilizations IV is its modularity, which allows for the replacement of game content with custom-made ones. The developers showcased these with scenarios in the base game.
In Warlords, they go even further, producing custom-made units and technologies that match the eras in the scenarios that the expansion would add to Civilizations IV. These custom-made units use the animation scripts of default units, but they have their own texture packs and models. In addition, these scenarios have even more sophisticated designs such as custom-made victory conditions and even gameplay mechanisms.
The best example of these additions is Genghis Khan’s conquests. The player that takes on the role of the Mongols have entirely different ways of obtaining military units - ways that happen to be terrain-dependent, interestingly. The Mongols earn technology through conquest too, not by peaceful research. Furthermore, victory by the Mongol player is not achieved by total conquest, but rather the rate of conquest; if he/she gains enough forward momentum in the Mongols’ invasion, he/she wins even before the other civilizations have been defeated.
Some of these scenarios make use of the vassal system as a factor in achieving victory, which make them good showcases of the system.
Indeed, some of the scenarios are so different from the main game that the player may well be playing another game altogether.
One particular scenario has the player taking on the role of the barbarians that plague nascent civilizations in the main game. This can be an amusing game mode, because the player is actually actively destroying civilizations without building any, which go against the titular spirit of the franchise.
SUMMARY:
The vassal system and unique buildings that Warlords introduce further increase the already-splendid complexity of the gameplay of Civilization IV. Its other content may not be as impressively designed and may even skew existing gameplay a bit, but they do grant more choices of civilizations and encourage the formulation of more strategies to develop them. Overall, Warlords is a worthwhile expansion.