Civ IV: Warlords turns an already involving game into a deeper, more complex and much more enjoyable experience
Warlords is the first expansion pack for Sid Meier's Civilization IV, bringing six new challenging scenarios and more civilizations to the game world, each with their own specific traits, special buildings and military units. But that's not all.
The civilizations appearing for the first time are Carthage, Celt, Korean, Ottoman, Viking and Zulu. With these civilizations come new leaders, but there are also additional leaders for existing civilizations (England, Rome, Egypt and Russia). The expansion also adds three new Leader Traits: Charismatic, Imperialistic and Protective. These traits add a variety of special bonuses to your civilizations, and they range from city happiness to health, to faster construction of wonders or free military unit promotion.
There are three new wonders available for construction: The Great Wall (which physically appears around the borders of your domain and prevents barbarians from attacking cities within it) the University of Sankore (which adds to research) and the Temple of Artemis (which grants a bonus to trade routes).
There is even a new category of unique buildings. This means that each civilization now has a structure that only they can build and that's basically an upgrade of an existing regular building. For example, the Aztecs have a Sacrificial Altar that replaces the courthouse, the Egyptian replace their monuments with Obelisks while the Spanish get Citadels to replace their castles.
So, what about these Warlords in the title?
Warlords are a "promotion" of a Great General, which is generated according to the victories and experience that your military units accumulate. Once a Great General appears in one of your cities, you can either have him build a Military Academy or join the city as a Military Instructor. The real fun is in the third option: turn him into a Warlord. Once you have your Warlord, you can "attach" him to one of your military units, and when you do, he will split 20 experience points between all units in the same square. Pretty neat? Wait, there's more. Let me tell you a little story about my fist Warlord.
Once upon a time, there was a peaceful Egyptian civilization lead by me. This civilization was the richest, the most powerful and the most advanced in the world. Its cities were well guarded. So what possessed another civilization to even think of attacking, is beyond me.
One day, the Japanese decided to sneak-attack one of myEgyptian cities. Treason isn't tolerated, so machine guns were put on stand by and tanks, artillery and marines started gathering at the borders. Oddly enough the Japanese kept sending knights in shining armor against the advanced technology, surprisingly managing to defeat a few units. Lances against bullets? And it works? What the hell...
Anyway, in this time of war, a Great General is born. This general teams up with some tanks and storms Kyoto. What I hear during the attack wasn't exactly what I expected... As the tank shoots in the direction of the city, the Warlord lifts his whip and screams like a maniac: "AHA! WOO! MUAHAHA!"
So there you have it, Warlords are completely crazy generals. Crazy generals that do a lot for your military force with those extra experience points. Crazy generals who laugh histerically while leading the troops in an attack. Crazy, or just brave? Whatever they are, they're effective and hilarious while they're at it.
Speaking of war, there is a new diplomatic condition: Vassal States. Vassals are enemies that you have defeated and subjugated into paying you tribute. Extorsion can be a wonderful thing, since you can slowly depleat other civilizations of resources, then storm them again and totally annihilate them.
Ok, maybe I'm not that peaceful of a leader, but hey, this is Sid Meier's Civilization... it's every man or woman for themselves!
Graphically, the game looks gorgeous and there is a lot of attention to detail. It's delightful to see workers building improvements and then seeing those in action (I quite liked the little mine carts and windmills for some reason), fireworks above your cities when they are celebrating how much they love your leadership skills, the way a new building can alter the shape of a city and how everything changes with the coming of a new era. The animations are equally well done and everything moves smoothly. It's worth watching military units attack each other just to see how each different unit performs their attack.
The sound isn't any less spectacular, starting with the classical music, which I particularly enjoy. The sound effects are appropriate, be it an archer shooting arrows, people cheering, the funky Elvis engineers singing or terrified screams coming from a city that is under attack.
Ultimately, Civ IV: Warlords turns an already involving game into a deeper, more complex and much more enjoyable experience. My quest for world domination will continue as soon as I finish writing this review!
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com. Full text and screens at:
http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=civ4warlords