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A new expansion for Civilization IV came out last week called Warlords. I purchased it and started playing over the weekend. The expansion essentially emphasizes the military aspects of the game introducing a new unit called a Warlord. The Warlord acts much like the Great Generals from Civ III. He joins a unit and then that unit becomes uber and helps you win on the battlefield or you can choose to have him form a military academny that boosts militray unit production in that city by 25%.

The expansion also adds new Civ Traits as well as rearranging some of the established nations' traits. It also brings in some new powers like the Carthaginians and Vikings.

Each nation gets its own special building much like each has their own Unique Unit so the Aztecs get the Sacrificial Altar and the Russians get the Scientific Insitute - each one a beefed up version of a vanilla bulding like the Russian Scientific Insitute is a beefed up Laboratory. My only complaint here is the Americans get shafted again because of their relative youth as opposed to other powers the American unique building "The Mall" replaces the Supermarket, a building that only comes to play near the end game and won't have much impact in the long run.

It also adds about 4-5 Scenarios that are war oriented like the Alexander the Great Scenario, or Chinese Unification.

Some fans have complained that this expansion is essentially a super patch. My experience is rarely do you get an expansion that gives you a whole new game so I'm fine with it.

Anyone tried this one yet?

No I haven't tried it, but I am interested however I have one important question - is the performance appaling like in vanilla Civ 4?

Ubiquitous wrote:No I haven't tried it, but I am interested however I have one important question - is the performance appaling like in vanilla Civ 4?

I had no technical issues with Vanilla Civ 4 in the first place so I can't speak to this.

One aspect that I left out of this expansion is the creation of the vassal state. No more do you have to hunt down every unti and kill every city to defeat your foe. now they can offer to be your vassal. Nice. And if you're powerful enough they can even offer to be your vassal out of fear and respect. You have to love that idea.

Stravo wrote:One aspect that I left out of this expansion is the creation of the vassal state. No more do you have to hunt down every unti and kill every city to defeat your foe.

That sounds like an excellent improvement. One of the biggest weaknesses in the entire Civ series, IMHO, has been how ahistorically durable governments are. Not everybody should fight like the Japanese on Iwo Jima.

yeah I got it a few days ago... the new civs are good, there are a couple of new buildings, and each civ has an upgrade that replaces a structure that is civ dependant, for instance the Koreans get a new university builing that has a slightly higher percentage of research and a little extra culture. It also comes with a few new game types that are kinda interesting and a few new map types that are cool for multiplayer. Over all it is a decently good expansion... I think it improved on the game.

Is a vassal permanantly your bitch, or can it break away later? Like, say, if another power eclipsed you, or you suffered a catastrophic military defeat?

if you or they break vassalege then it is auto war.

What do you get from a vassal? Tech, gold, troops?

The master gets the right to demand access to any resources, even if it is the only one. You get right of passage, and visibility, and you heal like you where in your own territory.

One thing that potentially sucks about vassalage is that sometimes when you have a nation on the ropes and they're ready to capitulate (the agressive powers like Zulu, Japanese, Greeks, etc usually don't capitulate until they are down to 1 city, other powers usually when they only have a handful left) they actually vassal themselves to someone else other than you, dragging that power into a war with you to defend their vassal. Woe unto you if all your militray might was focussed on one end of the continent and the new master is on the opposite end gearing up for war against you.

It sort of sucks if the AI exploits this to drag you through an endless series of wars. For instance, in the game I'm currently playing I have vassaled the Zulu and the Mali. I have crushed the Celts but as i close in on their last city they vassal themselves to China who reside in a salient that is largely lightly defended because frankly the Chinese have behaved themselves throughout our 3000 year relationship.

Now with my armored spearheads all in the south closing in on the Celts last cities, I have Chinese units rampaging throughout my northern salient.

I've started turning north and utterly crushging their cities. I'm afraid the Chinese will turn and vassal themselves to the Carthaginians further North and once I turn to crushing them they will vassal themselves to Gandhi and that fucker is building up a nice big army at the northern tip of my continent.

The overall effect would be my nation going through an endless series of wars to subjugate all these nations due to a chain of vassalage. I'm currently in year 55 of the war that kicked off when I decided to crush 5 puny Zulu cities. War weariness is really becoming a bitch for me.

And god forbid the chain continues to an overseas power. That means building up sealift to head out there and fight and war weariness spiralling out of control.

While I think its clever to have a defeated power reach out to another power for vassalage there should be some limitations. For instance, the Chinese should never have taken the Celts as a vassal. A simple odds calculation should have told the Chinese - hmmm, I'm just now fielding a handful of Infantry and the Inca are fielding Modern Armor. lots of Modern Armor. Not a good idea to get dragged into a war with them.

The chain of vassalge to another power could very well crush my nation's morale and bring productivity to a halt over a long period of time but its unrealistic in the sense that if Mexico is being invaded and crushed by us why would Brazil accept them as a vassal knowing the kinds of hurt that would come down on them for it? It can make warmaking tedious if every time I'm on the cusp of breaking a power I have another one waiting to fight me in the wings ad nauseum.

Yeah... I am not sure how much I like it... I need to check the start of the game options... wondering if you can turn it off... I hope so.

So wait, you can't demand a turnly payment of gold, or soldiers for the crusade? What good are vassels if you can't tax them and use them to raise grand armies (which they have to support, of course )

I agree, Stravo. I would recode the vassalage rule to make it so only nations you border or are within X squares of your territory can be vassals, and X can increase as your tech/civ advances.

And you should be warned when they try it and have a chance to demand vassalege to you first.

Out of curiousity, what happens if you smash your own vassals?

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Out of curiousity, what happens if you smash your own vassals?

Well:

Jadetear wrote:if you or they break vassalege then it is auto war.

I'd say war would be declaired.
BTW, are Republics and Democracies still overridden by the senate and prevented from breaking treaties and such.

I was quite excited about the vassal option when I first heard about it a few months ago, I hope they work out a patch that somehow gives the party they're at war with have first refusal. Gaining alliances from other powers is fine, but the vassal option should pretty much be exclusively for powers that are physically beating them in war.

I must say this expansion sounds a little lame from what I hear.

Lost Soal wrote:

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Out of curiousity, what happens if you smash your own vassals?

Well:

Jadetear wrote:if you or they break vassalege then it is auto war.

I'd say war would be declaired.
BTW, are Republics and Democracies still overridden by the senate and prevented from breaking treaties and such.

There are no more Republics or Democracies as such any more. You now get to set a goverment type in a number of different catagories. At least now there is no more senate... Hurrah!