 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Firaxis Games |
| Publisher: | 2K Games | |
| Genre: | Strategy | |
| ESRB: | Everyone 10+ | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | Requires Sid Meier’s Civilization IV |
There are three new wonders: the Great Wall, the Temple of Artemis, and the University of Sankore. The Great Wall prevents barbarians from entering your cultural borders, the Temple of Artemis gives +100% to trade route yield, and the University of Sankore gives +2 to research from state religious buildings. Every civilization gets two new buildings: the stable and the monument. The monument replaces the Obelisk from the original game, while Stables give +2 experience points to new mounted units. Each civilization now gets a unique building, similar to the unique military unit. For example, the American civilization gets a shopping mall instead of a supermarket.
My favorite addition to the game was the diplomatic option for vassal states. This allows the ruler of a strong empire to take up weaker empires as vassals. Vassals lose their right to declare peace and war, and the master can demand any resource from the vassal states. The vassal state could refuse, but this results in war. The two states cannot attack each other otherwise. If the master state declares war, the vassal automatically joins in. This can lead to interesting results in game between two large civilizations with a vassal state. This option is unlocked with the development of feudalism. The master state gets credit for half of the land and population of the vassal state for victory conditions and scoring concerns, making this agreement a good strategy to achieve a victory condition.
Since the original game was well done, Warlords can almost get away without improving much. If anything, my biggest problem is the lack of a modern age scenario. The Ohio Valley one is strange, and I would have liked to see a WWI or WWII scenario since they have many of the leaders in place now. They could have used this expansion as a chance to add in more military units across all ages. Instead, there are two new units and a new Great Person. More leaders would have been nice too, though the ones they put in are good for what they are. Like the original game, my biggest complaint though is that I have to keep the CD in the drive while playing instead of running straight from the hard drive. I understand this is for copy/protection purposes, but it should be mentioned when a game’s 4X competition (Stardock’s Galactic Civilization II: The Dread Lords) and many other games have abandoned this method. This is an inconvenience, particularly for laptop users such as myself.
Bottom Line:
It’s ultimately hard to find something to criticize with the expansion pack (aside from requiring the CD in the drive) simply because it adds to an already solid experience. Warlords adds in enough content to justify the purchase, and the scenarios are fun to play through. I would have liked to see more units, diplomatic options, and more overall features, but Warlords is good enough to breathe in a little bit of new life and freshness to an already solid game.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 8.0 |
Posted: 2007-08-16 17:30:57 PST