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Well, it is nearly time to put Warlords out to pasture. With Beyond the Sword on the way, Warlords will probably only be played by most players for nostalgia or perhaps the odd MP game or succession game or something. In this thread, let's talk about things you remember about the Warlords pre-release hypetrain, what you thought Warlords did right, what it did wrong, what you think about it now compared to it's release, things you will miss about it, etc etc etc.
Imagine if you will, early 2006. Civilization IV had just been released a few months before and had it's whole life ahead of it. Whispers of an expansion pack coming out sooner than expected began to circulate. The fan communities were on edge, who knows what megatons would be dropped in the next XP? Babylon? New and improved nukes? Special sniper modes? I remember when the name came out a lot of people were skeptical, saying it was a ripoff of AoE III's Warchiefs. But then we saw the wonder movies for Temple of Artemis and Great Wall. Who here didn't say wow when they saw the Great Wall video for the first time?
As the months went by more information kept leaking out. Vassal states? Hmm, interesting! University of... Sankore? *opens www.wikipedia.com* So, England and Russia get third leaders while some still only have one? That's weird. Augustus is finally going to be in? Rock on! Wait, still no Babylon? WTF?!
I think the reviews came out they were by and large positive but not overwhelmingly positive like Civ IV. I don't think it made it on any best XP of the year lists that I recall seeing. But unlike, say, Play the World, it did have a definite positive reaction. And who could forget Solver's legendary review? It was more negative than I expected, but definitely fair, and without question the best overall review of the product on the net.
When Warlords came out, I believe I was one of the more enthusiastic posters here, gushing about every little one of it's new features. At the time a lot of posters complained about it's lack of epic game content. Of course, compared to Beyond the Sword the scale of changes really does look minuscule. But I do think that my enthusiasm was for the most part justified. The argument that I made back then was that while the sheer quantity of the new material in Warlords was not overwhelming, the quality was. This argument still rings true for me today.
One of the things that was done very right was the surprising addition of all new music. While it is easy to forget this now if you have played Warlords quite a bit, at the time hearing a new piece of music come on was a huge shock. Unique buildings were another one of the most pleasing changes for me. I know that they are a small thing, but I just think they add so much flavor to the game. There is just a certain sense of satisfaction that you get from unlocking your civ's special building, even if it is kind of a dud like the mausoleum. And the new civs were just six really solid civs, no HRE's here folks. The leaderhead artwork also seems to be on par with the original 18, unlike some of the new leaders in BtS that seem to be kind of spotty in terms of quality.
Vassal states draw a lot of ire in certain competitive circles, but I think they were a masterful addition, even if somewhat bugged pre-patch. They just add so much to making the game more unexpected and really do a good job of shaking up a game's balance of power. Great Generals were solid too. They didn't significantly alter the game's balance, but they were a lot of fun to play with and always forced you to make some tough strategic decisions.
I think that one thing that Warlords did wrong was it's over-emphasis on scenarios both in comparison to material created for the main game and in various marketing materials. I think that Firaxis learned their lesson on this one because the marketing for BtS has focused mostly on changes to the core game and the focus on the scenarios has been decidedly more low key. While I certainly can't fault any of the scenarios for their quality, I think they were all cleverly designed, and I was always impressed by them when I actually played them, I just rarely was able to pull myself away from the main game to make time for the scenarios. One other thing I would say that it did wrong was the main title screen was so dark and dreary and the title track inferior to the everyone's favorite Baba Yetu. The only other thing that I would complain about is that the traits never were that interesting compared to the originals, and today most players consider Imperialistic and Protective to be the two worst traits.
One thing that will always keep an install of Warlords on my hard drive is that I think it will be remembered as the most refined and "pure" version of Civilization IV. While BtS may ultimately be a better game overall, it makes so many changes that it may as well be Civ 4.5. Warlords represents the best version of that game Soren plugged away at for so many years. The game that went through the dozens and dozens of different builds that we saw during "Prototyping Civ" at PolyCon. While Civanilla will always have a charm all it's own, Warlords took that game and just refined the crap out of it with all sorts of small tweaks like the axeman/redcoat/cossack nerfs, the creative/expansive/organized buffs and so on. So if I want to play Civ 4.5, I have no doubt that BtS will satisfy me well, but if I actually want to play Civ IV? Look out folks, because I am going to double click on that sheep and fire me up some Warlords.
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