Shaihulud's First Warlords Game

[Shaihulud]

Welcome to the report of my first game of Warlords. It was played on a small Pangaea map on Noble difficulty (on which, to my everlasting shame, I lost on). I choose my opponents for this game, as I wanted to test out the new AI personalities, so I choose:

Hannibal (Carthage)
Wang (he he) Kon (Korea)
Brennus (Celtia)
Stalin (obvious)

Quite a bunch there! I choose to play as Churchill, given his new traits.

So, let’s get started. This was my starting position in 4000BC (I founded on the starting tile):


I had a nice selection of resources, gems, gold and pigs. I started a worker as my first build and went for hunting (eventually going to Animal Husbandry for the pigs) as my first research.

I popped the hut you can see below and got gold, and in 3840 I met:


Stalin! It seems this psycho was my closest neighbour; I wasn’t sure whether he was ‘aggressive’ like Napoleon or ‘psycho’ like Monty, so I decided to try and foster close relations with him to see.

In 3800 I get hunting, starting on Animal Husbandry. I pop another hut and get a map, not so great. In 3520 I finish the worker and start a scout. I finish Animal Husbandry in 3440 and start archery – one of Churchill’s traits is Imperialistic, which means archery and gunpowder units automatically get City Garrison 1 and Drill 1 promotions; I know what I’m using to defend my cities! Another trait of Churchill’s is Charismatic, which will give me extra happiness, so I plan to grow my cities early on.

I finish Archery in 3240 and start The Wheel. Hinduism is FIDL in 3160 and Buddhism falls in 3080 – quite late, the new AIs don’t seem to be too keen on religion! I finish The Wheel in 3040 and start Masonry, with the intent of building the Great Wall (a new wonder), the AIs typically ignore Masonry, so I should get it.

I meet Hannibal in 2840:


Pop a hut in 2800 and my exploring warrior gets XP, and is upgraded to Woodsman II.

In 2760 I meet Wang Kon and Brennus:



The new leader heads look rather cool, and I do love the Celtic music for Brennus.

I get Sailing from a popped hut in 2440.

I found my second city, York, in 2000 BC:


I tried to box in the other Civs, there was a big peninsula behind me and I didn’t see any other entrances at the time. Unfortunately, the box in failed.

As you can see in the above picture I’m researching Writing, this is after researching a number of techs including both metal working techs.

I go from Writing to Maths, then to the Monk techs, in hopes of getting the Oracle.

In 850 I finish Code of Laws and found and convert to Confucianism:

And I also build the Great Wall:



I didn’t get to the Oracle however, and it was BIDL in 725 BC.

Confucianism spreads to Stalin’s cities and he converts in 350BC. I finish Monarchy after Currency and Calendar and start heading towards Feudalism.

In 425 AD I build the Hanging Gardens in London:


After that I built my Civ up for a fair while, my research went from Feudalism to Alphabet, to Construction, to Civil Service, to Metal Casing and Machinery (whereupon I revolted to Bureaucracy and started pumping out macemen, until I had a small standing army). I then started Guilds and Headed towards Banking (England’s Unique building is the Stock Exchange, so I’ll get extra bonuses from those).

Then, in 1150 AD:


Korea is way over on the other side of the map, so I agree to a phoney war to keep relations high. Oh, I like how Russia’s border colour has been changed to red, much more suitable in my opinion.

In 1270 I get the Great Library (after noticing it hadn’t been build and rushing it with a great engineer) in London:


I get a Great Scientist in London in 1505 and build an academy there.

Here’s a big shot of my lands from that year:


As you can see, Russia to the west, Celtia to the north, and Carthage and Korea further to the west.

In 1510 I build the Angkor Wat in London, and a new wonder, the University of Sankore in York:



Sankore, especially, was a great bonus. I’m first to Liberalism in 1545 and choose Economics as my free tech, grabbing the Great Merchant there. Unfortunately at this point I had no friends except Stalin, due to the box-off strategy, so I saved him for later. After that I start researching Printing Press, going for Rifling and Redcoats (despite being reduced in strength, they can still dominate the colonial battlefield with a bit of tactical thinking, as I found out).

I end the phoney was with Wang Kon in 1565.

I build the Hagia Sophia in London in 1680 and in 1685 get Rifling. I start Nationalism, going for Military Tradition and Democracy. I also start mass producing Redcoats and upgrading my armies.

In 1725 I have an army together and declare non-phoney way on Korea:


I like the new Trebuchet unit, by the way, it’s much better than catapults for bombarding cities, however it's far too overpowered for actually taking cities. I also get Stalin and Brennus to declare way on Wang (he he) and in 1740 I capture Seoul:


Then… I completely messed up on the screenshot-taking front. I thought I was taking shots but I forgot to open Fraps (my screenshot-programme of choice). So here’s what happened:

I pressed on into Korea but before I captured any more cities Korea became Stalin’s vassal! I was automatically at peace with them and wasn’t about to attack them. I built years, completing the Taj Mahal in London in 1802 and going along the bottom of the tech tree.

Then in 1862 Stalin declared war (he was pleased with me, I’m pretty sure thus he counts as a ‘psycho’ AI)! I activated a golden age with some left over great people. I had two standing armies at this point, one at home and one in Seoul, either side of Russia. I pushed into Russia, capturing Novgorod, St. Pete’s and Moscow. I also got a Great General! I merged him with a unit, and it was quite a good bonus, I’d thought about before hand so nearly all my units in the stack got a promotion, I definitely like this feature. I got peace with Stalin in 1912, he was crippled (I also had brought Hannibal and Brennus into the war with me as well. A little exploit here: They both weren’t willing to declare war on Stalin, but they were on Korea, who was Stalin’s vassal. So once I got them to declare war on Korea Stalin automatically declared war on them, the AIs should take the power of the vassal and master into account when agreeing to declare war).

Now, the eventual and shameful matter of my loss. I went along, leading in tech and building the spaceship parts. Until I realised: There wasn’t enough time left! Brennus was infront of me in score by a good margin, I desperately tried to win by diplo, but that didn’t work, and thus:


My main problem was that I was too slow, if time victory was disabled then I would have won by spaceship victory.

Conclusion: Despite losing, this game was very informative about what Warlords offers. I like a lot of the new features, but there are a few bugs and exploits left to work out. All in all, I think Warlords will shape up to be an expansion worthy of Civ IV, and I would quite like to see some Warlords events run alongside our regular vanilla events.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review, and I hope I informed you about what Warlords has to offer. All comments on this review are much appreciated, thanks!

[Shaihulud]

Any comments then?

[Iustus]

I did not download it. I am paranoid about opening word documents with all the screwy macros viruses that they can carry. Can you post it in html somewhere?

-Iustus

[Shaihulud]

I did not download it. I am paranoid about opening word documents with all the screwy macros viruses that they can carry. Can you post it in html somewhere?

-Iustus

Alright, report posted in the first post.

[Strauss]

Nice read. However, what's not clear from this report (to me) is if the AI's are better at war vs. other AI's, especially in taking cities? I've read many people saying that they are, and was wondering if you noticed it too?

[Shaihulud]

Nice read. However, what's not clear from this report (to me) is if the AI's are better at war vs. other AI's, especially in taking cities? I've read many people saying that they are, and was wondering if you noticed it too?

Yeah, I did actually. Stalin took a lot of Korea in the early game (so much so that they became his vassal) and I noticed that Carthage and Celtia were doing a better job with me vs. Stalin than AIs did in vanilla; it seemed like AI help wasn't just a diversion for my enemies' troops, but they were actually a threat to the enemy.

[Strauss]

Yeah, I did actually. Stalin took a lot of Korea in the early game (so much so that they became his vassal) and I noticed that Carthage and Celtia were doing a better job with me vs. Stalin than AIs did in vanilla; it seemed like AI help wasn't just a diversion for my enemies' troops, but they were actually a threat to the enemy.

Great! I'm probably picking up Warlords tomorrow and I'm glad to see AI's are better at war, and apparently more agressive in declaring war as well. The game may have some issues, but after all there is no perfect game.

[Gotag]

My only potential problem is what you pointed out. You can get an AI civ to declare on a weak vassel to trigger a war with the overlord. Definitely exploitable if the AI doesn't take the overlord into consideration.

Gotag