I've decided to report the first Warlords game I've played for a while - yeah, I was a tester, so I have considerable experience with Warlords, but since it's gone gold I've mostly busied myself with RBCiv CIVanilla games.
I decide to play on Emperor difficulty and to use the imperialistic trait and to emphasize peaceful expansion rather than GGâs - trying to out-expand the AI, basically. Most the imperialistic leaders have a warmongery second trait, so I choose Victoria - Imperialistic Financial.
The settings are standard fractal - extremely standard.
As it happens I'm on some kind of peninsula with several offshore islands, I'm connected via a small isthmus to the mainland so I can expand unmolested.
My capital itself is insanely poor - there are grassland elephants nearby (no jungle), but the only decent tile is a plains wheat (non-freshwater), but it's on the far side of a bay and a looong walk to the wheat (and back!) for the worker - a 10 turn round trip. On the whole the start is downright odd - not necessarily bad, but slightly slow starting anyway.
Anyway, I quickly expand peacefully to 7 cities, which is easy with the imperialistic +50% settler bonus and when the AI's can't steal the city sites.
![[Image: warlords11yk4.jpg]](http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2498/warlords11yk4.jpg)
7 secure cities is actually probably enough to win on emperor, but Capac had other ideas...
![[Image: warlords12vg4.jpg]](http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6020/warlords12vg4.jpg)
It's hard to find a tasteful analogy to dangling this kind of temptation before me. Fortunately I can justify taking it simply to avoid the inevitable cultural oppression and I have Jumbos anyway, so it's off to Construction.
Hyuna Capac gets new traits (ind/fin) and a fresh new personality in Warlords. He now loves religion and wonders as much as Gandhi and being effectively "UUless" his defenses are nearly as formidable as Gandhi's - in other words, when you attack him, he plays dead until you finish killing him - possibly not realizing that you're invading him to take all his stuff and not just for the fun of the fight.
The Conf holy city falls easily to my Jumbos and catapults, being defended with archers and horse archers.
The AI is a true tactical genius
![[Image: warlords13gh1.jpg]](http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/8317/warlords13gh1.jpg)
It regularly puts units into a position where they'll face < 4% odds on the counter-attack, like this unprotected horse archer. It's still pretty much oblivious when it comes to the moves the other player will probably make.
Since Capac isn't fighting back (as such) I continue pushing into his territory and after taking the second city I generate a Great General - I'm Imperialistic, remember, and that means it takes half the time - usually you'd have to chew through most of an AI to pop the GG (that's at standard game speed).
I use him on an elephant and 3 catapults.
![[Image: warlords15si0.jpg]](http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6449/warlords15si0.jpg)
This brings the Elephant up to 10exp and grants the catapults 1 or 2 extra City Raider promos - I think using a GG this way is quite a good idea, it helps keep the momentum going. The "Hellephant" will eventually be Medic III, which becomes extremely valuable in the Medieval slugfest, but this early in the the game it isn't so important.
All hell breaks lose.
I take my 3rd Incan city and now Capac is scared - and some others in the world have Feudalism, thus the era of vassal begins!
The trumpets of war signal the entrance of Tokugawa into the war! Capac went to Japan for protection from me, and is now a vassal of Tokugawa.
![[Image: warlords16zh0.jpg]](http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2967/warlords16zh0.jpg)
A threatened AI will very often choose protection rather than surrender. This has various pros and cons for the player and AI.
Probably the most important thing (and maybe not quite expected) is that it becomes impossible to sue for peace for a long time - the Vassal is no longer able to make diplomatic deals, so instead I have to deal through Tokugawa - and because Tokugawa just declared war on me I wont even be able to talk to him for quite a while. Furthermore, the master doesn't care about the welfare of the Vassal, as far as the master cares the vassal is an ablative meatshield, the master *wont* give up goodies to save his vassal, instead you have to give the master goodies.
This has yet more important consequences - primarily it means the Vassal must be destroyed with extreme prejudice because you canât bully stuff out of it. This is bad for the vassal (it's gone from a position where it could surrender, to one where it can only die) and it's bad for the human - the human can no longer bully tech out of the vassal. On the whole it's probably good for balance, because the human can no longer sue for peace when convenient and can't easily beat tech out of an AI. Wars are now not to be taken lightly and I have to say that I LOVE that, even if the AI doesnât seem to quite think through the consequences of seeking protection.
Anyway getting back to the game I give my "nothing but greens" buddy Frederick a few (
) techs to enter the war.
![[Image: warlords17bx7.jpg]](http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8978/warlords17bx7.jpg)
It's still pretty easy to bribe AI's onto a master-vassal pair, the high cost is mostly because he threw in Feudalism. gaining a vassal does NOT automatically cow all AI's and this is I think a very positive thing, although it also means the world quickly descends into war. Speaking of descending into war, Washington (that ever non-violent AI) spontaneously decides to declare war on Tokugawa (or possible Capac) and thus enters the fray, resulting in most of the world being at war.
It was actually this point where something that happens a lot in Warlords happens - I lost a 99.3% battle - my Swordsmen on a forested hill vs an attacking catapult. These sort of outcomes seem to happen a lot more in Warlords, it may just be co-incidence of course... and most the time (but not this time) the battles have been in my favor.
Fredericks and Tokugawa's forces self destruct on each other, so I hardly need to fight Tokugawa at all, leaving my forces free to continue destroying Capac.
Frederick helpfully pillages the Incan lands clean of terrain improvements.
![[Image: warlords18bq8.jpg]](http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/5568/warlords18bq8.jpg)
Honestly, it's something I've almost giving up ranting about (que rant), it's sometimes worth keeping an AI out of war just to avoid the pillaging. In this case having Frederick keep Tokugawa busy made it more than worth it and I know the AI's can't help pillaging so I don't even bother yelling at them any more (most of the land will just flip to Gandhi anyway).
Capac's capital is well defended but a few suicide pults followed by a jumbo charge takes it with minimal losses.
In 1020AD Gandhi discovers Liberalism, it's worth noting again that pretty much everyone has been having a nice brawl, except Gandhi who has been teching his little heart out - and is the biggest AI (somehow) from peaceful expansion. Gandhi is a true research monster this game.
But a couple of turns later I finish off Capac, getting rid of that pesky war weariness and Iâm now #2 in score.
![[Image: warlords19ei9.jpg]](http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/1087/warlords19ei9.jpg)
In finishing off Capac I generated my 2nd Great General, he arrived at the frontline in time for the fall of Inca. I decided to merge him with my Axeman - which the previous turn had 0exp, but he won a "suicide" fight and thus earned 5 exp in one battle. My hellephant had earned 3 more exp in mopping up, so it only needed 5 exp to get Medic III. Thus I threw in 2 more elephants.
Popping the GG upgrades the Hellephant to level 5 and the other units to lvl4.
(Note: Hellephant, already being a GG, is not a valid unit to attach the new GG to, but it still gains exp from the exp sprinkle)
![[Image: warlords112kl7.jpg]](http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/7931/warlords112kl7.jpg)
The Axeman is promoted to City Raider III and upgraded for free to a Maceman - so in effect I get a bunch of exp and a free Maceman. Make no mistake - a GG does equal "free stuff", go to war and win free stuff!
I trade Music from Frederick and make use of the new Build Culture:
![[Image: warlords111gc7.jpg]](http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1696/warlords111gc7.jpg)
As you can see, by using build culture in a fresh out of revolt city I'm getting 8 cpt, this is as much as I'd get from building a theatre, library, monastery and temple - it's a very quick way to pop borders and push back the borders of other civs. Building a forge will increase the build rate by 25%, I also poprush in a theatre when possible. It's remarkable how easy it is to push back borders with the help of build culture - and a captured city can come with a forge and even factory/coalplant which means build culture can be boosted in a freshly captured city, unlike the normal culture sources.
Although Tokugawa has declared peace with Washington and Frederick he's not avoiding his punishment that easily - so without missing a beat my invasion force meets up with some new Trebuchets and they roll into Japanese territory, the armies of Japan having been very depleted in fighting off the girly armies of Washington and Frederick.
![[Image: warlords112jg5.jpg]](http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/9104/warlords112jg5.jpg)
Are trebs overpowered? Well here my CR1 Treb has enough attack to overpower tokugawa's green Longbow (he's protective so gets garrison1 for free). It's actually possible for a longbow defender to get enough defensive bonuses to exceed the trebs attaack bonus - and that leaves the treb real weak. But the AI tokugawa is not smart enough to get mass defensive promotions and so his city falls easily (although dice rolls mean I lose most of my siege units).
The discovery of Banking unlocks my unique-building, the Stock Exchange.
![[Image: warlords113fn6.jpg]](http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/5240/warlords113fn6.jpg)
As you can see this has a rather large +65% bonus to gold, a full 15% more than a normal bank. It's going to be fun in my conf shrine and in my capital - I'll poprush them, of course.
I find Unique Buildings add nice flavor, they don't really have a lot of impact strategically but most of them are nice to use.
That's as far as I've played so far (I may play on and post more later). I'm in a winning position. Gandhi still has a massive tech lead but it's not like Gandhi can do anything if I choose to attack him (he is Gandhi, after all).
Now remember, this is an Emperor game. If it read like a walk in a park, that's because it was. It was a favorable start with the peaceful expansion, but what I find is that Warlords is a Warmongers Wetdream. The AI is tactically as weak as ever, and in some ways even weaker. Even worse (if it's challenge you want) is the AI has not a clue how to use Great Generals - it "uses" them, but it wont use them with the finesse and precision of a human, it'll put Military Academies in a tundra city and make Great General chariots (and not to upgrade them for free to a knight). This means that the more wars rage, the more the human gains the upperhand from Great Generals - Medic III even nearly completely nullifies the AI's "suicide catapults" defense - since Medic III heals away damage so quickly (especially combined with march). So the AI's old tricks don't work so good while the human has lots of new tricks.
Although this game did have easy opponents - Gandhi, Capac and Washington are all jokes in the military department and if they're jokes, Tokugawa is a running gag, Japan sucks as badly as ever and can't do anything well (the others at least force you to beat them up to stop them running away with tech). But I find it's generally the same, the Human can use diplomacy to stir up massive world wars and then attack targets of opportunity, it's downright easy to fight all darn game long, always finding new weakened targets to attack while the vassal mechanism keeps everyone fighting - you only rarely have to take on an intact army (although there is usually a Gandhi type who stays intact - but they are the AI's who don't build large well promoted militaries). Good wholesome fun it may be, but challenging it is not. I honestly think that CIVanilla is more challenging.
But Warlords is enjoyable, at least for a warmonger. And a lot of bugs are fixed, and there's the ctrl-h hotkey to "Select all wounded units", little things like that make it enjoyable to play. I think for now though I firmly support continuing to use CIVanilla for RBCiv games.
I decide to play on Emperor difficulty and to use the imperialistic trait and to emphasize peaceful expansion rather than GGâs - trying to out-expand the AI, basically. Most the imperialistic leaders have a warmongery second trait, so I choose Victoria - Imperialistic Financial.
The settings are standard fractal - extremely standard.
As it happens I'm on some kind of peninsula with several offshore islands, I'm connected via a small isthmus to the mainland so I can expand unmolested.
My capital itself is insanely poor - there are grassland elephants nearby (no jungle), but the only decent tile is a plains wheat (non-freshwater), but it's on the far side of a bay and a looong walk to the wheat (and back!) for the worker - a 10 turn round trip. On the whole the start is downright odd - not necessarily bad, but slightly slow starting anyway.
Anyway, I quickly expand peacefully to 7 cities, which is easy with the imperialistic +50% settler bonus and when the AI's can't steal the city sites.
7 secure cities is actually probably enough to win on emperor, but Capac had other ideas...
It's hard to find a tasteful analogy to dangling this kind of temptation before me. Fortunately I can justify taking it simply to avoid the inevitable cultural oppression and I have Jumbos anyway, so it's off to Construction.
Hyuna Capac gets new traits (ind/fin) and a fresh new personality in Warlords. He now loves religion and wonders as much as Gandhi and being effectively "UUless" his defenses are nearly as formidable as Gandhi's - in other words, when you attack him, he plays dead until you finish killing him - possibly not realizing that you're invading him to take all his stuff and not just for the fun of the fight.
The Conf holy city falls easily to my Jumbos and catapults, being defended with archers and horse archers.
The AI is a true tactical genius
It regularly puts units into a position where they'll face < 4% odds on the counter-attack, like this unprotected horse archer. It's still pretty much oblivious when it comes to the moves the other player will probably make.
Since Capac isn't fighting back (as such) I continue pushing into his territory and after taking the second city I generate a Great General - I'm Imperialistic, remember, and that means it takes half the time - usually you'd have to chew through most of an AI to pop the GG (that's at standard game speed).
I use him on an elephant and 3 catapults.
This brings the Elephant up to 10exp and grants the catapults 1 or 2 extra City Raider promos - I think using a GG this way is quite a good idea, it helps keep the momentum going. The "Hellephant" will eventually be Medic III, which becomes extremely valuable in the Medieval slugfest, but this early in the the game it isn't so important.
All hell breaks lose.
I take my 3rd Incan city and now Capac is scared - and some others in the world have Feudalism, thus the era of vassal begins!
The trumpets of war signal the entrance of Tokugawa into the war! Capac went to Japan for protection from me, and is now a vassal of Tokugawa.
A threatened AI will very often choose protection rather than surrender. This has various pros and cons for the player and AI.
Probably the most important thing (and maybe not quite expected) is that it becomes impossible to sue for peace for a long time - the Vassal is no longer able to make diplomatic deals, so instead I have to deal through Tokugawa - and because Tokugawa just declared war on me I wont even be able to talk to him for quite a while. Furthermore, the master doesn't care about the welfare of the Vassal, as far as the master cares the vassal is an ablative meatshield, the master *wont* give up goodies to save his vassal, instead you have to give the master goodies.
This has yet more important consequences - primarily it means the Vassal must be destroyed with extreme prejudice because you canât bully stuff out of it. This is bad for the vassal (it's gone from a position where it could surrender, to one where it can only die) and it's bad for the human - the human can no longer bully tech out of the vassal. On the whole it's probably good for balance, because the human can no longer sue for peace when convenient and can't easily beat tech out of an AI. Wars are now not to be taken lightly and I have to say that I LOVE that, even if the AI doesnât seem to quite think through the consequences of seeking protection.
Anyway getting back to the game I give my "nothing but greens" buddy Frederick a few (
) techs to enter the war.It's still pretty easy to bribe AI's onto a master-vassal pair, the high cost is mostly because he threw in Feudalism. gaining a vassal does NOT automatically cow all AI's and this is I think a very positive thing, although it also means the world quickly descends into war. Speaking of descending into war, Washington (that ever non-violent AI) spontaneously decides to declare war on Tokugawa (or possible Capac) and thus enters the fray, resulting in most of the world being at war.
It was actually this point where something that happens a lot in Warlords happens - I lost a 99.3% battle - my Swordsmen on a forested hill vs an attacking catapult. These sort of outcomes seem to happen a lot more in Warlords, it may just be co-incidence of course... and most the time (but not this time) the battles have been in my favor.
Fredericks and Tokugawa's forces self destruct on each other, so I hardly need to fight Tokugawa at all, leaving my forces free to continue destroying Capac.
Frederick helpfully pillages the Incan lands clean of terrain improvements.
Honestly, it's something I've almost giving up ranting about (que rant), it's sometimes worth keeping an AI out of war just to avoid the pillaging. In this case having Frederick keep Tokugawa busy made it more than worth it and I know the AI's can't help pillaging so I don't even bother yelling at them any more (most of the land will just flip to Gandhi anyway).
Capac's capital is well defended but a few suicide pults followed by a jumbo charge takes it with minimal losses.
In 1020AD Gandhi discovers Liberalism, it's worth noting again that pretty much everyone has been having a nice brawl, except Gandhi who has been teching his little heart out - and is the biggest AI (somehow) from peaceful expansion. Gandhi is a true research monster this game.
But a couple of turns later I finish off Capac, getting rid of that pesky war weariness and Iâm now #2 in score.
In finishing off Capac I generated my 2nd Great General, he arrived at the frontline in time for the fall of Inca. I decided to merge him with my Axeman - which the previous turn had 0exp, but he won a "suicide" fight and thus earned 5 exp in one battle. My hellephant had earned 3 more exp in mopping up, so it only needed 5 exp to get Medic III. Thus I threw in 2 more elephants.
Popping the GG upgrades the Hellephant to level 5 and the other units to lvl4.
(Note: Hellephant, already being a GG, is not a valid unit to attach the new GG to, but it still gains exp from the exp sprinkle)
The Axeman is promoted to City Raider III and upgraded for free to a Maceman - so in effect I get a bunch of exp and a free Maceman. Make no mistake - a GG does equal "free stuff", go to war and win free stuff!
I trade Music from Frederick and make use of the new Build Culture:
As you can see, by using build culture in a fresh out of revolt city I'm getting 8 cpt, this is as much as I'd get from building a theatre, library, monastery and temple - it's a very quick way to pop borders and push back the borders of other civs. Building a forge will increase the build rate by 25%, I also poprush in a theatre when possible. It's remarkable how easy it is to push back borders with the help of build culture - and a captured city can come with a forge and even factory/coalplant which means build culture can be boosted in a freshly captured city, unlike the normal culture sources.
Although Tokugawa has declared peace with Washington and Frederick he's not avoiding his punishment that easily - so without missing a beat my invasion force meets up with some new Trebuchets and they roll into Japanese territory, the armies of Japan having been very depleted in fighting off the girly armies of Washington and Frederick.
Are trebs overpowered? Well here my CR1 Treb has enough attack to overpower tokugawa's green Longbow (he's protective so gets garrison1 for free). It's actually possible for a longbow defender to get enough defensive bonuses to exceed the trebs attaack bonus - and that leaves the treb real weak. But the AI tokugawa is not smart enough to get mass defensive promotions and so his city falls easily (although dice rolls mean I lose most of my siege units).
The discovery of Banking unlocks my unique-building, the Stock Exchange.
As you can see this has a rather large +65% bonus to gold, a full 15% more than a normal bank. It's going to be fun in my conf shrine and in my capital - I'll poprush them, of course.
I find Unique Buildings add nice flavor, they don't really have a lot of impact strategically but most of them are nice to use.
That's as far as I've played so far (I may play on and post more later). I'm in a winning position. Gandhi still has a massive tech lead but it's not like Gandhi can do anything if I choose to attack him (he is Gandhi, after all).
Now remember, this is an Emperor game. If it read like a walk in a park, that's because it was. It was a favorable start with the peaceful expansion, but what I find is that Warlords is a Warmongers Wetdream. The AI is tactically as weak as ever, and in some ways even weaker. Even worse (if it's challenge you want) is the AI has not a clue how to use Great Generals - it "uses" them, but it wont use them with the finesse and precision of a human, it'll put Military Academies in a tundra city and make Great General chariots (and not to upgrade them for free to a knight). This means that the more wars rage, the more the human gains the upperhand from Great Generals - Medic III even nearly completely nullifies the AI's "suicide catapults" defense - since Medic III heals away damage so quickly (especially combined with march). So the AI's old tricks don't work so good while the human has lots of new tricks.
Although this game did have easy opponents - Gandhi, Capac and Washington are all jokes in the military department and if they're jokes, Tokugawa is a running gag, Japan sucks as badly as ever and can't do anything well (the others at least force you to beat them up to stop them running away with tech). But I find it's generally the same, the Human can use diplomacy to stir up massive world wars and then attack targets of opportunity, it's downright easy to fight all darn game long, always finding new weakened targets to attack while the vassal mechanism keeps everyone fighting - you only rarely have to take on an intact army (although there is usually a Gandhi type who stays intact - but they are the AI's who don't build large well promoted militaries). Good wholesome fun it may be, but challenging it is not. I honestly think that CIVanilla is more challenging.
But Warlords is enjoyable, at least for a warmonger. And a lot of bugs are fixed, and there's the ctrl-h hotkey to "Select all wounded units", little things like that make it enjoyable to play. I think for now though I firmly support continuing to use CIVanilla for RBCiv games.
