Warlords- What is it good for, absolutely nothing ugh!

[Shigga]

Some suggestions for the ongoing discussion:

1. b2t, please This is about Warlords not about issues with vanilla cIV
2. without naming anyone, tone down the insufferable know-it-all attitude. There is a lot of arrogance shining through some posts which is a very handy thing to end all reasonable discussion just like shouting at ppl is.
3. We're all united by our interest in the Civ franchise, even those that don't like cIV. Let's keep that in mind.

To follow my own suggestion:

Is what we know so far all there is to Warlords? Or will there be further enhancements of Vanilla, perhaps even on the basis of future WL-Patches? What do you think?

 

[Lars_Domus]

Is what we know so far all there is to Warlords? Or will there be further enhancements of Vanilla, perhaps even on the basis of future WL-Patches? What do you think?

I guess there are still some units and/or wonders to be announced. I wish they would add more to sandbox mode, rather than those silly scenarios. I'm also bummed out that they chose not to include Babylonia, in spite of popular demand. In the end I'm probably going to buy Warlords, even if what we know now is all there is to it. I want the unique buildings, vassal states, Hannibal/Carthage, Ramesses and Augustus.

As for mods, I applaud their devoted creators and their hard work, but the Firaxis product will have a visual polish that the mods lack. (Yes, I am that shallow ) Nothing ruins the mood of a good game of civ like having a grainy static picture pop up where there should have been a wonderously animated leaderhead. The ones that are mostly said to be the best are a bit over the top for my tastes, with waaaay to many units and/or fantasy or sci-fi themes. Still, I am going to give Ancient Mediterranean, Fall From Heaven and Song of the Moon a go someday.

As for future patches, I'm all for giving Firaxis the benefit of the doubt. I never really kept a lookout for vanilla CivIII patches after PTW and Conquests, so I don't know how Firaxis' track record with this sort of thing is.

 

[Older than Dirt]

After reading this thread it dawned on me finally that Civ 4 is not just a game for many people. It is a platform for entering into seriously stimulating internet intercourse which is unavailable on porn sites. Much as I detest the thought of buying another unfinished product, I shall irresistably be drawn to purchase said product so that I may be able to follow these discussions. Does this make me a "fanboy" (at age 61 I should be entitled some respect and be called a "fanMan") or just a simpleton. (I use the term simpleton, as fool connotes turpitude, especially in a moral or spiritual sense.)

 

[Shigga]

Actually, at your age you should take "fanboy" as a compliment as it states that you have kept yourself a young mind And who knows, you could end up with being a "whiner", too! j/k

@Domus: Wasn't WL due to release June, 26th? Hm guess there's not much time left for announcements...

 

[Lars_Domus]

@Domus: Wasn't WL due to release June, 26th? Hm guess there's not much time left for announcements...

At first, but they postponed it to twentysomethingth of July.

 

[Glinka]

Have to say I agree with Shigga's original assessment of Warlords vs Sevomod. The latter has depth, breadth, and a clear sense of design behind it. The former appears to be your usual "addon lite," which would work well if mods weren't possible and imaginative modders, nonexistent.

Firaxis? You've got intelligent people at your helm. Think about hiring Sevo to design your next addon. And be sure to target the current one at markets that aren't computer-savvy, and likely to read this forum or know about mods.

 

[winddbourne]

You've hit the nail on its head!

If Firaxis would've gone for generic names like "Polytheism_1" and so on, we could have got the chance to decide to give that religion a name by ourselves (either to be chosen from a list or to be typed in manually), they could have got other features like establishing good relations between Religion_1 and Religion_2, whilst there would have been bad relations between Religion_2 and Religion_3. The one could have lead to better science and the other to improved culture, and so on.

Once again, a big chance was simply missed.

Actually I think Firaxis started religions off fairly well. I'd like to see everything you talk about, pluss some, but I'd rather see it developed from some small but heavily played change, like the current religion model, then thrown in full grown and full of flaws. Remember this is our first time seeing ANYTHING like religons in a civ game, so it's like playing Civ I all over again.

Civ II expanded Civ I, Civ III added culture and borders, Civ IV expanded those concepts and added a dinky bit on religions and some SMAC style civics, maybe Civ IV will have the religion system we both want.

Not that Civ IV is perfect. I think it would be better with more balanced racial traits, with all the "terrorist" actions of civ II diplomats, and a ton more to do in the modern era, plus better forts, and some other changes. I just think on this one topic judging it as "too simple" is premature.

 

[Lars_Domus]

Wasn't WL due to release June, 26th? Hm guess there's not much time left for announcements...

And behold, announcements there cameth: An eight scenario!

 

[Commander Bello]

As far as I see it from the new preview, the combination of charismatic and imperialistic would become almost unstoppable.
For balancing reasons I don't think we should see this combination in the vanilla WL.

 

[Charles 22]

T.A Jones: You missed one very important point in your observation. I don't think that older, wiser, people are really capable of this at a certain point, and you may be one of them, but some have such short vision, usually the much younger of the lot, that their fanboyism is based on extreme measures. What do I mean? For all the forums I'm connected with, four or five at this time, I haven't heard this reasoning in quite a while, but here it is. It's the thought that if the game companies aren't 'supported' (I suppose that means by a cheering section) the developers will get all depressed and they won't make these fabulous games any more. It's all or nothing with people of that strain, and for some reason they can't see the value in you-give-an-inch-and-they-will-take-a-mile. The rot that game companies have descended to in releasing much buggier products due to supposedly everyone having internet access is a case in point. I think it was fanboys in particular that drove this suicidal tendency. They wanted alpha copies just as long as they could get started on a mere snippet of an idea somebody had.

Personally I've never fallen into the fanboy category for anything computer related IMO, but then my computer gaming days didn't start till I was at least in my mid-20's and being able to converse on the internet much later than that still. Man, I must had been 35 or so before I did anything on the internet, which kept my more reactionary days from public view .

 

[King Flevance]

As far as I see it from the new preview, the combination of charismatic and imperialistic would become almost unstoppable.
For balancing reasons I don't think we should see this combination in the vanilla WL.

If they put this combo in, they may as well throw in the "overpowered Ind/Phi" combo.

I can't for the life of me figure out why Charisma is better for your military than Imperialistic or aggressive. 25% is alot.

 

[Commander Bello]

If they put this combo in, they may as well throw in the "overpowered Ind/Phi" combo.

I can't for the life of me figure out why Charisma is better for your military than Imperialistic or aggressive. 25% is alot.

Charisma with +2 happiness allows for cities being 40% bigger at King level (without any religion and/or happiness ressources). Bigger cities means more production, more production means more units and research, ending in bigger and better armies.
The 25% reduction in promotion costs (currently wondering if they really mean promotion or have mixed this with upgrading?) leads to either higher promoted units or earlier and more upgrading.

So, as far as I see it, you start with better chances to build up your army and continue with more promotions or upgraded battle groups.

 

[Jazzster]

(Jazzman) made three assertions:

1. That they claimed he was "wrong" when he described the problems he was having.

I didn't say that.

2. That they said he should stop "whining" about the problems he was having.

I didn't say that either.

3. That they justified points #1 and #2 by asserting that the game works perfectly for them.

Yes, that was quite a jargong for a time, but no, I won't spend time searching for specific posts (as you so valiantly deared me to in your first reply). I'm sure a majority of the readers of these posts understand that the specific quotation I used was made up to describe a jargon, and hence is difficult to find with the search function.

I responded to his specific assertion #1.

Your understanding of "specific assertion #1" is a misunderstanding, so your response is as interesting as your overall school yard reasoning. I'm quite convinced that most readers of this forum are able to distinguish a man's description of his first impression of a debate, from a pseudo intellectual contribution to it.

And your reply to my contribution

I've never seen anyone on CFC claim that the game must work perfectly for you because it works perfectly for them. Such a response obviously defies logic. I doubt you can demonstrate even a single example of that.

only serves to underline my point, which wasn't that everybody got the two or three sentences (I quite obviously made up) reply I used to describe a jargong, but the last senctence, that I believe that we as a community if you will, probably lost a few due to the attitude that was prevailing at this very forum.

Now, if you're 1) understand that critique regarding Civ is not a critique regarding you and a bad first impression from a discussion isn't a first bad impression of you, and 2) realise that a discussion at a game forum usually is closer to the standards of a conversion rather than a diploma thesis, you'll probably will have a more pleasant stay in the future, and doesn't have to appear to have something stuck up your arse.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I didn't say that.

Yes, you did. It's in post #378 in this thread.

 

[Shigga]

On rare occasions I do miss a kindergarden-smilie.

 

[shackleton]

Trebuchet looks interesting (but should have been in the original release)

Vassals look interesting (but probably should have been in the original release)

The rest of the stuff holds no interest for me.

I don't intend to buy it. I may change my mind when I hear about the awesome improvements they've made (like fixing forts so they actually do something). If the expansion really fixed all the niggling gripes I have about vanilla civ, I'd pay for it. If the expansion meant I didn't have to install another mod or change another XML file, I'd pay for it. But I don't think it's going to do that. Not reading about any forts fix, anyway. Nor about a change to end the suicidal catapults.

Now if someone would just release a mod with trebuchet and vassals...

 

[Shigga]

So this is it, huh?

Well, I'll follow the suggestion in the 'poly review and skip WL.

At least until my fav mod will not be continued for vanilla.

Curious if the 2nd XP will be worth it's money for non-scen-players like me

 

[vilemerchant]

So this is it, huh?

Well, I'll follow the suggestion in the 'poly review and skip WL.

At least until my fav mod will not be continued for vanilla.

Curious if the 2nd XP will be worth it's money for non-scen-players like me

Pity, apart from the trebuchet it's a much better game with WL.

 

[Lars_Domus]

So this is it, huh?

Well, I'll follow the suggestion in the 'poly review and skip WL.

At least until my fav mod will not be continued for vanilla.

Curious if the 2nd XP will be worth it's money for non-scen-players like me

It's too bad Warlords wasn't for you, Shigga

I feel I've definetly gotten my money's worth. The test I apply to an expansion pack to see if it's good is simple: Could I imagine going back to playing the game without it? In this case no! It's true that it doesn't offer much that mods can't already, but then again Warlords also stands out well when compared to other games' expansion packs. What sets this situation apart is that Civ IV is so mindboglingly modable, one could argue that Firaxis shot themselves in the foot (feet?).

By the way, I don't care about the scenarios either.

At any rate, I can't convince you to embrace Warlords any more than you could convince me to condemn it. Here's to hoping that the next expansion will cater to a wider audience!