Watching tribesmen battering each other to death with clubs, or rabid lions devouring your first scout, while a distant nation announces war on you because of your heathen beliefs, are just some of the infinite trials (and pleasures) of Civilization IV - and the best bit? You, as the player, get to stare down from your godlike vantage point and enjoy the carnage. What a way to wile away a rainy Sunday afternoon!

Civilization is about playing out your fantasies of world domination without having to leave the comfort of your bedroom (or having to bother with messy politics), and the Warlords expansion pack is just the icing on the cake of an already marvellous game. So, what are you getting with Warlords that's new, other than the usual patches?

Well, perhaps the best development is the new Great General Unit, which you can only get by winning battles; the unit is then generated within your city. Once you have your Great General, you can create a warlord by attaching him to another military unit, or you can use him to found a military academy, or become a specialist military instructor. Whichever route you choose, the Great General unit enhances the strategic elements of the gameplay and gives you more options in your warfare. Generating a Great General means earning experience points in battle, and each new GG unit requires more experience points than the last, so using them wisely is imperative. They are pretty good, but not invincible, and are certainly not an advantage to waste. Great Generals can be lost if they are alone in a space when an enemy unit enters it, or if they happen to be on a ship that sinks (a Great General always goes down with his vessel), or if they are in a city that is captured.

However, no doubt the first thing you are going to want to do when you get the Great General is combine him with another military unit to transform him into a Warlord - well, really who wouldn't? Warlords bring an array of bonuses to their new underlings; twenty experience points are evenly divided among the nearby troops, so play it tactically and decide how many of your units you wish to benefit from this bonus before letting your Great General near them, as the extra XP might just trigger a promotion for your soldiers. They also bring bonuses to the specific unit that they're attached to, which include free upgrades when the unit becomes eligible and special promotions not otherwise available, such as extra healing, not only to your troops, but to fellow troops in the same or adjacent space to you. You can also get special promotions in strength, tactics (the chance to retreat from a losing battle, a very useful promotion if you don't want to lose your Warlord in a futile fight) and in combat and movement.

However, all of these bonuses do come with a downside - get cocky with your new Warlord's abilities, or just get unlucky (which is what usually happens to me) and you could see the whole unit lost, along with your Warlord, and you will have to start desperately earning XP again to be able to create a new one. Perhaps the safer option is to use your early Great Generals to found military academies, which ups a city's ability to churn out soldiers, or turn your Great General into a maniacal drill sergeant (otherwise known as a Great Military Instructor) and new units will be whipped into shape with extra experience points. Still, the advantages of having a Warlord are clear, particularly when you are trying to achieve the tougher Victory wins, like Domination, where extra-strength troops can prove essential, but although the Great Generals are this expansion pack's key selling point, there are other reasons why you would want to invest in it.

There is the new Vassal States option, where you can enter into an agreement with another civilization where they provide you with a number of benefits, and all you have to do in return is promise to protect them and their welfare. (Yes, we all know that you are going to turn on them as soon as you get bored with being nice - they probably know it too, they're just too afraid to say anything!) Adopting the agreement means you will get extra happiness throughout your empire, while the Vassal state loses some of its happiness (surprise, surprise). Your healing potential is improved in the Vassal's territory and you can also use the Vassal's fortifications, travel freely on Vassal turf and get to see inside the Vassal city. If you go to war with someone else, the Vassal has to immediately join forces with you and you get credit for half of all the land for scoring purposes. It all sounds so good there must be a downside, right? Well, as the master state you incur extra maintenance costs for your own cities, but not the Vassal's, although the more Vassal state agreements you make, the more your costs rise, which can really put a pinch on your pocket. In addition, while you can demand access to any of the Vassal's resources, they might just decide to show some backbone and refuse to let you in, which will result in war. (Still, we all know you were going to massacre them anyway).

Other additions include new civilizations - now there are Vikings and Celts! There are new leaders including Winston Churchill for us Brits (and a very good likeness it is too), Ramesses II, Josef Stalin and Augustus Caesar. The Warlords pack also gives access to three new leader traits, Imperialistic (speeds production of settlers), Charismatic (boosts happiness in cities) and Protective (which gives speed boosts to buildings' walls and castles, along with other military benefits). The sensible thing to do is pick the leader with the best set of characteristics to suit your style of play, but when it comes down to it, we know we always pick the character we really want to be and worry about characteristics later (or maybe that's just me? Could explain some things…) There are new units, including the medieval trebuchet, new buildings such as the stable (increases the XP of mounted troops) and the monument, which replaces the obelisk (now unique to the Egyptian empire) with all the same attributes as its predecessor, and there are new wonders such as the Great Wall and Temple of Artemis.

An interesting inclusion is the Scenarios, in which you take over a pre-existing civilization (usually based around a historical war), and are given a set of challenges you have to complete to win. For instance, take the Vikings - you are King Ragnar, looking to raid and pillage your way across the globe, you have berserker troops and longboats, and essential to your cause is the establishment of shipyards. To win the scenario you must collect a certain amount of gold (depending on the difficulty level) in 200 turns or less. To do this you must use special abilities such as relic research, which will help you to locate hidden relics, and ransoming captured cities - you're only supposed to capture and ransom a city once, else you are considered a dishonest barbarian (one wonders if the real Vikings would have cared?) For some players used to the freeform modes of play, the constraints of the scenarios may seem annoying and will possibly put them off initially, but trying some of them out proves that they are a welcome addition to the Civilization game, and a good way to hone your tactical skills.

The graphics and sound remain similar to the original, and hence are both beautiful and dynamic at the same time. Look at those horses peacefully grazing, unaware of your men creeping up to forcefully domesticate them, or the sheep frolicking on the hillsides, unaware of your intention to farm them and turn them into lamb burgers. Look at Churchill's wrinkles, or the dainty outfits of your settlers - there is such attention to detail. Sound wise there are no complaints either, although hearing Rule Britannia play over and over in tribal music can be a trifle irritating, and personally I am not sure about using Leonard Nimoy as the narrator, but he is a staple of the game by now, and anyway I am only really picking at an otherwise immaculate and well presented game.

If you loved Civilization IV then you will love Warlords - with its new enhancements, it does everything it should, giving you new stuff without causing your favourite bits of the old game to become obsolete or pointless. The new scenarios add another dimension to the gameplay, as do the Great Generals, and who wouldn't want a Warlord unit? Also, hands up who wants to have a Vassal civilization at their beck and call? In fact, there are so many good reasons to buy this game that I'm surprised you haven't stopped reading this already and are not, right at this moment, in the process of buying it. Hello? Hello! Oh, they've gone… my work here is done!

Reviewed by Sophie Jackson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).