Highland Warriors

aka: Gaodi Zhanshi
Moby ID: 8412
Included in

Description official descriptions

Highland Warriors is a standard 3D real-time strategy based upon medieval Scotland in a very William Wallace/Braveheart-esque themed game. Authentic dialect and soundtrack emphasize the "Highland Warrior" feeling.

The engine (ATLAS engine) was built by the developers and uses state-of-the-art technology. It allows each unit to consist of up to 8,000 polygons, and 200,000 polygons on-screen altogether with real-time shading. Each unit and building is very detailed at all angles.

The game also boasts a change of seasons throughout any given skirmish, which can aid you or hurt you, depending on your situation. For instance, farms won't grow during the winter, forcing your workers to find other means to feed your armies, and mountains may be unpassable.

Spellings

  • Горцы. Битва за Шотландию. - Russian spelling
  • 高地战士 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

91 People (84 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Web Design: Programming & Contents
Translation Website
Game Idea
Product and Project Management: DATA BECKER Germany
Product and Project Management: DATA BECKER Corp. (USA)
Distribution of Highland Warriors
  • DATA BECKER
Project Lead SE-Games
Concept
Engine Programming
Main Programming
Additional Programming
Lead Artist
Main Graphics
Additional Graphics
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 63% (based on 27 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.1 out of 5 (based on 6 ratings with 2 reviews)

Avoid this game at all "costs"!

The Good
Sitting here at 4:00am, I can't believe I played the game for 3 hours. Though the redeeming features are few and far between, they're are 2 areas where the company deserve praise. 1.The fact that the dialouge which your troops say in-game is actual Irish (though in Scotland they speak Gaelic which isn't the same as Irish - so its technically incorrect, it was still a nice touch and credit is due. However this is an example of misdirected attention to detail. More concentration on refining the gameplay, then you can prioritise other features. 2.The graphics are pretty in places, however, the graphics are also the downfall of the game in my opinion. The cutscenes often are quite pretty, but nothing special by todays standards at all. The likes of "Mafia" cutscenes make this game look prehistoric 3.One or 2 handy little refinements to the system, like selecting an unoccupied troop or slave with the click of a button.

The Bad
Oh lord where do I begin? 1.The "oh-so-pretty" graphics are so jerky and awkward that it completley wrecks the game and makes me feel nauseous. On a p4 1.8ghz, with 256 DDR Ram, and an Nvidia MMX 440(64mb) - I could see no noticable difference in graphical quality between my other programming pc, an athlon 1000 with 32mb Nvidida TNT and 300 SDram. Troops can suddenly teleport across the map, reminiscint of the "chrono-trooper" in Red Alert 2 due to some awful bugs. The majority of the bugging in the game was graphical I found. 2. Each level in the different campaigns were almost identical. Okay, so you know what to expect when you purchase a game like this .....build a big army, crush a rival big army. Well the problem is, you can only build 200 units max, and given that you need about 150 slaves, that leaves about 50 units with which to battle the enemy. Not fun at all, in fact it kinda defeats the purpose of game. 3.The feature of unit formation - wedge, circular, square or skirmish, may aswell not have been in the game. They make virtually no difference to gameplay. Admittedly I was expecting to see something similar to "Shogun: Total War" 4.Unit "special features" should be renamed "self destruct". The special features are pointless and simply damage your own troops. 5.Once engaged in battle, a unit cannot rout. I was thoroughly disgusted by this, because a tactic I love to use (especially in the likes of Shogun) is to "send in a lone ranger and have about 6 platoons waiting around the corner". This is not possible in this game, among many other things. 6.When a slave has enough experience, they may advance to the level of master-craftsman costing 15 gold. I just found this stupid. Firstly, given that they are promoted due to experince, they should automatically advance themselves. Secondly, it was a lame attempt to add something unique to the slave hierarchy. Its about as exciting and revolutionary as picking your nose. 7.The game has one or 2 excellent features which are an improvment on other games of the similar style as already mentioned such as accesing unoccupied units with the click of a button or getting a scout to automatically explore the map, however, it frequently stumbles at critical points which its predecessors rectified years ago. I could go on, but I wont.

The Bottom Line
The reason the game has been marked down(I bought it for €15 in Game which was 50% off) is for a very good reason i.e nobody wants to play it. If it had been released prior to Age of Empires 1 by Microsoft, it would have been quite enjoyable, if not a breakthrough. However, it astonishes me that a game which was so obviosly based upon the AOE series would not even have the same level of development of a game which was released 5 years ago! I can't recommend this game on any level - even down to the graphics

I cannot comment on the multiplayer aspect of the game because I felt so disturbed by the single player, i felt the trauma of multiplayer would send me over the edge completley.

I do feel sorry for the programmers, as it is obvious they put a lot of effort into the game......just in the wrong places. Heres a hint which I find useful when writing software - test it yourself.

Heres my last word on the game: What it tries to do is combine the engine of Age of Empires 1 & 2, the battle system of "Shogun: Total War", and the harvest/re-arm style major war of the command and Conquer series. My advice would be to purchase any of these games instead of Highland(especially now that they can all be picked up for budget prices), to get that particular aspect which you are searching for. Instead

Windows · by kubakuba (9) · 2003

A fairy unremarkable contribution to the ever-expanding RTS genre.

The Good
The graphics are superb. Never before has zooming close into the battlefield looked so detailed and so un-RTSlike. Looking at a screenshot of a typical soldier standing amidst the fields and forestry of the screen, you would not think this was an RTS game. Units are extremely detailed, which is obvious when you can zoom in to the point where you can almost count the nose hairs on your soldier.

Buildings also, for the first time ever, I think, LOOK like they might as they're being constructed. It doesn't go so far as to animate the actual placement of each individual board and brick, but you watch as it starts from rock and wood, to the frame, to the doors, windows, every step of the way. No more "33% done" image, then "66%" done image, followed by the constructed building. Well, you know what I mean. I suppose this can be considered a minor detail to some, but it always annoyed me how a building can jump from a pile of rubble to a fully operational barracks in a flash. And it looks just as good coming down as it did going up! As your units tear down enemy buildings, you watch as the building collapses in as many steps as it took to build. The flames also look great for an RTS game.

A change of seasons is a nice touch, with various highs and lows that come from it. You can use it to your advantage or it can destroy you, so an additional strategy involved has much to do with location and how prepared you are for the coming winter.

Upgrades to units can give them special attacks, which can be devastating in battle.

The Bad
There really isn't much in Highland Warriors to seperate it from the dozens of other RTS' out there. Aside from the graphics and the change of seasons, gameplay, once again, comes down to "build big army, CRUSH ENEMY ARMY YARRRR!" And quite frankly, I've never seen snow block my path to the enemy, but I'll take their word for it that it does. I'd sure like to see it, though.

While the graphics are great, animation is laughable. Your units can walk clear accross your village in about three footsteps. It's slow and just awkward. The biggest thing wrong with the animation is that they don't move fast enough. Not the units - they actually move surprisingly fast - but the animation. If they actually moved at the speed the animation shows them moving, it would take them ten times as long to get anywhere.

Every screenshot I've seen of this game shows a massive army on the screen. This gives the impression that the game is ABOUT building a gigantic army and raiding the enemy. That would be cool, except that the population limit is only 200! A reasonable cap, to be fair (though I stand by my argument that it should always be user-defined unless in a scenario!) but that's not enough to build any army larger than the ones you see in the screenshots. A large army to be sure, but with the screenshots seemingly giving emphasis to the gigantic army sizes, I think they took a wrong turn somewhere.

There are about a dozen different armies to play as, but if there's a difference between them I've never seen it. Some armies get swords instead of spears, and they all get different heroes, I think, but other than that there's no real difference.

A severe lack of unit types is also a really bad mark on this game. Here's what you get: villager, regular melee guy, better melee guy, good melee guy, ranged unit, and melee horse guy and ranged horse guy, with a hero. That's it. You can upgrade them once, and that's it. Hardly a memorable battle when four hundred identical twins are going at it and you can't tell who's who.

Some upgrades are more dangerous to your own units than your enemy! When the axe-fighter gets his twirly-upgrade, he'll twirl around in battle, hurting everyone around him, including your own men! You could very likely end up doing more damage to your own units!

The Bottom Line
I, personally, enjoy real-time strategies very much. Whether they're good or not, I love them. Sadly, despite the great graphics and Highland theme (which I normally enjoy) there just isn't much to this game to make it stand out.

But, if you've got a buddy to play with, and some time to kill, I think you would enjoy Highland Warriors.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2003

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by kbmb.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Klaster_1.

Game added February 14, 2003. Last modified March 7, 2024.