Warlords

The Good
The strategy and difficulty levels of this game were much like that of Civilization is today. I rather enjoyed gathering with 2 or 3 friends in an apartment for an all nighter to play a game. We, of course would add our own little refinements - like alliances to be betrayed later on and restrictions.

The Bad
Turns took forever, though and if we started at 6:00 by midnight there was usually no clear cut winner. By dawn we would frequently give up or save the game and then spend weeks trying to get us all together again to play it. Also let's face it sometimes the lower res graphics were a problem (Is that an elf or a giant?) At 3 AM it was hard to tell sometimes.

The Bottom Line
This is a very early Civilization or RISK type game. The graphics were low (what do you expect for a DOS game of that age). Each player built, searched and attacked according to a preset order. The computer rarely won against multiple human players. If you have an old system around I would recommend it. Otherwise go for one of the later versions. The gameplay improved and the graphics were much clearer

The Good
Warlords I was a near perfect game. It was funny. It had massive variety in units and racial abilities (Elves moved better in the woods...). Different cities produced units, say cavalry, better than others, or cheaper than others. Leaders could explore ruins and if they survived, return with Dragons or obscene amounts of Gold. Units could be blessed at one of four different altars (Control of the Altar was therefore strategic. The Map was not random, but well planned. In its first dozen or so plays, we utterly forgot Empire ever existed.

The graphics folks used dithering in this game to greatly improve the realism level over earlier efforts by game designers. While I'm pretty sure this was a 16 color game, it appeared to use many more colors than 16.

This was the first game I'd played that required a mouse. I remember teaching my roommate how to double click.

One thing I loved was when the AI would explore someplace and get a stack of dragons, which it would then use to fly around the map razing cities. Once it lost a dragon, that stack would stay where it landed forever.

Oh yeah, you could stack units in this game, and the units affected each other's performance. So, start with a stack of Loran wolf riders, bless them four times prior to use, stack them with a hero and some demons, and you were ready to go after Lord Bane...or stack a hero on some griffens and you could fly. Wizards moved 50 (Shadowfax???). If you razed a city, you got some wild sounds from your PC's built in speaker--this was before the soundblaster card was expected to be on a PC. This game had a fabulous number of new ideas, many of which have yet to find their way to even today's turn based favorites.

The Bad
For all the good work, Warlords, just like Interstel's Empire, failed to constrain unit production. Each turn took longer than the preceeding. Cities became more and more difficult to take, and I do not remember any multiplayer games ever being finished, even after weeks of get togethers. Nonetheless, Warlords is better fantasy game than can be created with the scenario editor of Civilization III.

The Bottom Line
This is still worth playing. I found Warlords I better (and far more stable) than later Warlords releases, and preferred the original map to any that I played in Warlords II, which incidentally, did have a great scenario editor). I have only just recently discovered that Warlords has had versions since version II. Yes, I am interested!

The Good
This is a very cool turn-based fantasy-strategy game!

You decide which of the eight master cities to start in, and away you go. Each city has advantages and disadvantages, of course! Some cities are well-defended, but that just means they are difficult to get out of and conquer surrounding towns, getting them to churn out more gold and armies for you.

Other cities are poorly defended and make weak armies, but there are other cities nearby that you can quickly conquer and make your own. Still others make really tough armies, but at a slower rate, so you can't move at such a fast pace...

And then there are the ruins that can give your heroes special powers, or add demons and devils to your army of Orcs, wolf-riders, archers, or trolls... sigh I do so miss having a DOS-based Operating System.

The Bad
It was always the same dang map. And it was tough to win if you didn't start with the right town!

The Bottom Line
A very nice early fantasy-strategy game. No complaints about it at all.

The Good
The fact that I loved this game growing up. I have always liked strategy games that don't have 10,000,000 things you have to keep up with. Being able to find things that aid in your strength and other attributes are also a real plus.

The Bad
It's hard to keep up with where your armies are that you are moving.

The Bottom Line
This is an essential game to play if you are interested in classic strategy games. Plus, the wolfriders are just cool.