Warlords
To arms!
The first in an early series of decent strategy games which continued with the likes of Reign of Heroes and Heroes of Etheria, this is a pretty solid title which stands as a fine addition to any strategy collection. It's sort of like an early version of Heroes of Might and Magic and provides some fascinating tactical gameplay which is both challenging and enjoyable, albeit a little lacking in variety. As with other similar games, your goal here is to become the top dog in a familiar medieval/fantasy-style world. You achieve this by beating your rivals in combat and taking over their cities, with most of your activities revolving around building up your forces and then sending them out to battle. You get to choose from various cities to start from, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, while there's a wide range of races and units to make use of, including elves and dragons, and which stand alongside several named characters to lead your armies. There's plenty of exploration to do as well, and you can even play with up to seven other players all on the same computer, which is probably the way to do it. While this might look a little crude to some players today, there's no denying its influence and the fact that it plays a damn fine bit of strategy. The visuals are nothing special, and probably never were, but they do the job well enough and give things a good atmosphere, but it's in the gameplay where this really shines. There's plenty to do, with the multiplayer adding a lot to the long-term appeal, and there's a good challenge to be found too, making this a great choice for old-school strategy fans. Pick it up alongside the original King's Bounty for a fine double bill.
Fresh combination of strategy and RPG
Warlords is a beloved, if lesser known series of HoMM like strategy and role playing game; however, while Heroes of Might and Magic is more of a strategy game on top of which you have this turn based encounters engine, for the fighting, in Warlords the fighting is real time strategy based, while the hero portion is delivered as an RPG, and it is rather lite, but it bound to the ongoing RTS game. Thus, in the skirmishes that link and make up the strategy campaign, your hero is still present, fully fledged, and he is, of course, one of the most powerful units on the field, but not even he can take the hordes of invaders by himself. No, graphically, Warlords is a classic 90 degrees top down game, but it looks really precious, with good amounts of detail sunk in. Sure, Warlords Battlecry will up the ante considerably, but after quite a few years, but I'm sure that those that cut their teeth on HoMM and the like will find no reason to complain about the graphical quality of this production. It just is that good, even if classic and minimalist. So, definitely worth checking out. This one's a minor classic!
A classic
The starter of a fantasy strategy game series, a game that very successfully combines elements of fantasy, RPG and strategy into one wondrous mix (like HoMM III game, my favourite). The game concentrates on the greatest battles of all times, the battle of good against evil. If you want to be good, then you can be a human, dwarf or an elf. And if you're for the bad team, then you get to choose the Lords of Famine, War and Death. Besides the very nice graphics, in my opinion, the best feature of the game is the enemy AI. It is very well written and provides much of that challenge that all die hard strategy fans want. What is also great is that the game is complicated enough to set the mind at work, but still easy enough to not get you confused and irritated. In my opinion, this game is a classic strategy that is not to be missed out by anyone who enjoys a good game and a good brain exercise.
