Warlors presentation

I don't know the Warlords game serie. (Only Warlords Battlecry).

I'm curious, can someones tell about it here ?

Well, WBC3 sacrifices features of the hero system for more races. See WBC 1 and you'll notice the hero system is completely different. Also it has a cinematic campaign.

As for teh Warlords series, IMO Warlords III is the only one worth a mention. The game is great. I've heard W2 and 1 are good too, but I've never played them myself. Warlords IV is kinda poor. It sacrifices gameplay for graphics, but shares a hero sistem somewhat similar to WBC, compared to other warlords, but looses the ability to create custom factions.

Thank you for this presentation, some day I'll try to test Warlords III.

So the graphics in Warlords 4 are good ?
Do you know if they are in a ".rle" format ?

Nay... PNG.

I could send them to you but most of them are just WBC3 units from another perspective or size

While most 'Warlorders' give a lot of love to Warlords 2(Deluxe), which ranks #1 on the warlorders.com website poll of favorite Warlords games, there are an almost equal number of us who prefer Warlords III: Darklords Rising.

Speaking of which, there are many things you should be aware of if you are going to give the turn-based warlords games a try. For starters, do not bother with Warlords III: Reign of Heroes. This was the first version of Warlords III and is pretty bare bones compared to the later 'Darklords Rising' version. Darklords Rising(henceforth 'DLR') contains a built in campaign, map, scenario and factions editor so you can create your own 'sides'(to analogize this to Warlords Battlecry 3, it would be like being able to create a race/side/faction by determining which units can be built, which hero classes can be hired, etc. The difference being that in Warlords III, factions and such are much more robust. Each side/faction can have up to 4 different hero classes, 8 armies/units, 4 allies(that can be recruited for free by searching ruins, completing quests etc.), 3 mercenary types(units that can be hired), etc.
As mentioned the 'Warlords' games(as opposed to the "Battlecry" games) are turn-based. So if you are a button-masher/twitch gamer and don't go for turn-based games at all then Warlords III is not for you. The campaign editor was, as far as I know, the first such editor to be included in a strategy or RPG game and no one ever did one better. But on top of all that you can also download(free of charge) special 'tool's(the first created by Steve Fawkner, the creator of Warlords & Battlecry and is probably most widely used) that allow you to create new units, hero classes, spells, sites, etc.

The Battlecry games are probably the best(or right up in the top two) of the 'real time strategy games and being able to give orders to units while paused helps a lot in bridging the gap between us 'turn-based' gamers and the console playing real time gamers, but Warlords III: Darklords Rising is the most feature rich strategy game I have ever played aside from Civ 2.

A word of warning though about the graphics. The graphics for Warlords III, even back when these games were new(like 1997 or so IIRC) were and are pretty lackluster. So if graphics mean a lot to you then do not bother trying Warlords III. They are very primitive and even a bit sloppy in places. The in game portraits however are very good, on par with modern comic book artwork.

I always wondered. Why is Warlords II considered better than DLR?

And I think Warcraft 3 has a way better campaign editor.

I think Warcraft 3's custom campain system is very hard to kick from the course too, you can add units, insert 3d models and insert musics in your map which will be playable without modding the game.
You can entierly script your map, and more than scripting : You can insert code in your map, the editor let you use a specific simplified object programming language !

But the delicious cherry on the top of the cake is : There is a file-bypassing system of the game.

I mean if you know very well how Warcraft 3 works, you can define for your map an alternative of each system file used by the game when running.
So you can overwrite the game's functions for your map !

The only two important things you sadly cannot do are : Change dynamically the name of a unit/building, and change the number of playable races before the game start. (But you can script a button box shown when your map start, if you want to let players choose more races.)




Thanks for all the informations, SkeleTony, I'll really test this game a day, when I'll have the time to do.

I love the "Button-masher/twitch" expression, I'll reuse it if you don't copyright it !

Yeah I played Warcraft 3 only through the first campaign I think. Was turned off by Blizzard's stubborn refusal to implement a 'Pause and issue orders' system for single player games(Warlords Battlecry allows such) which strikes me as unrealistic and unnecessarily cumbersome. I played the Hell out of Warcraft 2 though. Even while I detest real time gaming, Warcraft's take on the heroic fantasy genre, especially their Orcs and such, was right up my alley(very similar to Warhammer in that regard, in terms of how the orcs, goblins, trolls etc. looked and acted), so I dealt with the real time gameplay(same thing for Starcraft(the first one). Liked their take on the genre so much that I played through the game even though it was real time).

So that's why I failed to note Warcraft III's campaign editor capabilities(I also never messed with Starcraft's editors either, though I played that game a lot).

Warlords III: DLR did not include any sort of scripting language to my knowledge but even without such the game allowed for about as much customization as one could possibly need without changing the core components of the game system/design itself. Plus, for being the first campaign editor released as part of the game itself, it is safe to overlook things like not having an embedded scripting language or allowing for creators to use Python or Lua or whatever...

Re: "Twitch gamer"...

"Twitch gamer" and "button-masher" are both commonly used terms for the real time and console gamer crowd. I did not invent the terms.

Faestus wrote:

I always wondered. Why is Warlords II considered better than DLR?

And I think Warcraft 3 has a way better campaign editor.

I think nostalgia plays a large role here. people who started with Warlords II will have their oldest, fondest memories of playing that game and because we humans are prone to what is called 'confirmation bias', we will tend to find the evidence that supports our conclusions and dismiss contrary evidence as being less important.