Gameplay & Conclusions

Roleplaying Strategy? Seems familiar...

Roleplaying has long been a strong aspect of the Warlords games. There have always been heroes who gather their armies and conquer cities with those armies, so that those cities may produce more troops. Creatures have always had special abilities, and then spells were introduced for the hero to cast. Of course, that's all good - it adds gameplay and replayability.

Under Construction

The enemy hero falls!

So how does this roleplaying show itself? Well, in the campaign you start with your hero, you decide his class after the first mission, then specializations, and so on. He'll also gain levels, along with his 'retinue' of troops that you take along with you from battle to battle (it's all optional.) As they gain levels, they get more powerful and - by default - valuable. Losing your 9th level Minotaur King can be as pleasant as sticking your finger into a blender.

The conversion thang!

Arena - Minotaur's basic grunt shop

Then there are the RTS aspects of the game. You construct buildings, which make your units and give you upgrades. Each of the 8 different races has mostly unique buildings and units, though some of them may be shared. You can choose between Humans, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, Orcs, Minotaurs, Dwarves and Undead. Each race tends to lean in one direction or another... Minotaurs and Dwarves rely primarily raw power, while High Elves prefer magic and less physical endeavors.

Nice!

Anyone up for Ziggurat Vertigo?

Your resource structures, like quarries and gold mines, need to be converted. You don't just send your peons in to work on them, your hero first has to convert the structure to your side. This will presumably add a great deal of strategy, since you must now decide what to do with your hero. Should he help in the battle? Do you want to send him alone and sneak in to convert? Or should your army go along to protect him, since he's so valuable? Decisions, decisions... tsk.

Final Words

Warlords: Battlecry looks to be a promising and faithful real-time conversion of the classic turn-based strategy series. It features just about everything that the old Warlords games had, while bringing in all the necessary RTS features to boot. Top that off with some fantastic 2D graphics, good sound and a very interesting looking singleplayer campaign, and SSG has a potential hit on their hands. Warlords might be the transition game to bridge the gap between RTS and turn-based strategy.