Game 484: Warlords II (1993)

 

     

Warlords II

Australia

Strategic Studies Group (developer and publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS, 1994 for Macintosh

Date Started: 4 February 2023

   

I covered Warlords (1990) a couple of years ago. The sequel hasn't changed much, at least mechanically. It's a turn-based 4X strategy game from the company that many people credit with originating the (computer) genre with Reach for the Stars (1983), covered a few months ago by our resident Wargaming Scribe. You compete against up to seven other players (either human or AI) to conquer a large map full of cities and ruins. Each side starts with one city and one hero and fans out to conquer a large number of "neutral" cities before encountering other factions. Each city generates income and is capable of producing units of soldiers of varying types, each with their own statistics for movement, strength, cost, and the number of rounds it takes to make them. You send stacks of these units across the map to conquer and defend cities and otherwise defeat your foes. 

   

The RPG elements come with one or more "hero" units who can search ruins to find allies, gold, and artifacts, receive quests, gain experience, and level up. It is, of course, primarily a strategy game; I wouldn't even call it a hybrid. But I've enjoyed the series throughout my life, and I added it to my list for a change of pace.

   

Some of the differences from Warlords are:

   

• Graphical upgrades. 

• A tutorial scenario that walks you through the game's mechanics.

      

Learning to fight.

     

• A slightly redesigned interface. The game relies more on pop-up windows than its predecessor.

• The first game had a decent control scheme, with on-screen buttons backed up by keyboard shortcuts. This one adds menus. 

    

The interface does a great job offering multiple ways that players can execute commands.

       

• There's more transparency when it comes to unit strengths and bonuses.

• You can set a destination for units and then just automatically move them round after round until they reach it.

• There are a lot more unit types, and any city can be upgraded to produce any unit. I'm not sure this is an upgrade. It makes the cities lose some of their uniqueness. I believe that for Warlords III, they went back to the previous system.

      

Selecting from among the many units I can have a city build.

    

• When conquering cities, you have the option to pillage, sack, or raze the cities for extra gold. Pillaging and sacking removes the ability of the city to produce higher-level units, and razing destroys it completely. You can not rebuild or improve cities yet; that won't come until the next game.

• A face in a helmet periodically pops up between rounds to offer commentary on how the game is going. I think this is your "advisor," which you can turn on or off.

• Heroes can be male or female, and you can now rename them.

      

Marhaus comes from the Tristan legends. He's a giant that Tristan slew in Ireland.

      

• Heroes have levels and experience in addition to strength. The game also tells you explicitly their combat and command bonuses; I think these things existed in Warlords but were hidden.

      

A hero levels up.

      

• Some of the ruins are now hidden; you have to learn about them to find them. 

• The types of ruins have been expanded. Instead of just items, gold, and allies, you can find temples where a hero can receive either a quest or a blessing. Quests include searching other ruins, capturing certain cities, and looting specified amounts of money. You can also find sages who tell you the locations of artifacts or reveal parts of the map (if you're playing with the "fog of war" option).

• You no longer have the option to stop enemy heroes from searching ruins.

           

Marhaus completes a quest.

   

But the most significant improvements are in the scenarios themselves. Warlords had only a single game map, and the only variety you got was the option to play a different faction each time. The sequel comes with a tutorial and five maps--Dragon Realms, Isles of Sorcery, Erythea Campaign, Hadesha Campaign, and Isladia Campaign--plus the ability to generate random maps on which you can control the prevalence of each type of terrain. The random maps are essentially indistinguishable from the hand-crafted ones. I should note that the "campaigns" are just single maps, though. It won't be until Warlords III that the campaigns string multiple scenarios together and allow the same hero to persist between maps.

       

Setting options for a new game.

    

If this weren't enough, you also have a plethora of options for each map, whether one of the scenarios or random. The enemy AI can be set to three levels, just like the original, but you also have an option to adjust the overall game difficulty to three levels. (A single "I am the greatest" button sets all the enemies to the highest level. If you don't like it, the option to switch back says: "No! I really am normal.") You can determine whether neutral cities passively sit there waiting for you to conquer them or actively generate armies and defend themselves. You can turn quests and diplomacy on or off. You can enable a "fog of war" effect that occludes areas of the map you haven't scouted. You can turn on or off the ability to see enemy movement and production. You can enable a "quick start" option that begins the game with all neutral cities conquered and distributed. You can enable an option that randomizes turn order; boy, does that screw up the best laid plans. Overall, the number of sides, maps, and difficulty levels creates immense replayability.

      

Starting a new game with the "fog of war" in effect.

       

Still, despite all the options, I found myself settling into familiar patterns. I start aggressively, sending my hero and every unit I can muster to conquer neutral cities. I breed a large number of infantry units fast, stacking them in defensive positions in the lower-right corners of the cities. Once I have between four and six of those (depending on the strategic importance of the city) defending the city, I start vectoring units to cities closer to my enemies. I generally maintain two "fronts" and conquer cities systematically. I send the hero around the map to search ruins. If a second hero joins me (you get random offers when you have enough gold), I put him in a leadership role on one of the fronts. I don't spend as much time as I should assembling my unit stacks to balance strengths and weaknesses, nor to ensure that units are fighting on favorable terrain.

      

Sending a dragon around to conquer neutral cities.

      

Eventually, I get to a point when it's clear that I'm dominating the map. When that happens, Warlords generally has the remaining factions offer to surrender. You can say no, but I usually find that the game has lost some of its luster by this point. Turns are taking a long time, and I have so many units on the field that they're tough to manage. I start to lose track of what city is producing what and where it's going. I find that if I reject the surrender, it often takes even more time than I've already invested in the game to run around conquering every last city.

        

Great graphic, but I've just committed myself to another six hours of gameplay.

      

I've never played Warlords against another player. If I did, I'm sure this pattern would be utterly predictable and I'd have to shake it up or die. But the enemy AI on its higher levels does a pretty good job shaking things up on its own. I find that the AI does a better job managing its resources than I do. I waste a lot of money and opportunity putting garrisons in "safe" cities (far from the front) because I don't want to have to micromanage the development of new units if an enemy army starts threatening them. The computer does a better job adapting to the positions of my armies (and other computer-controlled factions'), pulling, moving, and replacing units depending on where I am.

   

At "Warlord" level, enemies really mess up your plans. They lose interest in conquering in a predictable pattern and launch offensives in places you wouldn't expect. In my last session, I played the Erythrea Campaign with most of the enemies set to "warlord" level and the ability to see enemy movement turned off. For a while, I seemed to be doing very well. I had nearly conquered a couple of other factions and had spread far from my origin point. I noticed the Lich King seemed awfully quiet but didn't make much of it. Sure enough, the bastard had sent a bunch of armies deep into my territory where I had some lightly-defended cities. He conquered three of them quickly, and two of them were vectoring hubs, which meant for the next three rounds, my armies popped up in all the wrong places. I had to scramble to bring units back from the front, which ruined my momentum and allowed those foes to reclaim their territory.

       

My hero, two pegasuses, a pack of wolves, and a couple of cavalry units somehow lose to an infantryman, a wolf, and a dragon. It's probably the dragon.

       

Moments like this ought to be delicious. The fact that they're not, for me, shows why I'm a CRPG addict and not a strategy game addict. I love Warlords, but only when I'm winning. I feel like a true strategy game addict would enjoy a loss, admiring the challenge that led to it. I enjoy losing occasional combats in RPGs, but I wouldn't enjoy it if those losses significantly affected my progress in the game. I get anxious and angry when the computer plays too well. I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy playing against another human.

    

Theoretically, the hero units ought to take the edge off a bit. They're so powerful, individually and as leaders, that they alter what is otherwise a relatively deterministic combat system, making some stacks twice as powerful as with their absence. A leader with a few allies--dragons, elementals, demons--can mount a campaign of conquest all on his own. And while enemy heroes run by the computer search ruins, the AI doesn't seem to take pains to level up their heroes by including them in random combats. It's one of the player's few edges over the machine, but it's not quite enough to make it feel as flexible as an RPG. In RPGs, you rarely suffer an unwinnable game because of poor strategy; the enemy can almost never make a comeback and cause you to "lose." Here, once the balance of power tips far enough, you may as well resign.

    

Nothing's more infuriating than finding an enemy hero, let alone an enemy unit, deep in your territory.

          

There are a couple of logistical considerations that haven't advanced far enough to make much of a difference. I should mention that as a non-strategy game addict, I definitely don't want things to get too complicated. I lose interest in strategy games when I have to manage too many variables. Still, Warlords II could perhaps use a few more. The economy doesn't play much of a role, for instance. I find that if I just conquer cities naturally, I almost always have just enough income to keep up with my expenses. When there are variances, it's never enough to make me rich nor to require me to disband units. There's nothing to buy in the game except heroes and units, and heroes come along somewhat randomly, and most cities have a decent selection of default units. There's thus no real incentive to raze and pillage cities. Warlords III will introduce some greater complexity in this area, with the ability to upgrade cities' defenses and build other fortifications.

   

Second, the diplomacy system is a bit under-developed. You generally start out with a couple of overt enemies, but other nations remain at peace with you until you attack them or send too many armies through their territories. You can declare war and offer peace, but I found that there was rarely an advantage to the former, and enemies hardly ever accepted the latter. You cannot make alliances. I don't remember if the next game allows for alliances, but I know the overall system takes on a greater degree of complexity.

        

I don't even know what to do now. Everyone is at peace!

        

Despite these slight misgivings, I had a lot of fun with the game and its scenarios, winning three of them at modest difficulty (40-60%) and resigning one that I played at 80% difficulty when I got to a point where my losses started significantly outpacing my wins. It's certainly better than Warlords if only for the greater variety in maps and options, and Warlords was a pretty good game.

      

The "backstory" is kind of silly and doesn't seem to go with all the scenarios. After years of bloody fighting in the original game, the warlords of Illuria agreed to a fragile peace. But they grew restless, and a new war seemed inevitable. The sorcerers of the realm decided not to stand for it. They cast a spell of incredible power that transported the warlords and their armies to a brand new world called Etheria, where they could fight among themselves without devastating Illuria.

     

The first game had eight factions drawn from Tolkien archetypes: Sirians, Storm Giants, Gray Dwarves, Orcs of Kor, Elvallie, Selentines, Horse Lords, and Lord Bane. This game uses some of the same crests as the original, and the crests are the same for each scenario, but the names of the factions differ. So the white cross shield that belonged to the Sirians in Warlords also belongs to the Sirians here, if you play the Erythrea Campaign. In other campaigns, it belongs to Lord Silver (Dragon Realms), Magicians (Isles of Sorcery), the Dream Knights (Hadesha Campaign), or the Cloud Knights (Isladia Campaign). The faction with the black shield and skull belongs to Lord Ebon, the Necromancers, the Lich King, Nightmare, or the Zhoraghians here. Lord Bane isn't mentioned at all.

       

An adoring family, soldiers to follow my orders, and the world in my grasp. Life is good.

    

The closest campaign to the original is the Erythean one, where the factions are the Sirians, Stone Giants, White Dwarves, Ussyrian Orcs, Dark Elves, Kingdoms, Horse Tribes, and the Lich King. I know that in Warlords III, the main campaign takes place in Erathia (only a slight difference from "Erythrea") and restores the original factions. [Ed. Mixing up my strategy games. As commenters pointed out, it's "Etheria"; the "Erathia" games are in the Heroes of Might and Magic series.]

    

Warlords was conceived by Steve Fawkner, who designed a prototype game before shopping it to SSG. For the final version, he was joined by SSG veterans Roger Keating, Ian Trout, and Gregory Whiley, all of whom have credits on both the original and the sequel. One of our frequent commenters, László Bényi, wrote an article about Fawkner and the Warlords series on his "Retroland" web site (Google translated version here). The article offers a lot more details about both games' AI, credited primarily to Keating. Unlike your foes in many strategy games, the enemies in Warlords have the same information as the player and have the same resources, options, and restrictions. For II, Keating apparently programmed different "personalities" for the factions, including "diplomatic values, economic savvy, and military aggressiveness." I didn't really notice this, but a casual player wouldn't.

       

Checking out an enemy city.

     

Many interesting-sounding items were cut from the game, including more nautical mechanics like ports, shipbuilding, and naval combat. (Fawkner couldn't figure out how to ensure that a port was properly located on every landmass on randomly-generated maps.) Other ideas included wildfires that could consume armies and cities, a roaming water vortex that would consume ships, and an unstoppable Tyrannosaurus Rex, who would eat the closest army (friend or foe) and could be lured into enemy territories by lining up sacrificial units in a chain. Frankly, I'm glad that most of the cut content was cut.

     

Warlords II became SSG's best seller to date and got fantastic reviews and fan feedback. Computer Gaming World gave a rave review in November 1993 and eight pages of analysis and recommendations spread across the November and December 1993 issues. Reviewer Ed Dille's only major complaint is that there isn't much of a victory screen. Other reviewers and players complained at the lack of online multiplayer support; for games involving more than one human, they had to be at the same computer.

      

I would not have known this world was randomly-generated.

     

SSG dealt with this latter issue, and others, in Warlords II Deluxe (1995). I suspect most modern Warlords II players try that version. In addition to online and play-by-email features, the game has a couple dozen new scenarios. The weird "I am the greatest" setting is gone, but there are a couple of new game options, plus a scenario creator (originally released as a standalone product in 1994). There are some graphics "upgrades" that just seem to me to make things more complicated--for instance, instead of lining up on a plain gray background, opposing armies fight on top of a shield--but others, like the cities, look nice.

I was originally going to wrap up my coverage in a single entry, but reading László's article made me realize that I hadn't been getting the most out of the game. As a non-strategy game addict, I've been playing it too casually, winning through blunt force and lower difficulty settings rather than through true strategy. So I'm going to offer one more entry in which I chronicle my experience, win or lose, on the highest difficulty setting I can muster. Stay tuned.