Warlords V underway

[chaedwards]

After the underwhelming Warlords IV and the interminably dull Battlecry series, lets hope this gets back on form - the design docs so far emphasise building on Warlords 3 Darklords Rising rather than IV, so I have hope.

Steve Fawkner seems to be active on the forum boards at infinite interactive and warlorders.com discussing design ideas, which has got to be a good thing - at one point he admitted that Warlords IV was the weakest of the bunch, apparently because it only had six months development time. However, there is now a fan-patch that takes W4 to 1.04, and improves it a lot. I would try it, but that would involve have a computer that could run it (borrowing my brother's laptop at the moment.)

Let's just hope that W5 gets the series back on track.

 

[bryce777]

Was warlords IV good? I have it int he box unopened....

 

[Jason]

6 months development time!? It usually takes me longer than that to finish playing a game.

Warlords IV was generally disliked all around. Don't remember why. I've only played Battlecry 1 and 3 and thought they did the job well enough.

 

[Deacdo]

I'm only interested if they implement a tactical combat system. Warlords seems to be one of those "in-between" series that doesn't quite cut it, IMO. Lacks the depth to be a pure strategy game, but also lacks a tactical combat system to be an appealing tactical/strategy game.

 

[Micmu]

Warlods IV was probably one of the shittiest and most boring strategies I ever played. Not only that it totally lacked tactical combat, main campaign quickly became boring and extremely repetitive. I endured it for like 3 days, then I realized there is no point.

 

[chaedwards]

I've never understood the point of tactical combat in a strategy title, as it takes away from the strategy involved. Given that strategy is all about producing and martialling forces in the right way, at the right time and in the right place, it seems stupid to then allow me to do this badly and then allow to pull myself out of the fire with tactical combat.

Anyway, Warlords IV was not as good as Warlords III DLR, but had some interesting features. Warlords III is a classic, mainly because of the sheer variety of monsters, heroes, game modes, quests, treasures etc available. Unlike, say HOMM or AoW, it feels like a fantasy wargame rather than a fantasy strategy game - no tactical combat, but many different creature abilities that sway combat, and the whole thing plays very fast. Definitely one of my favourite games of all time.

 

[bryce777]

Wow, that bad? I agree about tactical combat. I liked warlords I a lot and I played II a bit and thought it was pretty good.

 

[chaedwards]

No it's not that bad - just streamlined, and not as good as DLR. The sides have been thought through and stack up well, and some of the other ideas also work well. Its a sort of failed concept rather than a terrible game. Of course, the campaign is poor, but that's par for the course - Warlords is meant for short skirmish games.