Warlords (game series)

Warlords is an award winning computer game series created by Steve Fawkner, in which role-playing elements are combined with strategy in a fantasy setting. The series has been split into two different games lines, the traditional turn-based strategy Warlords series (currently in its fourth edition), and a newer real-time based strategy Warlords Battlecry series (currently in its third edition).

The games are set in the fantasy world of Etheria, and tend to be based around the traditional premise of good versus evil. Heroes on the side of good are the Sirian Knights, the mercantile Empires of Men, the elves and the dwarves. On the side of evil are the demonic horsemen: the Lord of Plague, the Lord of Famine, the Lord of Chaos, and the ever present Lord Bane, Lord of Death.

The most recent Warlords Battlecry game is based upon the release of the fifth horseman from the demonic dimensions.Other races also populate Etheria, including Dark Elves, Dark Dwarves, Barbarians, Orcs, Gnolls, and reptilian Srrathi, with some races being dropped and added with different games.

Warlords

The first Warlords was created in 1989 by Steven Fawkner, and published by SSG. It featured 8 different clans battling for the control of a mythical land called Illuria: Sirians (white), Storm Giants (yellow), Grey Dwarves (orange), Orcs of Kor (red), Elvallie (green), Horse Lords (light blue), Selentines (dark blue) and Lord Bane (black), which could either be played partly by the computer or by eight different people taking turns in what is known as hot seat play. Gameplay consisted of moving units, checking and adjusting production in cities and moving heroes to explore ruins, temples and libraries, and discover allies, relics and other items. The goal of this game was to rule the land of Illuria by defeating the other 7 opponents and capturing or razing at least two thirds of the cities in the land (initially 80, but cities could be razed upon capture). The winning player could show no mercy to his opponents, in which case the battle went on until one side won all the remaining cities.

Players would have to make (informal) alliances and adjust their production to react to various occurrences in the game. Many of the cities in the game are references to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and other fantasy writers.

"Warlords" leaves its legacy as one of the progenitors of the strategy and turn-based game market. As games sometimes took many hours to complete, many players are able to recount marathon sessions of playing the game.

An average game with eight real people playing would take nearly twelve hours or more to play, but not many such games have probably been played: individual turns can become over fifteen minutes long, and so the 'downtime' between one player's turns can be over an hour.

Warlords II

Following the success of Warlords, SSG released Warlords II in 1993. This version included scenarios (five initially, although the later released mission pack and the Deluxe version (1995) increased the number to several dozen). Another new feature was 'fog of war' - optionally, enemy units or even the map could be concealed from players without units close enough to see them. The interface of the game was improved, as were the graphics (with additional unique city graphics for each different player). Moreover, the game featured multiple army, city and terrain sets (still in 16 colours, but upgraded to 256 colours with the Deluxe release), play by e-mail as well as hot seat, and a random map generator and map editor.

Thanks to the publication of the editor, Warlords II Deluxe was the apotheosis of the series in terms of user-created content. Many new maps, army and terrain sets, and scenarios were distributed on the Internet for the game.

Longtime Warlords player and enthusiast Bob Heeter imagined, and then organized, a multi-player tournament using Warlords II, through the newsgroup for strategic games. The tournament depended on a special program called "WarBot" that calculated what 'should' happen when two diverse armies fought under the Warlords rules. Tournament rankings and awards were given based on how well a player did in comparison to other players with the same side in the same scenario. Awards were also given for best roleplaying during the games. The tournament generated a great deal of interest, as well as a great deal of excellent roleplaying, which was archived. (See External Links.)

Warlords III: Reign of Heroes

After a four year hiatus, SSG developed Warlords III. By this time, the real-time strategy game genre was in full-swing. There was less of a market for turn-based games. Warlords III added a campaign system, along with new spells, new units, new hero abilities and new hero classes to the game.

Warlords III: Darklords Rising

Shortly after releasing W3:RoH, SSG followed with a stand-alone expansion pack. However, its release in 1998 was truly overshadowed by the oncoming rush of FPS and the MMORPG predecessors. The TBS genre in general would take a hit during this periodFact|date=February 2007.

Issues on XP

Changes to the Microsoft operating system introduced with Windows XP technology did not allow DLR to run. UBI could not locate this problem even up to 2002 and no support was offered on this issue. Fans however have targeted the problem. The cursor controlling software jams the programs operation. To fix this issue, right-click the desktop or start menu shortcut, go to properties dialogue box from the menu that appears, and change the target to "c:(your Darklords folder)darklord.exe" /WINCURSOR. This will replace the problematic color cursors with functional, black and white ones. Some players use the -WINCURSOR option instead.Starting Scenarios or Campaigns with the /WINCURSOR or -WINCURSOR option will still cause a crash. Some users have reported success with running the game without the command options, saving and then restarting the game with the /WINCURSOR or -WINCURSOR option.It only works on on the patched game (version 1.02)

Warlords: Battlecry

"" (WBC) marked an important diversion into real-time strategy. Although it failed to appeal to much of the franchise's existing fan base, it opened up an entirely new market. As the first truly hero-based RTS, it played a seminal role in the creation of the role-playing strategy genre that would eventually be dominated by Warcraft 3, and indirectly influenced major MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. WBC and its sequels, WBC II and III, received critical acclaim but were met with limited commercial success.

Warlords IV: Heroes of Etheria

In November 2003, Ubisoft released Warlords IV. Similar to Warlords III (in theme, not in gameplay), but with improved graphics and a more intricate magic system, it received a lackluster reception. Game Rankings, for example, has shows an aggregate review score for the game of 70%, about ten percentage points lower than both Warlords III games ( [http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/559081.asp] ).

One of the reasons this version was not as popular was due to the poor quality AIFact|date=February 2007. The game was easily beaten on any difficulty when playing against computer players. The 1.04 patch (not available from Ubisoft, but from http://www.warlorders.com) fixed many of the AI issues, rebalanced the races, and fixed issues in the original version. This patch was released at the beginning of 2006 long after the original game's release, which may affect its ability to revitalise interest in the game.

According to Steve Fawkner, this game was built from scratch in 6 months by Infinite Interactive after being handed it by SSG in an incompleteable form ( [http://www.warlorders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=757] ), and is why the game isn't up to previous standards.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

On January 10, 2007, Strategy First and Glyphic Entertainment announced "Warlords DS" for the Nintendo DS. [http://www.ds-x2.com/index.php?id=6401]

"" was the title released, and is currently available for PC, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, Sony PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and the Wii and is quite different from the other Warlords titles, being a "Bejeweled"-style puzzle game with RPG elements.

On September 29, 2008, TransGaming Inc. along with D3Publisher, Inc. announced that they had bought the game rights for iPhone and would be bringing the game to the platform sometime in the fall of 2008. [http://www.transgaming.com/news/?id=110]

Fan Games

* [http://www.lordsawar.com/ LordsAWar!]
* [http://freelords.sourceforge.net/ Freelords]

External links

* [http://www.infinite-interactive.com/ Infinite Interactive] current Warlords design company
* [http://www.enlight.com/wbc3/ Enlight] Warlords Battlecry III Publisher Site
* [http://www.warlorders.com/ Warlorders] – Comprehensive fan site, contains downloads of earlier games
* [http://www.heeter.net/warlords/about_warlords.html Bob Heeter's site for Warlords fans] (and Warlords II Tournament results)
*moby game|id=-group/warlords-series|name="Warlords" series
* [http://freelords.sourceforge.net/ Freelords]