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A mixed bag with a fatal flaw (for me)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am a serious fan of the Warlords series and have owned all the turned based games and all of the BattleCry games. The first three Warlords (TB) games were seriously addictive. In fact, I still find myself playing way past the point when I should have gone to bed. I even have an old DOS system where I keep my old games and there you can find Warlords I and II (as well as x-com's, Betrayla at Krondor, Master of Magic, etc.).

In other words, I'm a fan.

Warlords IV is a beautiful game with a visually rich world like those found in BattleCry. Cities are well-rendered and interesting. Units are varied and have tactical advantages and disadvantages that are consistent with the opposing units you will fight. The combat system allows you to choose which unit you will use to fight - and it allows you to change your fight order in mid-battle (something the earlier games would not allow). The city interface is a little confusing at first, but quickly becomes easy to use. Production cues are added so that you can plan out the tactical advantages of combined unit types in advance.

The game is very challenging, but the greatest challenge occurs only in combat with cities, because those walls are always shooting at you.

Now for that flaw. I like to play large maps with lots of cities and eight sides. In this mode, the game took FOREVER to play. I would make a couple of moves, square up my cities and hit the 'end turn' button. Then I would sleep for a few hours and go out for dinner, then come back and wait for the computer to move through the AI players. (Okay, that's an exaggeration). But really, as the games progressed the turns lasted at least 5 minutes. Once, I got up and prepared a bowl of cereal as a snack - AND ATE IT - before the time was up (no lie). I play on a speedy laptop with lots of ram and I set all the game options to the fastest possible.

By the end of my first (post-tutorial) game, I would hit the 'end turn' button and set the computer aside so I could watch the news as the game moved through players. That can't be good. However, I was determined to send a powerful army to an opponent's capital to try and take it. It took a long time to create the army, 45 minutes just to get there and I still lost 7 of my 8 units. But really, I didn't care anymore. I just wanted to try. It was so boring that I didn't want to do any more, so I quit.

Now, I may try one more time, but I probably won't. I will probably just keep playing War3 and shelf this one next to the disappointing end of the x-com series.

Oh, well.

p.s. - If you are a Warlords fan, by all means get this if you can get it cheap. You might tolerate the mind numbing waits better than I did and thus enjoy the other great aspects of the game.

Not as bad as people say, but not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game isn't as bad as some of the other reviews say (especially once you get the patch), but I would agree that it's not great. The main problem is that they removed some of the nicest features from previous versions of the game:

1. No more "King of the Hill" feature. To win, you have to capture every other enemy capital. That gets pretty boring once you've established an invincible supply chain. At least you don't have to conquer every city; you just have to capture every enemy capital.

2. No more unit vectoring! Removing this was a big mistake. The new "production waypoints" system, as people have said, is a step backwards and can be a MAJOR hassle to tinker with once you've built a large empire.

3. I agree that magic items have become kind of wimpy now (though I don't agree with whoever said that heroes have become expendable--you won't feel that way when you see what a very high level hero can do). Exploring ruins usually isn't a good gamble unless you have a very strong stack. Otherwise, you'll lose units in the battle, and the reward is rarely worth it.

4. The AI is still very predictable. Basically, the computer will always choose the fastest route to its target, meaning that if you can take control of the obvious transit routes, the AI will have a hard time positioning its troops to attack you. So I don't agree with the reviewer who said that strong flying troops negate the effect of terrain. In practice, it doesn't work that way, because the AI (stupidly) always tries to use roads if it can. You almost never have to protect your flank.

On the plus side:

1. Magic, though still too weak, has been seriously upgraded. There was virtually no reason to fool around with magic in previous versions of the game; at least now the spells are stronger and the magic system is more complex.

2. The graphics are a lot better. But no one has ever played the Warlords series for the graphics.

3. Combat is more balanced. Plan on losing more units than in the past. You also have to think more carefully about how to put a stack together. Hint: having an archon and a unicorn in the same stack can be VERY useful, because they bless and heal your troops (respectively).

4. The game is stable and loads surprisingly quickly.

Warlords the Magnificent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: March 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Excellent game play. It seems that every aspect has been considered in the creation. Lots of fun!

Really Crappy Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: January 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game went wrong in a lot of ways. Warlords III: Reign of Heroes and Dark Lords Rising were awesome games, nearly perfect in their execution. Warlords: Battlecry II was also in itself an incredible game.

Along comes Warlords IV, which tries to mix the two games, and fails miserably. Most of the cool features from Warlords III are gone, apparently in the name of "simplification". While a lot of the animations and sound effects from Battlecry II are ripped off the original game and presented here in a very stripped-down way.

I wanted to like this game, but it is just such a departure (in a bad way) from the two games that it is based off of. I have no problem with gaming innovation, but this isn't innovation. This is just plain bad programming.

As another reviewer stated, it really seems like the developers of this game ran into some budget problems and just "threw it out there", so to speak. The new warlord system just really stinks. And the heroes, which were so cool and played such an important part in both WL3 and Battlecry 2, are conspicuously weak in this game. They are all wimps! I don't know why they are even included in the game, because the moment you put them in a battle they are guaranteed to die right off the bat.

And the vectoring system which was so useful in WL3 is now absent. The units actually have to travel ON SCREEN from where they are produced. This is more realistic, perhaps, but it certainly calls for some micromanagement to make sure your units out wandering alone don't get slaughtered while you aren't looking.

The only good thing I could say about this game is that the graphics are somewhat improved from WL3. Even so, most of the animations are still just ripped directly off of Battlecry II, so we're not seeing anything innovative here. In fact, the graphics in Battlecry II beat this mish-mashed hodgepodge of a game by a long shot.

Besides, graphics alone does not a good game make. Warlords 3, while having graphics that are now showing their age, is a FAR superior game to this one. (And I STILL highly recommend it for turn-based strategy game lovers! WL3 is an excellent game indeed.)

This game was really disappointing. It shows a lot of potential with the ideas used, but the execution was horrible to say the least. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it.

Disciples II is better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My bottom line is that if you want a more engaging and more appealing turn-based fantasy strategy game, go for Disciples II. The only draw-back of Disciples is that there are only five races (human, undead, demon, dwarves, and elves). Warlords have more.

My biggest gripe about Warlords IV is the animation and the graphic; it's really bad. I suggest you download both demo of Warlords and Disciples and compare the artwork and gameplay. Another problem is that there are no real resource management... no gold to mine and no mana to collect. Also, each race has only 6 units! The human race has the swordman, bowman, knight, siege engine, archon, and a hero. In comparison, the human race in Disciples has almost 20 different battle units, ranging from assassins to white wizards.

Some of the drawbacks of turn-based strategy are evident in Warlords, but the negatives outlined above didn't impress me. If the price is low, I guess then it isn't a big concern.

Kind of a mixed bag

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am still undecided about this game. I've only put about 10-15 hours into it so far, but had put hundreds (possibly thousands) of hours into Warlords 2, 3, and 3 Dark Lords Rising.

For the most part, what it offers is impressive and visually pleasing. Once you get into it more, you realize that it actually has fewer features. Kind of like how Heroes of Might and Magic IV lost a ton of features, only not quite so bad. Good graphics, unfortunately, are not what I consider important in my turn-based strategy games however.

Anyway, I am not quite addicted to the game. I will probably finish the campaign, just because I am convinced that there will be something along the way that will be cool. I haven't seen it yet, however, after breezing through the first 3 parts of the campaign.

Some of the things that particularly bug me is there is no vectoring. You have to physically manage every single unit when you send them to places. You can set production waypoints, but that is a huge mess. Chances are, once they get to a city, there will already be 8 troops in it, so they will just stand outside unless you happen to see them. Also, the movement points really bother me... if I have a stack of 7 units, and they pass by another unit which is out of movement... everybody loses their movement for that turn. It doesn't matter if my stack of 7 had 20 mv points left, or if I ungroup the one unit that was out of movement. Very frustrating.

Also, heroes are seriously crippled in this game. In the other warlord games, you built up heroes that would be one-man armies, and stockpile every magical item and hoard every quest available. Here, magical items are rather weak, quests and ruins are so time-consuming to be almost pointless, and heroes are expendable.

There are some interesting ideas here, and I think this could have been a great game if they expanded on the previous games rather than slashing out so many old features. It almost feels like the game was unfinished, and that it needed another two or three months to be developed.

1/2 the game of Warlords 3

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: June 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing Warlords since the original game came out. I actually still play the original every once in awhile. Every new version of the game improved on the concept with the exception of Warlords 4.

This is about 1/2 the game it should be. There are so many things missing, most notably diplomacy, that simply ruin this game. I honestly believe they ran out of money to make the game.

Warlords and Heroes of Might and Magic are my favorite series of all time. I love these types of games. This game is so bad however, that I actually deleted this game, threw it away and went back to playing Warlords 3 which is a significantly better game.

The only good thing about this game is that when I went to the website to see when they would release the unfinished half of the game many of the posters were talking about a game called Dominions 2. I ordered it and have been playing it almost non stop for 3 months.

A solid fantasy wargame

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: May 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Warlords 4 is a solid turn-based fantasy wargame in which you can play 10 different races and create a warlord character that you can take with you in either a campaign of linked scenarios, random maps, skirmishes or multiplayer.

Gameplay is simple to learn and unlike many real-time strategy games, you don't have to manage an economy or build resources. Cities build your combat units and generate income to maintain your armies of up to 8 units each. Each of the races has 8 unique units with different abilities such as archery, fire attack, regeneration, etc. All the units gain experience for successful combat and they become more powerful as the level up. With each new level, you can improve their stats such as life points, combat, or special skills. Hero units in particular can be devastatingly powerful at high levels. You can attach up to 3 of these hero units to your warlord's retinue and bring them with you. This role-playing element makes each of your warlords unique.

Cities are the only thing you can capture and control on the map. Some cities are permanently linked to resources that give bonuses to production, gold, unit strength, and these resources cannot be destroyed or captured on their own. Without the headache of sending out your peasants or workers to mine resources, you are free to spend your time on what matters most: exploration and combat.

Although you can turn off the hidden map feature, it's more fun to play when you can't see the whole map and you are forced to send scouts out to gradually reveal the map. All the maps are dotted with mysterious ruins, dungeons and towers that you can explore (at your peril) to find hoards of gold, experience and magic items. The magic items are particularly useful since you can attach up to 4 of them to your special hero units and grant them additional skills and combat bonuses.

Combat occurs when enemy armies meet in the open or when one army besieges a castle. This is probably the weakest part of the game: the player simply clicks on a unit to send it into the 2D combat map and the AI does likewise. The 2 units trade blows until only one is left standing. You have no control over the unit and special abilities are used or not used on a random basis. If your unit survives, he fights the next enemy and so on until one side has no units left. There is no option to retreat and you can't withdraw a unit once you have selected it. This means you have to sacrifice a ton of weaker units to bring down powerful enemy armies or cities with many defenders. Enemy warlords are particularly annoying as they have tons of life points and are always well-defended in their capital cities.

The graphics are generally good (though you will need a fast machine with a good graphics card to have all the options on), but the units are rather small on the main map and look rather cartoony on the 2D combat map. Spell effects are appropriately gaudy.

Warlords 4 is definitely worth trying if you like the slower pace and more thoughtful play of turn-based games instead of the hectic clicking and micromanagement of many real time games. Give it a try--you might find yourself hooked on this simple, but deep wargame.

Not worth the price

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

What a waste. I really liked the previous Warlords products and played them all. I was expecting some great things from this version. Especially when I found that it would not work properly because it required DX9. Wow! DX9! It must have some spectacular effects. So I upgraded my graphics card (since my old one didn't support DX9) and finally installed the game. Ho hum. Graphics were dull in most parts. Nothing really exciting about them. Nothing to warrent getting a new graphics card for, that's for sure.

Game play is simplistic. Not much thought or strategy involved. Run around the map and destroy the enemy. Got my Heroes way up there in points. Not too hard to do.

Tried the multiplayer stuff. Sad. Here's a great Friday night: gather your friends into your computer room and have them bring their copies of WL4. Install it on all your systems then sit around and WAIT for each person to play their turn! Can you believe that? Sit there and watch the little time bar go across your screen waiting for "player 1" to finish his turn. Wow. Underwhelming, to say the least.

I sent email to UbiSoft asking if there was something about multiplayer I was missing in the woefully un-helpful doc. Never got a reply. Would like to get a refund though.

Surprisingly good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: April 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My first experience with the Warlords series goes back to Warlords II. Ancient as it was (had to jury rig it to run in Win 95), it was a good game then and remains one in its latest incarnation.

Warlords IV retains all of the old charm from its early editions and adds features such as a 'campaign scenario' that takes the hero through a series of quest adventures and a story line. It permits the player to retain built up heroes for subsequent scenarios. The game also gives the various races more distinctive attributes (advantages and disadvantages). The computer players' artificial intelligence is enhanced and can be tough to counter.

Its charm lies in two features. A hotseat mode allows multiple users to participate in the same game, switching the active player as each turn progresses. My only problem is that it no longer scrambles turn order randomly from turn to turn. The other feature is that it is a real strategy game, unlike so many 'build a village' games that are actually real-time tactical exercises that have little to do with real strategy. RTS is anything but truly strategic and is a deceptive misnomer.

For a fun, addictive game that a host of people can enjoy together, try Warlords IV.

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