Warlords: Battlecry

by Darryl Barthe
March 18, 2000 00:00 AM PST

Fairies and wizards and elves, oh my! A classic turn-based game gets a real-time update. Check out the latest game in the Warlords series, the upcoming fantasy RTS game Warlords: Battlecry.

I have a long-standing fondness for the Warlords series. I remember many red-eyed nights in college spent drinking coffee and hovering over my buddy's computer playing hot seat on the old turn-based classic. Those are good memories.

It was only a matter of time before they released an iteration of this game in real time. Turn based games will almost certainly go the way of the dodo, despite the protests of the old-school purists, as real-time is simply more challenging. I remember time and time again watching in horror as crucial castles would fall to enemies that I'd never counted on stepping up to the plate as I sat powerless to oppose them�waiting for my turn to come. In RTS, your own reaction time becomes the most decisive factor of success or failure and that, in my opinion, is the way it should be.

So it was with great anticipation that I approached Warlords: Battlecry, SSI's new RTS title. All the old stuff is still there: heroes that gain in ability and strength with experience, Tolkien-esque fantasy races, fair graphics, easy to master interface. The campaign takes us back to the Isle of Dawn where the good races (humans, high elves and barbarian hordes) fight their way through the apathy of the neutral races (dwarves, minotaurs, wood elves) to destroy the threat of the forces of darkness as represented by the evil races (undead, orcs, dark elves). Of course, you can also opt to play any of the other races in the final build, but for now, our lot falls in with the good guys. It's all pretty straightforward stuff to anyone familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, or the Warlords series itself.

Anyway, I'm happy to say that SSI and Strategic Studies Group seem to have pulled off a ringer and pushed into the market a title with perhaps just as much promise and staying power as any of their previous Warlords titles. The graphics are enhanced and the animation, while far from the glory of Age of Empires II, clearly surpass Starcraft or Warcraft II. Each spell has it's own animated effect and some of them are rather impressive- Baldur's Gate-style columns of smoke accompany healing spells, and wizards and elf-mages cast little bolts of lightning and little arrows of silver-soul energy.

The automatic resource gathering is pretty cool and once you assign workers to mine minerals or whatnot you never have to worry about them again. Furthermore, miners actually work inside the mines and do not seem vulnerable to indiscriminate peasant slaughtering. This poses new challenges for the multiplayer RTS fanatic as it's hard to walk in and destroy a player by crippling his/her economy in old-school "zergling rush" fashion by whacking his/her civilians. This puts combat back in the realm of fantastical chivalry as opposed to the dark realism of Age of Kings, where tried and true real-life formulas of genocidal warfare are the rule of thumb.

There is an extensive "tech-tree" of skills and abilities upgrades and a number of buildings that can be constructed allowing the gamer to access new units, abilities, etc. Cathedrals (for knights and paladins), Eyries (for eagles, pegasi and dragons), as well as more mundane buildings like archery ranges (for squires and flame arrows) and stables (for mercenaries) are distinct and beautifully rendered.

Also, gamers are able to choose individual identities for their heroes replete with occupations (Warrior, Wizard, Priest, or Rogue) and specialties (Paladins, Necromancers, Healers, Assassins, etc.) who advance in ability from level to level and progress in RPG fashion.

The multiplayer is being primed to support up to six players and will include options for up to 10 victory conditions which, in turn, can be combined for more complex and challenging games.

Warlords: Battlecry is perhaps the most promising title of its niche that we can expect this spring. Fantasy RTS fans who have played out Warcraft II and Rage of Mages will want to check it out when it's released in May.