Hidden Gem of the Week: Warlords Battlecry 3

It's time for another hidden gem from the PC gaming history. This week we're getting a closer look at a real-time strategy with RPG elements Warlords Battlecry 3.

Strategy games, the real-time ones as well as turn-based, and RPGs are definitely the most popular genres on the PC platform. That's why developers gladly mixed the two to create RPG strategies or strategy RPGs. The marriage of both genres usually work pretty well. Warlords Battlecry series is an example of such nice mix. We've asked David Craddock how the game keeps up today and here you can read his article. As with all our hidden gems, we're giving you a discount for the featured game and until Sunday, December 13 at 11:59 p.m. EDT, you can grab Warlords Battlecry 3 for only $7.99!

by David Craddock

Though Blizzard Entertainment's WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos wasn't the first game to mix real-time strategy and role-playing elements, it was inarguably one of the most successful, and inspired many developers to craft games in a similar vein of play. One such was developer Infinite Interactive's Warlords Battlecry III, sequel to the Risk-style Warlords Battlecry II. But where WarCraft III boasted four diverse races, Battlecry III more than quadrupled the ante with a staggering 16 races and 28 varied classes, each with their own specialties and unique Heroes.

After the player begins a new campaign and selects his race and class, a top-down view of the world of Etheria is shown. Clicking certain areas displays a brief overview of the happenings of the area and what must be done there to advance the story. As players advance, multiple locations will open up, allowing players a broader choice of missions to undertake should one initially prove overwhelming.

Different buildings produce different offensive units with various abilities, but the player's primary unit is a Hero which can be upgraded via experience points earned in combat and by completing quests found throughout Etheria's many locales. Rather than saddle the player with different Heroes in each quest whose special abilities and play style may or may be to the player's liking, the player's Hero remains with him from the beginning of the game until the end. Spending many hours honing the Hero's stats and specialties results in the potential to obliterate dozens of units at a time near the game's conclusion.

In-game action encompasses many familiar RTS elements with a few new twists thrown in. As is the case with other economy-driven RTS games, Battlecry III asked players to harvest resources in order to train units and purchase upgrades. In a twist that will please players more interested in waging war than overseeing resource acquisition, resource posts such as gold mines need not be attended to: Hero units are able to place the posts under a player's control, which causes resources to automatically be extracted. (Of course, taking control of a resource as well as assigning a few workers to it results in larger pulls of the resource.)

Deepening Battlecry III's strategic possibilities is a diplomacy system that dictates which races are friendly, which are neutral, and which maintain bitter hatred for others. Friendly races will get along swimmingly, while neutral and hostile races will need greater or lesser amounts of encouragement to coexist and achieve victory.

Armchair generals looking for dozens of hours and as many multitudes of gameplay possibilities are encouraged to wage war in Etheria. A lengthy single-player campaign that manages to both tell a compelling story and present unique gameplay opportunities combines with dynamic multiplayer that will test each player's mettle, especially those looking for the challenge of fighting alongside antagonistic races.

As with all our hidden gems, we're giving you a discount for the featured game and until Sunday, December 13 at 11:59 p.m. EDT, you can grab Warlords Battlecry 3 for only $7.99!

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