Posted on: September 5, 2022

trashl0rd

Games: 624 Reviews: 13

Excellent TBS Game

While I don't put this on a pedestal of the all time greats like HoMM 3 and the Age of Wonders games, it's still one of the better games of the genre. Sure, its visuals are rudimentary, its UI is rough around the edges, and it lacks many QoL features you may be used to. However, the beauty of the game lies in its balance between focused gameplay and mechanics, and strategies that take time to grasp--easy to learn but hard to master, with no feature bloat. The only "downside" is that combat resolution is largely out of your hands, and with a fair bit of RNG involved--though with proper planning and unit composition, losses can be mitigated. I played it a bit when I was younger, but never fully appreciated it until I returned to it later in life. The game doesn't explain much during play, in addition to the rough UI and lack of tooltips. Reading the manual is highly advised for newcomers. It also has odd little quirks like the inability to alt-tab (I get a white screen), but you can minimize through the option in the Disk menu. This is a game that would benefit greatly from mods to add some QoL enhancements, at the very least, but that is outside of my abilities and sadly this game doesn't have the biggest following. Regardless, it's worth a go for fans of this genre.

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Posted on: November 21, 2019

grayson.burrows

Games: 454 Reviews: 3

Yes!

A hassle free method of playing on my modern systems is a gift.

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Posted on: November 23, 2019

SteamGog

Games: 487 Reviews: 3

An excellent addition to GOG's inventory

Cannot really add much to the other reviewers here except to add: Been playing this recently but with a graphics mod Warlords 2 in THREE 1.0--Warlords 2 Style Units/Heroes for Warlords 3, link on Warlorders dot com under forum title Warlords 2 Style Units/Heroes for Warlords 3. It does not change anything about the game, just changes the top down units view to something that resembles Warlords II style units(game also here on GOG). Bought this back in the day but shelved it because I detested the top down unit graphics making them MUCH harder to recognize and relate to but have been playing it with the mod and am happy with this game. With the exception of the scope compared to Warlords II Deluxe, (one is stuck in the medieval era due to the work it would take to rework it) but what a fine medieval era it is. There are some improvements this version has over Warlords II Deluxe, most noticeable to me at least is hitting the "escape " key to deselect a unit and the map stays focused on where I am currently looking rather than jumping back across the map to the unit I just deselected.

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Posted on: November 28, 2021

mikeshelk

Verified owner

Games: 38 Reviews: 3

A jem that will never be old

I bought a disk with this game in 1998 and still play Warlords 3 from time to time now (2021). Generally speaking, I already became bored of computer games in 2005 or so. But there is some magic with this particular game — no matter how long I play, it still entertains me. It's hard to formulate what makes it so special, because true art can barely by formulated. I think, the reason is primarily in the graphics, which is unusual but pleasant.

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Posted on: June 16, 2020

gog144

Verified owner

Games: 251 Reviews: 18

What a long wait to see this game again.

I had demo on CD & had loads fun playing sole map "Orc Attack." Now I have full game. Thanks GOG. Great game. Battles are simple--automated w/ nice animations. Lots of explosions, but also stabbing & arrows. I love hero and merc recruiting, and how heroes can die if not careful. Graphics are simple & likeable: units look appropriately menacing, & animations (e.g. assassination) are somewhat dramatic in good humorous way. There's also great quality-of-life aspect: if you've conquered most of map, remaining enemies beg for mercy, i.e. insta-win. This is welcome feature. Have you played games where to beat mission, you have to conquer last town, hero, or creature dwelling, but its on other side of map? There are cons too. Most glaring shortcoming is few shortcut keys. Moving around map, managing units and cities, & viewing reports gets tiresome using only mouse. Only keyboard shortcut I found was grouping units. Another downside is once you have sizeable empire, it takes forever to manage. Also, questing system is baffling. You choose easy, medium, or hard quests, but easy quests can require you to explore far side of map. Warlords III is not a perfect game--certainly not in this era--but at least it offers some mitigating features like surrender by the AI. Summary Pros: - nostalgia value - simple gameplay - simple, decent graphics and animations - fun sound effects (when your hero dies) - fun to raise hero by exploring ruins (which gets items, gold, mercenaries, and information) - some QoL features including production vectoring and AI auto-surrender Cons: - Sorely needs keyboard shortcuts - Game gets time consuming later on, especially in large maps - questing is iffy considering the distances it can require your hero to move In a Nutshell: I enthusiastically recommend this game based on its simple yet enjoyable gameplay with light hero progression elements, with the caveat that this is an old game that hasn't been updated with much needed shortcut keys.

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