Warlords III: Darklords Rising

I love this game, it just has such a great feel to it. It has some flaws - unbalanced factions and some really unpredictable elements - but for some reason, it often adds to the overall excitement rather than taking away from it. It feels like a genuine fantasy setting, not just a stats spreadsheet like some other TBS titles.

Warlords 3: Reign of Heroes and it's stand alone expansion, this game Darklords Rising were favorites of my childhood. Finally going back and playing after years of not being able to has been a real treat, not to mention introducing friends to it that never played it. A lot of strategy games of recent memory have gameplay DNA that comes from games like Age of Empires, Command & Conqueror, or Blizzard's RTS games; Warlords does not come from that strain of strategy. For one thing it's turn based, and for another it has a lot of RNG, because Warlords 3 is a game with roots in table-top war gaming. If you play it with that in mind it can be a lot of fun, but if you're expecting a lot of direct control beyond moving armies, building fortress improvements, and leveling your hero units expect to be disappointed. But if you can get beyond that, there's a lot of fun and grand strategy. For example. Vectoring is a crucial part of this game, which is where you make a unit in a fortress but transport it to another fortress that you control. Depending on the distance it might take 1-2 turns after the normal production time. This allow you and your enemies to keep your frontier fortresses well garrisoned. Sometimes, particularly in larger maps with lots of rough terrain deciding to keep or raze fortresses can be critical to denying an enemy another front to attack you from. You can also, if you're patient, move a force in from an unexpected area (say if you have flying units) and decimate an enemy's starting fortresses which are typically where a lot of their production and vectoring are done. The music is fantastic, and the art quite good for it's time and still holds up, for the most part. There are stories to the campaigns, but it's basically like a Wikipedia page about a war. One annoyance for me, but probably not for others, Darklords Rising released without the cheesy FMV videos that the original game had where Lord Bane would heckle you, and I kind of miss that.

Do not be discouraged by its apparent oversimplicity, W3 is one of the best fantasy TBS on GOG. It has elements of a "mild" operational wargame like Fantasy General mixed with grand strategy elements (a diplomatic interface qutie developed, and a very streamlined "emipre management"), so the tactical level is not represented but left to an excellent engine which manages to blend planning and randomness in a very succesful way: even with careful planning and armies' composition there is a chance that something goes wrong and a lowly orc mob may bring down a mighty dragon (even if focusing on this strategy usually does not end well...). The possibility to raze cities to ground (or improve the fortifications) opens to interesting options such as strategic flanking or scorched earth defense (the AI sometimes seems capable of performing the latter, which is rather unusual). Heroes are still powerful, but not so overpowered as in other fantasy franchises (e.g. Age of Wonder, Heroes or MM), and the role of luck mitigate further the issue with the "stack of doom" which tend to penalize the late game in fantasy TBS. For being a TBS, Warlords III has a very fast pace even if games on the largest maps may last very long. The interface is excellent (many much newer titles could draw good lessons from it) and AI quite competent if the game is played at the highest difficulty settings (at lower settings it becomes much more passive). Graphics and sounds are not especially good even for its time (but the art for units and events are very nice), while the score is not bad. The series did not bet much on setting/lore (a generic high fantasy milieu but with darker tones than usual: afterall even the "good factions" are led by blood-thirsty warlords), a fact that may had a role in its relative lack of popularity

Back 20 years ago, I played the pirate version and now I finally made my contribution via GOG. The version has been well adapted to Win10. The only problem is that it seems the version doesn't contain soundtrack of the original Warlords III which is a masterpiece at that time. Please let me know if it has been included.

At first glance the rather tame visuals (even for 1998) might be off putting, but this is one of the best turn based D&D themed strategy titles of the era. Only "Master of Magic" and Heroes of "Might and Magic III" best it IMO. It may be pretty formulaic and relatively simple, but everything about it just works. After MoM and HoMM3 this is my 3rd favourite game of it's genre and for under a fiver it's waaaay worth every single penny over and over. If you are into this sort of thing it is a must buy!