Oh man. Has anyone else played this game? It's a truly awesome 4X/TBS/RPG from 1995.
I've been playing it for a while now, and it's really fun. If Elemental turns out to be a more advanced version of this game with better graphics, then it'll be the best game ever. Because, you see, the graphics aren't that great.
The non-deluxe version can be downloaded for free here (legal), but if you an manage to get hold of the deluxe version, then get that one instead. It's a lot better.
This game basically works like this (pretty standard for this genre, but it's so well-made):
You decide what kind of map you want; a randomly generated one, or a pre-made campaign. In the deluxe version, you can choose different "tilesets" and change the look of units, which makes each round a bit more varied. You start with one city, and then you conquer neutral cities and forts scattered around the map. The enemy AI does the same. You also have a hero that can explore ruins and dungeons, gaining levels and finding phat lewt. Then you kill your enemies or win through diplomacy. It's like advanced chess.
Sounds like I'm advertising here, but seriously, if you like these kinds of games, then check it out. It's awesome.
Because it's so old, you might have to run it through DOSBox.
They have up to Warlords IV I believe and coming out with a fith. I thought they were alright. Game kinda got progressively worse in my thoughts. Maybe the style just got old for me.
Well, there's a reason as to why I keep to Warlords II:
The other ones suck.
WL was one of my favorite games back in the day. I loved the horse lords! In fact I often thought the whole system was a rip from JRRT.
Warlords I-IV were all right, but Warlords Battlecry II eclipsed them all. I lost several weeks of my life to that game. But Elemental looks to me more like a Heroes of Might & Magic than a Warlords. I wish it was neither, though--I wish it was a fantasy version of Civ IV. Found your own cities, research your magic, HOMM3-style sites, spells which alter the landscape and/or affect things in your cultural zone.
Elemental is, I understand, much more in the vein of Master of Magic--a vastly different beast than HoMM.
I'd recommend obtaining a copy of MoM and dosbox and seeing for yourself. Really it's very close to what you described.
I have played that game to exhaustion.
I also have Warlords 3, and consider it to be just a bit less entertaining.
What about Age of Wonders 2 (June 2002), and its stand-alone expansion AoW : Shadow Magic (July 2003) ?
Some have said that those two games were the closest remakes/updates of Master of Magic (1995).
Waiting for the Elemental beta to open, I'm currently playing Shadow Magic, with the fan-made patch 1.4 !
I loved Warlords II. Got it running via Dosbox.
And I found some other abandonware as well: Moonstone: A hard day's knight (Was never published in the US, I think. Was considered to be too brutal... But it was really fun!).
Or Syndicate...
Man, the good old days...
Speaking of good old days, I remember Warlords for the Apple II. Just a 9x9 grid, 4 players. Whole thing was written in BASIC. I kept hacking the BASIC code, and eventually I rewrote it in Pascal for the Mac.
Warlods 2 was one of my fave games at the time. Was simply hooked playing MM hotseat.. you could party and still play because of the time it took to go around.. great stuff!
Warlords III is quite fantastic and very modable. IV, I've never played.
Hey I found a tool for the MAC. It's called "Boxer" and gets Dosbox running on the Mac. I searched for some old Abandonware and came up with Mega lo mania...(My personal favourite!) Firepower(!)... Populous... Syndicate Wars... Haha, I played them all in the good old days! I am feeling OLD now...
Hm, wasn't there some kind of mod for warlords II? I remember playing a version in which you had spaceships...
Warlords II Deluxe went wild on the mods. Everyone and his pet dragon had one. Unfortunately the AI couldn't play worth diddley on them.
I downloaded some Warlords version from possibly the most famous abandonware site there is (Can't remember its name but something with "underground" and "dogs"....) which is the same Warlords version that Zamul linked a picture from in his top post.
And that game was miserably bad for the little I played........The UI was bad so it was a bit hard to get things done. Then I built or trained something in my castle which made it impossible to train anything else (something like that....just remember that such a thing should not happen). Then my dragon attacked 2 A.I soldiers and I think it hit both in the same round....then the soldiers retaliated and I could just sit there and watch....
No tactical combat....ok --> Uninstall.
To summarise it was one of the worst finished games I've ever played. That it was so old helped me hate it more.
Never played 2, but my friend and I played 3 to death. Eventually got rid of it because the AI just wasn't enough of a challenge unless you made a silly army. Simple game, but really fun. Being able to play an 8 player game from start to finish in under 2 hours was a huge plus as well. Wasn't actually a big fan the Battlecry games though. I tried 2, but just couldn't get into it.
I played the crap out of 2...3 just wasn't the same for me though. Didn't like it as much. I sitll play 2 every now and then when I get the urge to get back to the old days.
That reminds me there was another game I played like crazy back then, but cannot remember the name for the life of me. It was a mech type game with a game grid that you tried to take "squares" on the grid. You could have battles and so forth. Anyone got some thoughts on this to help jog my memory?
If you like the old warlords 2 you will probably be happy to hear that we are working on a project to remake warlords into a webgame (played entierly in the browser, based on js-scripting and PHP), with options for allied play (with shared vision) as well as a ranking system with ladder etc.
Follow the development at www.warlordsplayonline.com and feel free to come up with feedback and ideas!
I hate browser based games...but good luck with the project!
I never could get Warlords II or III working with dosbox. I even went so far as to install a Win 98 VM on my laptop. It got it to load the game, but it always crashed within 3 or 4 minutes. A pity, as I had a lot of fun with the demo for Warlords III when I was a kid. Warlords IV, sadly, felt more like a truely terrible Warlords Battlecry mod than a game in its own right. But I get by with Wesnoth for that fantasy turn based feeling. I get....by....
Warlords II and III were fantastic games. Warlords IV was hopeless low bugdet with bad AI.
Budget? Take a look at Dwarf Fortress. Sure it's far from being complete, but 1 person is working on it. It already offers much more fun than [most of] the "big budget games".
..not that I don't agree...Warlords IV. was a disaster.
Only weeks?
Wow! Runs much quicker than it did on my old Laser 286. Even with the Turbo button engaged to kick me up from 8 MHz to 12 MHz....
The sound is not there though. If I remember correctly all the sound for this game came out of the little PC speaker which I do not have hooked up (I think). Does DosBox allow you to push that sound through your soundcard/onboard audio?
Damn! I forgot how much I used to enjoy this game... it just sucked another 3.5 hours from my life.
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