OT: Warlords Battlecry 3

DonCorazon · #1 March 7th, 2010, 10:34 PM

This is one of my all-time favorite games - its a fantasy RTS game but I play it basically like a TBS, pausing it all the time. Has tons of heroes, races, skills, spells and a cool campaign. Your hero advances to epic levels, takes his favorite generals with him, hires mercenaries, collects artifacts, and conquers the world. There isn't a ton of strategic depth, though there are some fun combos with all the variety. I just got into it again and thought i'd give it a plug here. Its too bad it never got much support- would be nice to have a WBC4. Its on GOG for $10

BigDaddy · #2 March 7th, 2010, 11:32 PM

I'm not sure which game that was. Was it (probably) the one were I had vampire generals, but eventually could only buy one to take with because he was so high level? Or the one with the berserkers with the huge swords making the wooshey sounds?

DonCorazon · #3 March 8th, 2010, 12:33 AM

Prob the first. You get a certain amount of points to allocate for troops / commanders to carry forward from battle to battle. You might have a commander that gets high enough level that he takes up too many points to keep - though I haven't come close to that. Had a demon lord with me that lasted about 20 battles and died when he got too close to an exploding portal and the game ended as I scrambled to re-load it (it deletes the save upon ending). It was a traumatic loss - not many games make you feel the pain like that. I've learned not to get to attached to my generals after that tearful goodbye.

BigDaddy · #4 March 8th, 2010, 02:46 AM

If you carefully use a general to kill a bunch of stuff, it seems like you can get a high level general quickly. some problem seemed to arise in that I couldn't take stuff over as fast with just one... like you need to convert stuff in that game and one guy isn't fast enough.

WraithLord · #5 March 8th, 2010, 06:32 AM

Oh man, the memories you just brought up. Spending hours and hours with this game, nurturing my heroes and getting them to ever higher levels.

I esp. liked the dark elves race. It was so cool.

I've followed every rumor and hint of WC4 for years but so far it doesn't seem likely to ever happen.

Do you still play WC3?

DonCorazon · #6 March 8th, 2010, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Do you still play WC3?

I had really only played WBC2 - it was one of the few games that captivated me enough to finish. For some reason, I never got around to WBC 3. I had it but suffered from re-start syndrome: Fey Alchemist, wait no Dark Elf Assassin, no no, High Elf Runemaster, doh....

I would echo that WBC is a bit light on strategy and can be easy. In fairness though to the game, there are ways to make it harder: Ironman, don't hire mercs, don't spend $ to increase your retinue slots, don't use the 4 healing potions...

It can be pretty intense in the scenarios when the AI rushes you early on, but otherwise it does share some of the mindless joy of a game like Diablo where you are the all-mighty slayer of the masses.

The one thing I forgot to mention that I love about this game is I put it in the category of games like Dominions and MOOII that have "soul". The comments some of the units make are laugh out loud funny (I won't try to replicate them here, just listen to the masochistic Quasit or Arnold Schwarzenegger-like Reaver for examples) and at the same time has that heavy epic fantasy feel. The art is great. Admittedly the game is a conglomeration of time-tested fantasy archetypes, with a few fresher ideas like the Fey or Sratthi, but its packaged so nicely and has enough content to make for a fun if somewhat mindless romp.

Kristoffer O · #7 March 8th, 2010, 10:54 AM

Interesting. Me and JK played a bit of Warlords Battlecry III this weekend after several years of not looking at the game.

Fun, but not too challenging =)
Good variety and special abilities among races.

WraithLord · #8 March 8th, 2010, 10:59 AM

The important questions:
What races do you like?
oh, and who ended up the winner?

Kristoffer O · #9 March 8th, 2010, 11:16 AM

We started to play a couple of team battles vs the AI to familarize us with the game. I got my hero killed more times than he, so I suppose he's your man.

I'm quite fond of Fey IIRC. Last game I tried undead. I had forgot that you turn skels into whights etc. I like that feature. I also got confused about unit lvls, until I realized that shadows drain xp. I could not fathom why I had a lvl 11 shadow running around. Turned out he ate pixies for breakfast (and a level each time). Then came the centaur Titan and destroyed my base

Dark dwarves should be fun, but are a bit boring, as they have less variance in their troops.

Elves and their whisps are also fun.

I also like leveling up my heroes, but they soon become a tiny bit too powerful

Pity the game doesn't scale with hero level.

Cave worlds are more interesting strategically, with chokepoints etc.

Raiel · #10 March 8th, 2010, 11:39 AM

This was a favorite of mine for a very long time... IIRC, it had an ironman mode that permentantly deleted your hero upon death. I can't resist such options and nurtured a mage up to absurd levels (in the 40's I think) and he got one-shotted by an enemy hero. Never touched the game again.