Good Game.........
User Rating: 9.3 | Warlords Battlecry III PC
The series has always been known for presenting lots and lots of playable races. There are five new races in this sequel, bringing the combined total up to a billion playable races. The humans of old have been split into two distinct political factions this time, the cavalry-heavy Knights and the more generalist-minded Empire. The disease-laden Plaguelords are entirely new, as are the dinosaur-like Ssrathi and the numerous Swarm. In addition to the interesting philosophical identities, resource requirements, tech trees and unit focus of each race, most also have some unique powers. The new insectoid Swarm are able to drain resources from the mines of other players while the Ssrathi have a giant Sun Temple that defends the area around with massive spells. Add them to the various types of dwarves, elves, orcs, and so forth in the game and you've got a fantasy setting with tremendous variety and richness. And you can play as any of these races in the game, not just as the units you'll lead but also as the hero who represents you in the game. Creating and developing a hero is definitely one of the driving forces behind the game. There are as many classes for your hero as there are races (but not, unfortunately, as much documentation) so you can build exactly the right hero for your needs. Through the game, they'll be responsible for gaining control of resource nodes and picking up magic items. Heroes can now buy and sell magic items at new shops at certain areas and can even gather a retinue of high-level troops around them to carry with them from mission to mission. The campaign game has a lot more direction to it this time around. While I like the Risk-style approach of the last game, the developers have jettisoned that idea in favor of a more story-driven experience that still allows the player to set their own path through the world. There are various nodes around the map and each is linked to one or more other nodes. There are story missions at most of these nodes but there are also lots of random, incidental missions you can undertake to build up your forces. Some missions will even grant you an alliance with one of the other races, allowing you to lead them into future combats if you desire. As with the previous game it can take a while to get things rolling in terms of production. Building up even a modest force will require more than a few minutes as you locate resources and build the appropriate structures. Sadly, weak units get outclassed a bit too soon (unless you're playing one of the rush races like the Swarm). Late units take a bit too long to build as well. To actually field the largest units in the game, you may find yourself holding back from delivering the killing blow. Thankfully, the units in the middle range are fun and varied enough to provide an interesting challenge.
