The step back sequels of warlords

The King was lying on his bed his once black hair was grey like ash and also his face did not hold many similarities with the beautiful face of the once young prince. The face looked like a carving wood as so many deep wounds were covering the lines of the face. İt was clear that the king did not have long to live. And it was in question how long the empire would survive without him. After his father had lost so badly against the undead army it was the former prince who succeeded in driving back the enemies.  After many years of hard war the greatest enemy was defeated.

During the long war many human kingdoms joined the union of the west as they saw the greatness of the King. Also some orcish factions were more than willing to join the human alliance. But their Chief forbid it. That was reason enough for the young hotheaded king to make what he would claim was the biggest mistake of his life, to attack the orcs. The monsters stood no chance against this perfected warmachine and after a short time all the land was gathered in the hands of the young king and the empire was build.

But he was young he could not have foreseen the times that were coming. Yes the empire hold together during his reign but he was not immortal. Sooner or later he had to die. And this time was creeping closer. It is sure that revolution will brake out and war between factions. The orcs were already restless during the last 10 years and many humans were shouting for a king from their lines. The undead were coming back slowly and even worse creatures called demons were seen in the far east.

What is the future going to hold? The youngest son of the king was thinking. Where is my place in this world full of war? Definitely not beside my brothers who would try to hold the realm together. No he needed to take action. Now! To ensure his place in the new world.

With a swift move he grabbed his sword and without a hesitation he ramped it through his fathers heart.


Warlords 2 rise of demons

The principle game mechanics of warlord 2 is the same of his precursor. In a fantasy based land the player chooses one of the many races and tries to enslave the whole empire by waging war, defending all enemies and concurring all the land.

In many game sequels a change in game graphic is seen as a good fit and also the 2 installment of warlords comes with a polished, modern, new graphic. The problem is the new graphic is ugly as hell and the pixaleded real looking figures do not hold the same charm as the comic versions of the first installment. Also the general menu design is not as minimalistic, simple and easy as in the first part. The only point I can price the graphic compartment of the game in are the animations while upgrading. It is a blast to see that the helmet or the shield I just upgraded really does appear on the soldiers.
The problem with the good made upgrading animations is that they are pretty useless as the whole concept of upgrading is not nearly as good solved as in the first part. I highly priest the upgrade system in the first game as it made place for many in game tactical considerations. In this game this good concept is totally abandoned. Now only each individual troop is upgradeable and even here not all parts but only one or two different aspect of the group like speed and accuracy or armor and weapon for example. It could be argued that that makes the game more realistic but it also makes the game far less fun to play and realism on the cost of reducing the game fun is never a good solution.
Also useless is the new siege game mod as it does not give any depth to the game, is not especially funny, does not make place for nee tactical thinking.
All together the second installment is a huge disappointment, as many of the fun giving assets are replaced by unattractive and uncoordinated new assets. To praise is the fact that at least the great variety of units and factions is still intact. That's important because by loosing this the whole game would get useless.

Warlords: Epic Conflict

And that's exactly what the 3. part of the series made. There are no factions to choose from. Only one faction is playable in the first game and only after finishing the first one the others are activated. That is such a big mistake that I almost stopped playing right after I discovered the lack of variety. Sadly I continued and saw that not one single improvement could be achieved in the 3. part. To make it short the game succeeds in creating an even worse game mode with no lines and the different types of armor which are supposed to be countered with the right troops and even oversimplifying the rock, paper, scissors game mechanics that was already not beneficial for the 2 game. To top it of it is not manageable to make the map in the tactical view smaller so that very uncomfortable (sliding around with the mouse button) controls need to be used.

All together the sequels of the first and by far best warlord game are all a huge step backwards leading to one unplayable (the 3. Warlord)and one barely playable game(the 2. Warlord).