Warlords II

Warlords is a strategic war game, fought out by eight different players, for the domination of the Kingdom of Illuria. It can be played by one to eight people, with the computer taking the remaining positions. The Kingdom of Illuria, after some severe internal disputes, has seethed under a sullen and uneasy peace. This truce has now disappeared, along with the arch-mage who imposed it.

Released: 1993
Platforms: MS-DOS macOS
Genres: Strategy Turn-based strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Series: Warlords
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Country: Australia

About

Warlords II is computer wargame published in 1993 for MS-DOS and 1994 for Classic Mac OS. It is the second game in the Warlords video game series.

The expansion pack, Warlords II Scenario Builder, was released in 1994. An updated version of the game, Warlords II Deluxe, was released in 1995. It allowed for custom tile, army and city sets for maps and provided support for 256 colours. Thanks to the publication of the editor, Warlords II Deluxe led to an increase of user-created content. Many new maps, army and terrain sets, and scenarios were distributed on the Internet for the game.

Keywords

vaporware
sequel
planet

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Warlords II included five maps, although the later released mission pack increased the number. Another new feature was 'fog of war': optionally, enemy units or even the map could be concealed from players without units close enough to see them. The interface of the game was improved, as were the graphics (with additional unique city graphics for each different player). Moreover, the game featured multiple army, city, and terrain sets (still in 16 colours), play by e-mail as well as hot seat, and a random map generator and map editor.

Reception

Computer Gaming World in November 1993 stated that other than the lack of a better victory screen, "every other aspect of Warlord II is worthy of respect and admiration", praising the AI as "one of the finest on the market". The magazine in July 1994 stated that Scenario Builder "succeeds even though it lets you look behind the curtain of one of the most engaging game systems on the market". Rating the scenario editor four stars out of five, the magazine in August liked half of the 24 premade scenarios and concluded that it was "a terrific way to dabble in world creation".

James V. Trunzo reviewed Warlords II Scenario Builder in White Wolf #48 (Oct., 1994), rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "the difficult part is in the planning and balancing of the scenario; once that's done, Warlords II makes it easy to turn your ideas into 'reality.'"