And the time has come for Stronghold Warlords: we got the first publicly available version on our hands! Let's see how this game turns out to be in its infancy, shall we?
First glance[]
We are presented a confined map with a few neutral players (called Warlords) and the enemy player, Qin Xi Huang, in blue. Qin is a passive character, who has a few defense lines in place. We need to chew through them and kill his lord.
The user interface is extended compared to previous games and we have a few nice extras: the resource counter is nicely fit next to the minimap, the popularity panel is on the right, unit/building tabs are on the right and a status indicator on the middle. Looks overwhelming enough, but let's just move on to what we see in our arsenal.
Not much has changed in the basics. We get a running economy, a nice army and we can place buildings around. We can produce Asian food: tea (needs to process first), rice, meat and vegs. Looking at the stockpile, we see the usual Stronghold goods with some important additions: clothing and saltpeter. Although right now we don't have the option to produce gunpowder stuff, we know that they need to be mined and processed by a facility. Moving to the armoury, we see an assortment of weapons with some new addition: axes and heavy maces.
Buildings are in correlation with the newfound changes. We find that we have a big red orb next to the minimap, and for that we get Diplomacy buildings: right now we can build Embassies and Palaces. Weapon workshops are in the same manner (no togglable production, unlike in Crusader), fortifications are the same, so are walls. Fear Factor and temples are eyed at at the moment, but they are disabled.
Strategies galore[]
Clicking on the red orb (seal, I know) we get a Diplomacy view. Here an overhead map welcomes us with small banners resembling chess figures. These are the Warlords and the Players, and we see that the Horse warlord is under Blue's influence. The other two, Ox and Dragon, are neutral.
To the right we see the Warlord sidebar, where the warlord can be upgraded in a tier and a list of commands should be seen. For this however, we need to win their favour and we can spend Diplomacy to "Demand Obedience". Right now, we have almost not enough Diplomacy, however we can buy Ox's support! Ox's command list is neat, however his trickle of resources is not really satisfying.
We also see that each warlord comes with their own perks that strengthen you in one or other ways. Horse seems to add more diplomacy generation, which comes in handy later, however Dragon sends us rocket artilleries that can prove useful in the upcoming siege.
Military arsenal[]
Like most Stronghold games, Warlords also presents two buildings: the barracks and the Military Academy (the successor of the mercenary post). Barracks units mostly require weapons, while academy units are hirable for a one-time payment. We get lots of barracks units, but only a few Academy units.
The barracks presents the usual assortment of units: archer, crossbowman, swordsmen (all in national reskin though, not negligible at all), but we get an axeman and cheap melee and ranged tribesman units as well! The Military Academy presents the fire lancer, a very cool incendiary unit and the general, which is an offensive support unit. I didn't really look at the siege camp though, but I suspect that we can build our own rocket artillery as well that comes from the Dragon Warlord (once we buy him).
Graphics[]
Warlords uses the same engine as Crusader 2 and Stronghold 3. We see that detail is there and the art is somewhat rudimentary, however units look nice, so do towers. Farms are a bit not there, but whatever. Water is acceptable, however we get winds blowing gently at trees and clouds pass over the landscape over time. Terrain is grassy-cliffy, but we have also trails resembling roads.
Units are pretty detailed. Crossbows are visibly loaded and all units have fluid animations, even horse archers are improved. Some units get flags that look neat when marching in a formation.
The UI is minimalistic and black. Black covers all of the lower parts of the screen. The minimap and the estates are sophisticated, however there is a bit too much clutter at first glance on the status bar. It requires some time to magnify in and read each component, since icons are a too little too small. Units and buildings get a nice display however when clicked on, obviously still a work in progress. Unit names are finally visible and they are not hidden like in Legends or SH3.
... and how is the mission?[]
The demo scenario is particularly easy, even by Stronghold standards. We get a very solid economy and units, as well as a big cache of weapons, so that we can build up our attack force and steamroll the opposition. We are given however a limited time to prevail, but we get additional time for breaking Qin's walls each.
As an introductory mission, we have multiple ways to defeat Qin. First and foremost, we can muster our own army ignoring Warlords altogether, and overrun Qin's humble fortification. This is easy, because we have a running economy and we can add more buildings. Overproducing wood and rice is a neat addition, however adding some variety for food helps raise taxes. This way however, we have to endure small attacks from the hostile Horse, who sends a handful of Mongolian horse archers
The second way is the newfound option of getting Warlords to your side. They are not too powerful however, yet they will provide useful for the next few minutes.
- The Ox can be a good first lord, however he needs considerable resources to get to high tier and get access his Fire Ox shipments. His resource shipments are so negligible that it is worth skipping altogether.
- The Dragon is the most obvious first choice however, as he provides rocket artillery and even bring his own, if you can spare the resources. He is the easiest to conquer as well, having only a few defenders.
- The Horse can be tempting to get in order to shut down attacks and get a boost to your diplomacy generation. He has a massive garrison so you might want to persuade him the peaceful way.
Qin is a passive enemy in this encounter and he will mostly resort to the Horse to the dirty work. His small horse archer skirmishes are merely more than an annoyance, however a well-placed tower with a few units will stop his efforts. His multiple defense lines are sparsely populated, and even foot soldiers can knock holes in his walls. He has mainly light units on the ground and a few elevated crossbowmen. Overrunning him from the ground is possible, with the help of rocket launchers as well.
Final verdict[]
Warlords is a promising title and seems to provide a nice variety in gameplay. Although we don't know how the single-player content (campaigns and stuff) will look like, there is enough content to keep us occupied and replay the demo scenario with different strategies. Entertaining and more polished than Stronghold 3 already, that's for sure.