Warlords II Deluxe Scenario Review
File: ISLES.ZIP (210,894 bytes) Designer: Guy Hagen
Name: Crystal Isles Terrain Set: Grassland
Players: 8 Army Set: Crystal Isles
Cities: 100 City Set: Crystal Isles
Ruins: 37 Shield Set: Crystal Isles
Temples: 3 Text File: Yes
Desc: Based "upon a very successful, 10-year adventure role-playing
game by the same name"
Reviewed By: Will Michael
72623.630@compuserve.com
May '96
Rating summary, scale of 1 to 10:
Wt Area Score Comments
10 Army set 7 several anomalies
7 Map design 8 some islands are crowded with cities
5 Army pics 9 excellent artwork
5 City pics 7 most are abstract; no raized pics
3 Background info 3 player strategy only; no background info
2 Cities/ruins/signs 7 1 city desc missing; no signposts
2 Items/heros 7 new items; 9 to 13 hero names
OVERALL RATING 243
Adds to scenario designer's toolbox: YES
Eight players vie to control a mythical archipelago. Hagan has intention-
ally given each player unique strengths and weaknesses in their starting
positions. For example, the few neighbouring cities of Mitakka all have
powerful armies, while the impoverished cities surrounding Ku'Alla (Black)
are balanced by a wealth of ruins. During playtesting I found the scenario
to be unbalanced with Ambersand (Yellow) and Kalindar (Lt Blue) winning most
often, while poor Mitakka (Orange) came in last in every revealed map game.
On the plus side this allows one to pick the side that best matches their
ability.
Hagan decided to use the new shield set to change the colours of three of
the players: Orange to Purple, Light Blue to Grey, and Grey (neutral) to
Brown. You might remember that the original Warlords followed the colours
of the spectrum, but Warlords II replaced Purple with Light Blue. This
would have made a refreshing change except that the neutral cities on the
strategic map were not converted to brown. It is hard to distinguish
Kalindar (Dark Grey) from neutral (Light Grey) cities. All in all, the new
shield set pictures are very good, except for yellow which is good.
The scenario's atmosphere is enhanced by the interesting names and
descriptions for each city, temple and ruin, with the exception of the
missing description for the city of Whiteforest and the blank, single
signpost. The lack of signposts is unfortunate as it might have compensated
for the fact that no background material was included in the text document.
I found myself wondering who the players were and what motivated them. If
you have trouble finding the text file, I found the ci-info.txt in the
\scenario\isles directory completely by accident. It is far more common to
find it bundled in the .zip file with the scenario itself. In my opinion,
background information and army unit descriptions are for more valuable than
player strategy notes. This is what helps differentiate one scenario from
another.
The new city and army set pictures are excellent. Most of the city pictures
are abstract in the sense that they do not look like a town or castle, but
CommonWealth's (Red) and Ku'Alla's (Black) are outstanding. Points were
lost because there are no razed city pictures and the fortified symbol (a
flag) does not match the player's colour. My only criticism of the army
pictures is that a few of them (Kalindar [Grey] Knights in particular) are
hard to see against their city background.
The army set has a lot to commend it. Some may not like a fantasy world
occupied by so many different races, but I liked it. Not only does it have
the everpresent humans, elves and dwarves, it also boasts catkind, lizardmen
and others. I don't agree with the values given to some of the army unit
types, but since this is a fantasy scenario the following comments are
purely subjective. The non-human, non-special units have a maximum strength
of 3 (+1 bonus in some cases). The weakest human unit (Wanderers) has a
strength of 4, while Knights (the strongest) is 7! How can humans be so
much stronger than dwarves and ogres? Another unusual feature is that Bards
and Witches (both strength 4 with +/- 3 bonus) dominate the game. They
can only be built in their starting cities (i.e. they can't be built from
scratch) and they will not arrive as allies. Although the Knight army
picture doesn't show it, I have to assume that they are mounted given the
movement allowance. Why would heavy cavalry receive a woods/hills movement
bonus? I must admit that I have never read a fantasy novel, so maybe
someone can tell me what a Meredragon is. The word "mere" would indicate a
body of water to me, but this unit has a woods movement bonus and looks like
a giant serpent. There are also a couple of joke army units/monsters: the
Otterhawk (an otter with wings) and a Frost Poodle.
In summary, this is a great scenario. As a scenario designer, I value the
new army, city and shield sets. I will try the weaker players (read
Mitakka) against enhanced computer opponents, and try to determine the most
evenly balanced sides for my regular email group. Nice job, Guy.
W. Michael
May 96