Warlords II Scenario Review

DANTE.SZP 243,072 bytes, 57 cities, 6 players, 34 ruins (only 2 temples).
Classic battle for the underworld....HELL.  "A great piece of literature
in convenient Warlords 2 form.  Fun for young and old, man and beast."
Author: Paul Ceccarelli.

Rating summary, scale of 1 to 10:
Wt Area          Score Comments
10 Army set          9 (suited to scenario, too much for a random game)
 7 Map design       10 (in a word: devilish!)
 5 Army pics         9 (mostly excellent)
 5 City pics         9 (excellent Ice city set)
 3 Background info   2 (almost nothing -- gotta read the book first)
 2 Cities/ruins      7 (all cities named/described; ruins named only)
 2 Items/heroes      6 (excellent item names, some heroes are given)
   OVERALL RATING  282

Here's another scenario based on mythology, and it has the highest score
given so far, in a tie with Norse Mythology, which is appropriate.

I've never read Dante's Inferno; I thought I should admit that right away.
Therefore I can't really judge how well this scenario reflects the book,
but if all of this came from Paul's twisted mind, he should see a shrink!
(Just kidding.)  The map in this scenario is so fiendish, so twisted, so
torturous, so HELLISH that it would be a great scenario just for the map
alone.  Twisting roads through mountains, rivers that go nowhere in a big
way, paths the armies must travel that are so convoluted that several of
my fastest walking units started from a temple in one corner and NEVER SAW
BATTLE in over 30 turns while moving just as fast as they could toward the
front lines.  The ports on the rivers are set just right, the mountain
ranges are just so, with a few spots you can slip through, to create just
the right blend of alternate routes, NONE of which will get you there
before hell freezes over.  Even the flying armies have trouble figuring
out which way to go, because the roads always lead away from the goal,
somehow, while seeming to start in the right way.

There are six sides you can choose, representing the major factions in
Hell: the Hypocrites, the Lustful, the Virtuous Pagans, the Traitors, the
Heretics, and of course the Demons.  With three fitting choices, I took
the Virtuous Pagans, so I could clean up the mess and make Hell into a
nice place.  :-)

The city set is the Ice set, which Warlords uses with the Ice terrain.
You have to install it in the CITY directory in order to use it with a
grassland world, as this scenario does.  It's beautiful, though a more
hellish-looking "ugly" city set might have been better for this scenario.
The Ice cities would be nice in a random game if you like, whether ice or
grassland terrain.

The army pictures are cool, no I mean they're hot, um, never mind.  They
are great.  Most of them are taken from the Spectra army set from the SB,
but some of them are completely new.  The hero could look a bit more nasty
or something, but it's a minor point.

Army capabilities seemed at first to be set to move way too fast, but that
was before I had to endure that map.  If they were used in a random game,
with a random map, I think they'd be unsuitable.  There are very few roads
and lots of swamps that you are forced to wade through to get anywhere.
Without the boosted speed, the armies wouldn't have an icicle's chance
of getting anywhere in hell.  The flying units do move too fast, I think.
Geryon, for example, flies like a bat out ... oh never mind.  At least
they are balanced by taking awhile to produce AND costing a pile of money
to buy.  The cheapest unit type is Thieves at 120 gold, which are notable
for requiring no maintenance cost.  If you have cities you can leave only
lightly defended, a few thieves will be happy to watch them for you, at NO
cost!  The other units all have substantial maintenance cost if they fly
or have any special abilities, and you'd better keep a careful eye on
your income/expense ratio or you'll end up like the computer players --
always flat broke.  Even Traitors demand gold, instead of the traditional
30 pieces of silver.  The army capabilities are so well balanced that I
regularly produced and used at least 18 different army types for different
reasons.  (Compare this to some scenarios, where there's only *one* army
type worth a damn!)

The cities, the various places in Hell, are described in complete gory
detail.  The ruins are only named, and all the descriptions are blank,
so I don't know what most of them mean.  (Sins of Leopard?  Sins of Wolf??)
There's a complete set of new items fitting the scenario, though I don't
know for sure how the Shroud of Turin ended up in Hell.  Each side has a
few hero names, then the rest are taken from the defaults.

This scenario has excellent replay value.  It'll take at least several
games before you figure out how to tame that devious map, and playing it
from each side will present different obstacles.  Diplomacy is optional,
since most sides will only meet and fight one or two enemies at a time
anyway.  Do NOT use Quick Start, always set neutral cities to Active for
this reason: the Ninth Circle of Hell is where all the wickedest, evilest,
meanest, baddest, and nastiest get thrown -- including Lucifer.  Quick
Start or weak neutrals will hand the Traitors all the best cities without
forcing them to pay for them.  With active neutrals, two cities were still
neutral when I finally got there from the other side of Hell.

===

This review is copyrighted by myself, but may be distributed in any
UNMODIFIED form as long as NO CHARGE is made for distribution (such
as a per-minute charge for online time) and it is not included in any
copyrighted "compilation" (such as claimed by certain online services
I will not name).  Dirk Pellett