Warlords II Scenario Review

YAR.ZIP 144,924 bytes.  A pure fantasy world: Succubus Queen, Yarien Empire,
Rock Giants, mad road-building Urcs, fearsome Darkbringer, and more.  100
cities, 35 ruins (incl. 4 temples), 8 players.  Author: Eric L. Foley.

Rating summary, scale of 1 to 10:
Wt Area          Score Comments
10 Army set          5 (too power-laden for my taste, and unbalanced)
 7 Map design        7 (pretty good, some clever ideas)
 5 Army pics         4 (mostly from "Maze" in SB; hard to distinguish)
 5 City pics         9 (default cities fit this fantasy world quite well)
 3 Background info   3 (no attached file, but I found his web page)
 2 Cities/ruins      6 (half named and described, but only half)
 2 Items/heroes      7 (default items and heroes fit this fantasy world)
   OVERALL RATING  199

Here's a scenario that with a little more work could be as good as Hadesha,
one of my favorite fastasy-world scenarios.  He has eight distinctly
different sides in the war, with signposts, cities, and ruins all helping
explain the differences, so the player cares who wins.  However, the ruins
and cities only go halfway, with the other half being randomly-generated
drek.  Like Hadesha, this scenario uses all of the default items, heroes,
and city pictures.  Like Hadesha, they are a perfect fit, since the world
was designed to fit those items, names, and cities from the beginning.

Unlike Hadesha, he used the army pictures from the "Maze" army set, which
I find very hard to distinguish on any terrain or in cities.  With my
nose almost touching the screen I mistook a rock giant for a giant rat.  In
the ice world he uses, most white armies are very hard to see.  You can't
tell a unicorn from a pegasus without putting your nose on the screen, among
other problems.

Eric created his own set of army capabilities for this world, and did a
respectable job of it, but there are many unit types that are only there to
be sacked, and others that are just too powerful, too fast, or are produced
too quickly.  If the variations weren't so *fun* to play with, I'd rate the
army capabilities a 2 out of 10.  But even the thrill of moving Pyrowraiths
(7/3 and -2 to enemy strength) halfway across the world can't make up for
the feeling that it's just too much power for one unit.

The map is likeable and fairly well laid out for the most part, with some
amusing aspects and some strategic considerations.  I like the fact that
cities actually guard the roads and passes.  On the other hand, there are
spots in the map that are unsmoothed, too many large featureless expanses,
and the overall effect looks too "simple" to be a real world.

Altogether a decent scenario.  I intend to try Eric's other scenarios and
review them next, and perhaps I'll play this one again some time.  Options
recommended: View Enemies should be On so you can click on a stack to see
what type of army is on top, instead of getting eyestrain.  Quick Start
works well but gives a big advantage to the white and black sides, so you
may not want to use it if either of those two are human players.  Quests
should be On, and Fun should be set to Maximum.

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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