Warlords II Scenario Review

MEDIT.SZP 148,432 bytes: The Fall of Rome, Rome vs. the Barbarian Hordes,
8 players, 100 cities, 40 ruins.  Most of Europe and surrounding empires:
Rome, Greece, Gaul, Huns, Saxons, Druids (England), Carthage, and Babylon.
Author: Frosty Schneemann

Rating summary, scale of 1 to 10:
Wt Area          Score Comments
10 Army set          2 (wrecked by Messengers, and other problems)
 7 Map design        6 (pretty good map of Europe, some good details)
 5 Army pics         5 (modified Roman army set)
 5 City pics         5 (modified Roman city set)
 3 Background info   1 (none)
 2 Cities/ruins      3 (all named well, NO descriptions at all)
 2 Items/heroes      4 (good items with a mistake, very few heroes)
   OVERALL RATING  129

"This is a scenario for WARLORDS 2 depicting the known Roman world circa
300 AD.  It is a combination of real and fantasy elements and has its
own city and army sets (based on war2's "Roman", but edited)."  -- Paul
Fields, who uploaded it (not the author).

This scenario has nothing outstanding to make up for its unbalanced army
set, and as a result it gets one of the lowest scores ever.  The map is
ok, with a reasonable number of signs and added details, but distorts
real geography badly, without adding any nifty strategic features worth
mention.  The city and army pics are taken from the Scenario Builder, and
for the few modifications done on them, may as well have been left alone.
They're ok, but nothing special.  There's no background info included at
all, and you can't pick up the flavor of the scenario from city or ruins
descriptions, since every last one of them is completely blank -- almost
no effort at all in this area.  (I scored it better than 1 only because
there aren't any randomly-named cities or ruins.)  The hero names are new
in the first 8, then they duplicate 92% of the ones included in Warlords.
Better to leave them alone -- and to use the default latinized names for
the Romans, instead of dwarvish.  Items are fine except for two BLANK
items that get +4 command ability by default.  Four of the sides are named
starting with "The" so you look at a city and it says "The The Druids city
of Bretonia" (for example).

So, added to that middle-of-the-road setting, the army capabilities make
it a bad scenario.  The huge problem is Messengers, produced in 1 turn and
flying at 40, thereby sacking every enemy capital in the first ten turns.
Fly along the coast of Italy sacking every city the Romans hold, and the
challenge is gone for the rest of the game.  Double- or triple-blessing
them is trivial, then you essentially have double-speed flying legions.
There's no point in EVER producing any of the "normal" units.  I really
wish scenario designers would think about trade-offs.  Only two other unit
types are worth buying: Lions, with -3 to enemy strength basically roars
into any castle defended only by heavy infantry or weaker units; Catapults
to cancel city defense (Siege Towers are worthless in comparison).  All
the rest of the units you can buy are pointless.  I played as the Druids,
and the Druid army type was good for sacking to get 500 gold, but I never
produced a single one in the entire 15 turns it took to get 53 cities.

This is a scenario to play only after you edit the army set, and only
after you've played all the better ones.

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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).