Warriors of the Sword

Warriors of the Sword is a turn-based strategy game that Beaker made for a two week game-making competition. It is an older game that has been around for a while but didn’t have any reviews. As a huge fan of turn-based strategy games, I thought I would give WotS a shot and see what it was like. I was not disappointed.

When you start Warriors of the Sword, you are presented with 3 choices for difficulty (easy, normal, and hard) , 3 choices for game speed (slow, normal, and fast), and 2 choices for creatures (enabled or disabled). I went with easy because I’m a chicken and like to skate. I picked normal for speed and chose to enable creatures. I didn’t know what they were or how they would impact the game but figured it was a feature, I’d try it.

You start out by choosing your faction on this map from color coded countries. As you preview each faction you get a description that includes its ruler, troop type, number of starting lands, and a couple of pros and cons for that faction. I chose the Northern red faction “Frantig” ruled by Prince Jeral and his “Gugs” units. Frantig starts with 4 lands. Its pro is that it’s fortified and its con is that it’s poor.

After a brief intro explaining your country’s current condition the game begins rolling turns.

Once it stops on one of your faction’s territories, you take control and are presented with a menu screen. On this screen is a grid of icons with numbers next to them. Each icon/number pair represents a stat of some aspect of the state. Below is a list of the main categories:

Money
Food
Mining
Farmland
Infrastructure
Fortification
Troops

Below these figures is a command bar. Here you select what you would like to do with that territory’s turn. There you’ll find the following command categories: military, development, resource, and a misc. menu. When you click on one, it becomes a list of commands that fall under that header.

I wasn’t sure if I should build up resources before attacking my neighbors but since the other factions had been pretty aggressive during the roll, I figured we must be ready for some action and decided to roll out. I brought my slow wookie with me.

I quickly surmised that my high stat albeit hairy and movement hindered unit was the same creature(s) that I had enabled in the options menu before I started to play. I was glad that I had enabled it. My wookie was a beast. Literally, he’s a beast. But he rocks too.

It took some time figuring out the controls but once I got my troops across the screen I figured out how to attack too. Another thing I didn’t quite understand (and never did figure out) was why the enemy would die even though the amount of damage I scored didn’t exceed the amount of the target’s remaining health.

The enemy, lined up on the other side of the field, had their own creature as well. Their monster appeared to be a giant worm (I would later see even more creatures, each with their own movement, attack type, etc.) I tried to run it down with my cavalry but apparently it does 10 times the damage of the enemy’s regular troops and wasted me. I made a tactical advance in the opposite direction of the enemy (see retreat). As my army fled west, I left my wookie to cover my archer who stood pumping arrow after arrow into the worm.

Fifty turns later I was victorious.

However, I was not so lucky my next battle. Then I won as a besieged defender. Then I fought a battle as an underdog… and lost. And so it went. Some battles I’d win and some battles I would lose. But each time I fought I worked out more tactics, learned from my mistakes, and discovered what simple miss-clicks could cost me the day.

I worked on my territories, built farm fields, gold mines, and improved my infrastructure. I didn’t know what impact infrastructure had on the game but I improved it. I made alliances and broke them the next turn. I wiped out one faction and then turned my attention to two more.

Eventually, with half the land under my control I began to feel the impact of going balls to the wall with war. My country began to run out of cash and soldiers. Again, replenishing troop levels is yet another thing I never figured out about the territory stat and supply side of the game. All of this I later learned was covered in the readme but I didn’t remember seeing it at the time. I tried to move my forces from the rear to the front lines but it was hard to do since I could only figure out how to see the states that were adjacent to the currently active one.

In the end, I gave up but only after enjoying playing for hours plural.

The Good

Battle Graphics – 8 bit goodness. I loved the character and tile sprites for the battle scenes. I am a sucker for old school graphics. The battle graphics did it and well. I don’t know if they are rips or originals but I liked them enough that I thought about contacting the developer about them.

Battle Mechanics – Tactical battles on a 2D grid system. Doctor Doctor, give me the news. I got a bad case of loving you. This is what it’s all about. My favorite battle system (tactical/strategy) in action. You have to think, plan, and if you charge right in as a button masher, you will die.

Faction Stats/Commands – I like games that use this format. I play them more than any other game. If you like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga’s Ambition, Genghis Kahn, etc. then you will probably enjoy this.

The Bad

Exploits – It is possible to exploit certain tactics to win.

Repetition – Some of the battles become an exercise in stamina. At around the 50th turn, you will probably be foaming at the mouth and swearing you won’t play another round. But you will.

Battle Mechanics – While some things make sense - for example, outnumbering the enemy causes you to do more damage, other things do not. I defeated some units that still had points left. I also stood toe to toe with archers (as a foot and horse unit) and got my ass kicked. It’d be nice if there was a bigger difference in troop types other than range of attack and movement.

The Ugly

Logistics – Managing the territories is difficult. Ultimately, this is what made me stop playing the game. Though I also tend to quit commercial strategies games at about the same point when half the land is conquered, victory is all but assured, and kingdom management becomes tedious.

Overall, I had a good time and was generally pleased with this game. I went on a bender playing 5 indie games in a row and arguably enjoyed this one the most. I am not a Sphere developer so I can’t really judge whether this game is an accomplishment or not. For all I know it could have been a simple plug-in the names and descriptions job. Somehow I doubt it though. My appreciation for the game doesn’t even take into consideration that it’s not someone’s life work but a quick contest job. If you factor that into the mix, it is even more impressive.

Thanks for the game Beaker!

3.5/5