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Review By Edward Hayes
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Introduction Darklords Rising is the follow-up game to Reign of Heroes containing all the original Reign of Heroes scenarios plus fifteen new ones, four new campaigns, further hero types, armies, spells and abilities and an enhanced A.I. (Check out The Wargamer's Darklords Rising Review.) Perhaps of even more interest to the Warlords fan, SSG has provided an editor for maps, armies, items and campaign creation. They have released this free as part of the 1.01 patch without financial support from their publisher Red Orb. SSG's effort illustrates just how much the design company cares about supporting its games. Unfortunately Red Orb decided not to provide technical support or develop full documentation for the editor. Although the advertising on the box actively promotes the editor, a ReadMe notice declares non-support, there isn't a single word in the manual about the editor, and there's only a very basic set of instructions with an absurdly simple example in the ReadMe file found in the Editor folder. It`s hard to understand why Red Orb chose not to document and support the editor properly as the actual product is well constructed, fairly robust, has a smooth interface and can produce scenarios every bit as good as the originals. The problem with the Darklords Rising Editor is not so much how to put it into basic use but more in learning how to use all the options available, and believe me, they are extensive. There is a plethora of on/off buttons, slider bars and lists to alter just about everything from choices of heroes, sides, armies, items and shields, selection of cities, sites and ruins, to numerous different playing conditions and a wide range of victory criteria. All this is backed up with extensive text-editing facilities to customize your scenario or campaign. A second problem is the lack of accurate or common nomenclature across the sections of the editor. The Map Editor is incorrectly named as it handles everything related to scenario design and should be called The Scenario Editor. Scenarios are called episodes in the Campaign Editor and then again chapters in the Campaign game. To add further confusion there is an Item Editor and an Edit Item function within the Map Editor! Clearly the development team could not decide on a common language. The purpose of this article is therefore to give a fairly detailed description of how these editors work as well as to conduct a general review. To try to remove some of this confusion I have included a Menu Chart (below) which summarizes the purpose of each section and the links between them.
The Darklords Rising Editor is in two parts: the Map Editor which creates the scenarios and the Campaign Editor which combines the scenarios and provides the links between them. I. THE Darklords Rising MAP EDITOR The Darklords Rising structure has scenario parameter options at three levels. At the highest level you decide what side, army, hero, city, site, ruin or item sets you wish to include from the Darklords Rising database. At the second level you select units from these sets for allocation to sides and locations on the map. The third level, inserted into the Campaign Editor, allows further operational changes identical to those available when starting to play a stand alone scenario, i.e. hidden map, fog of war, spying, play balance etc. As defaults operate at every level, a scenario can be set up very simply by accepting most of them. Alternatively you can make detailed changes at every level, customizing your scenario to a very high degree. After starting up the Darklords Rising Map Editor, the first screen requires you to enter a unique eight letter code, the title of the scenario and, a nice touch here, your name as author. You also have to select one of four map sizes and choose a tile set, (e.g. Grasslands, Dungeon etc.) to be used when making the map. Once this is done, click on okay and you are into the Main Menu which shows the scenario options: NEW, LOAD, PACK and UNPACK, and the Item Editor. Taking the NEW option brings up the screen with the editors for MAP, SIDES, ITEMS, DIPLOMACY and DATA. It's debatable where you should begin when creating a new scenario, but let's start with EDIT SIDES. EDIT SIDES The Skull buttons indicate that the side is included in your scenario and if you click on any of the black Names boxes on the left you can change the name of the side (limited to 16 letters).
ARMIES To set up the armies for each side click on EDIT SIDES. Starting at the top, choose whether the side is human or one of the three levels: Knight, Lord or War Lord for a computer opponent. On the left are the side`s current sets of Regular, Mercenary and Allied armies along with the Hero Set. Any one of these can be altered individually by clicking on the name or a completely new set can be generated by taking the CUSTOM option at the bottom of the screen.
On the right are the MANA indicators for type used, how much the side has at start and the maximum amount allowed at any one time. The other on/off buttons are to decide whether mercenaries, merchants or item-selling are allowed. Finally at lower right you can type in a description of the side. Repeat the above process for the other sides.
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© 1998