Heroes of M&M fans may want to check it out, cos it has the same addictive appeal.
In comparison to Heroes of M&M IV, Warlords IV's graphics sucks big time, but that ain't matter a bit, cos the gameplay is so direct and addictive, you'll look past the imperfections and concentrate on the strategy. At first (if you're new to the Warlords series), you may be a little disillusioned by the gameplay mechanics since when they let you choose and customise your warlord, you actually rarely uses this character. In fact, what you need are hero units (much like Heroes of M&M series) and they can be carried over to the next scenario, and that's the appeal I'm talking about - turn-based strategy with that RPG element. They are also able to carry over artifacts found in the scenarios, which makes covering every area possible so tempting.
Resource management is simplified to just gold assets to allow you to focus on the combat and it works very well. However, the only setback is that there's no incentive in completing all the provinces since there's only 10 story missions and even if you conquer every province after the main quest is over, there's no real ending, you just can keep on playing the same map over and that's how the game never actually ends, which kind of leave you empty after that. But nonetheless, the game still rocks cos it's the fundamental charm that matters.
KingLim