Warlords Game System: MAME Cheat Category: Hint Game Company: SSG Game Category: Strategy Hint, Cheat, Walkthrough:   WARLORDS ======== (RAJEEV GANTELA/ROGER:) The game is basically a souped-up version of PONG with a twist. There are four castles. One in each corner of the screen. Players (Warlords) have little crowns in the center of their castles and the computer players have little black evil looking Black Knights. Surrounding your castle on your two vulnerable sides is your castle's wall. This is about an inch thick and has the standard castle wall look to it with buttresses. Each castle's courtyard is a different colour as is it's wall. Besides your castles walls you have one more item for your defence. Your shield. It's a little shield shaped thing with a yellow + and it's background colour is the same as your courtyard. The only other graphic item (Excluding the Dragon) is the fireball. Your weapon and your nemesis. You use this fireball to blast chunks of wall out of your opponents to create a hole that you can send your enemy to a blazing death. The winner is the one left standing at the end of a round. You control your shield with a rotating control knob. Your shield moves with it from left to right and back. The control knob does, however, only move so far to the left and right before it stops. The control is read on the position of the control and not how far it has traveled. Therefore you can move the knob so fast as to have your shield vanish and pop into your new spot making for some very fast, timed moves. There are 3 modes of play for the Cocktail version of Warlords. One player Game: the one player game involves the player playing against the three computer controlled opponents called Black Knights. In this mode of play you select your castle out of the four available and press your start button. (It will remain lit) A countdown will start (from 9 to 0) waiting for other players to join in. During the countdown a dragon will appear and walk around opening it's mouth and making a fire breathing sound. When the countdown (with a drum like sound as it ticks) expires the game begins. The dragon will walk to the center of the screen and stop. It will turn it's head a few times and seemingly randomly spit out a fireball at one of the castles. (With the fireball sound) The dragon vanishes as the fireball flies towards one of the castles. If you were quick and or prepared for such an attack you can position your shield to block the shot. The fireball bounces off either your shield or your castle's wall (taking a little bite out of it in the process). You can grab onto the fireball with your shield by being directly under the fireball when it comes at you while holding down the start button. This will cause the fireball to spin very quickly on your shield spitting out little bits of fire as it goes around. If you hold onto this for too long it will start damaging your castle's walls! You can then redirect the fireball's trajectory by moving your control knob and then releasing your start button. This causes the fireball to blast from your shield at a high rate of speed and if it impacts into a castle's wall it takes a HUGE chunk out of it. About 4x the standard chunk. If your opponent manages to block your blast it will careen off their shield at an angle and will continue at it's high rate of destructive speed until it impacts with a wall. (Even yours!) A player or computer controlled Black Knight dies when their wall has been eaten though and a fireball enters the courtyard. There is a blinding flash as the castle explodes (With a great explosion sound. 8^) ) and a second fireball flies from the destruction. There can be up to four fireballs in play at one time. This makes for a wild and hairy game! Besides extra fireballs being released into play on the death of a castle you can also get extra fireballs by being too slow in destruction. If the game feels you are too good, it will bring extra fireballs into the game. They will appear in the center of the screen and slowly drift toward a castle. If you survive the round (you are the one left standing) you go onto the next level, with much smarter computer opponents. (They seem to get exponentially harder on each successive level) You also get a brand new castle with new walls. Scoring is based on the following format: (one & two player games) 125 = Damaging a castle wall (even yours I believe) 1000 = Destroying any Warlord (any Human player) 2500 = Destroying any Black Knight (any Computer player) 5000 x level = Surviving player gains 5000 points x current level The game is over when the human player has been destroyed. If the player has beaten the current high score the player can enter in their initials with their score. They are listed as the high score for 1 player mode. Two player Game: the two player game is exactly the same as the one player game except: In two player mode two human players select any castle position. The counter ticks down and play begins. Except in this mode it is recommended that the two human players play as a team both taking out the Black Knights. Once the computer controlled players have been destroyed, however, it's a free for all for the end of level points. (See the one player scoring list) The surviving warlords (providing they were not killed during the round by the computer or human players) fight it out for the 5000xlevel + 1000 Warlord bonus. Once there is only one human left, you both start out on the next level (with much harder opponents) with all new castles and walls. The game is over when both human players have died. If the players combined score is greater then the current high score, each player can enter in their initials. Their scores are combined and their initials under each other. They are listed as the high score for 2 player mode. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Source: MAME v0.33 Strategy Guide - Compiled by Phanatik URL: http://members.tripod.com/~phanatik/index.html