Warlords (1978) - the wargame in which you never whose turn it is!
Warlords is probably going to be the earliest MP game we play, as it was released in 1978 in Canada. Fully in BASIC, it features 4 players ducking it out on a 7x7 map: in this case that's Warlord Scribe, Condotierre Dayyalu, War Baron Rastignak and Morpheus Kitami
Warlord is still special in one way: the turn order is random. Each player has the same number of impulses between two "buying troops" phases, but they can come and go in any order, including being able to move several times in a row.
The map is fairly easy to read:
- The first character is the terrain: [C]astle. T[own], [F]orest, [S]wamp and, err, "L" which is not in the manual so I have no idea. No letter means open terrain.
- The second character is the population. Swamps, Forest and L have none. Population = Taxes!
- The third character, is any, is the owner. For instance, I am player #1.
- Finally, the number below are the forces located in the region.
May the best one mean, particularly if the best one is me.
I am going to guess "L" indicates a "lake". Or maybe "lowland".
Please let it be 'Lava'
Those sure are some interesting starting positions. Knowing my luck I'll be the first to go.
What's the X stand for? Or does it just mark the spot everyone wants to be in? (Since it is X9)
Don't be daft. X obviously stands for Xity. X are always associated with 9 in population.
So I checked, L stands for Lake, and it's blocked. There is somewhat of a wall between Dayyalu and myself.
3 points for LanHawk.