Warlords Battlecry is a RTS game released in 2004. set in a fantasy world of Etheria. World filled with interesting races and powerful heroes. You can play singleplayer and multiplayer just like any other RTS game. During singleplayer you can play on the big world map and destroy everyone who opposes you. Your hero and units can gain experience and you could lead them into more battles, it is a simple but effective singleplayer where you can learn about the various game mechanics.
Gameplay mechanics are revolving around resource gathering, upgrading hero and your armies for higher tier of epic units. Your hero can be upgraded to have larger area of effect when converting resource buildings, so one hero can in theory capture the whole base if left unguarded. That tactic can create many memorable situations where you can just backdoor capture all the resource on enemy side and ruin their economy.
Heroes can also level during the skirmish battles and find better gear, levels and gear will stay with the hero and every time you bring him into the battle again he will advance more, end results on a hero you've played with 20h can be so much fun because he will literally become one man army. Heroes can also use massive spell book with 12 different schools of magic, this hero system can become quite robust once you combine all those mechanics. This game had one of the best hero mechanics I've ever experienced.
Add to all that 16 completely different races and 28 character classes. Seeing these numbers will make you go WOOT. Every race have huge variety of units and icing on the cake are titans for every race that are very powerful and fun to use. The races are:
1. Dwarf
2. Empire
3. High Elf
4. Wood Elf
5. Dark Elf
6. Knight
7. Barbarian
8. Fey
9. Minotaur
10. SSrathi
11. Deamons
12. Dark Dwarf
13. Orc
14. Plaguelords
15. The Swarm
16. The Undead
That huge variety among races and classes makes this game replayable like nothing you have experienced before. Battlecry 3 actually is one of my most played games ever and it is among my favorite RTS games of all times. This game still looks great and if you skipped it, you missed one helluva game.