Stick War: Saga (aka Stick War 3, Stick War III, or SW3) is an Android and iOS game published by Max Games. It is the sixth entry in the Stick War series.
Gameplay[]
The style of play in Stick War: Saga borrows heavily from the previous games, incorporating much of the mechanics, such as from Stick War II: Order Empire and Stick Empires, seeing the return of a second main resource. In the aforementioned Stick War entries, Mana was the secondary resource and was passively acquired by commanding a miner to pray at the statue. Crystal is introduced in Stick War: Saga, a mined resource much like gold. Additionally, several single-player and multiplayer game modes are available, and as a first for the series, the game introduces team-based gameplay with a 2v2 game mode. Winning games allow players to acquire gems to purchase cosmetic items for their units and the statue.
Commands have been further refined, allowing players to order their army to the Tower using the "Attack" or "Defend" commands. Additionally, individual units may be ordered to garrison, attack, or hold position, and units can be manually controlled similarly to Stick War and Stick War: Legacy (albeit without stat bonuses). Also, miners and enslaved miners can now be commanded to attack as well as the other units. (They have separate command buttons from the other units (except for "Man the Fort" or "Defend"), meaning a player could have Castle Archidons while his/her other units are helping defend the statue.
There is also Sudden Death, where once the game lasts for more than 9 minutes, Sudden Death will occur, dealing damage to both statues. If there is a tie, the left team wins.
Deckbuilding[]
Unlike previous games, Stick War III does not give the player a set faction to play as. Instead, the player can construct their own armies in the form of "decks," each of which contains eight slots that can each be used on a single Unit, Spell, or Enchantment card. Any combination of cards is permitted for constructing an army as long as the following conditions are met:
- The deck must contain at least 2 Units, including at least one type of miner.
- The deck must not contain more than one Mythic Enchantment.
The following cards are currently available for use:
*Campaign boss only
Upgrades[]
Like Stick War II and Stick Empires, the player can research upgrades for their units. This is done through a button on the top bar. Unlike the former games, upgrades in Stick War: Saga are statistical upgrades for the player's units and/or other bonuses. While there are certain unit-specific upgrade bonuses, these are bestowed by Enchantments and grant their bonuses when the player researches the corresponding upgrade. Additionally, certain General abilities are only unlocked with the appropriate upgrade. Each upgrade has two levels that must be researched in sequence. Level 1 upgrades take 45 seconds to research, while Level 2 upgrades take 75 seconds. Only one upgrade can be researched at a time.
The available upgrades are as follows:
| Upgrade | Effect | Cost | Associated Enchantments | Unlocked Abilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barracks |
|
|
|
None |
| Forge |
|
|
Enchanted Pike, Mining Engineer | None |
| Armory |
|
|
Monstrosity |
|
| Temple |
|
|
Secret Tunnel, Spearton Spawn (Levels 1 and 2), Spirit Deads (Levels 1 and 2), Toxic Totality |
|
| Bastion |
|
|
Castle Archer, Miner Upgrade | None |
Singleplayer Game Modes:[]
Campaign[]
In the Stick War 3 campaign, the opening cutscene begins with King Zarek and Zilaros being shown the head of the decapitated Medusa, like in the end of Stick War II: Order Empire. King Zarek is shocked seeing the groups of Elementals imprisoned. A Fire Elemental shows King Zarek and Zilaros a map with treasures on it but when he tries to grab it, the Fire Elemental tells them to release the other elementals. After thinking, they comply and Water and Earth Elementals fuse to create a path for King Zarek to go through. Still skeptical, he orders a few Speartons and Swordwrath to get the map for him with the Fire Elemental leading the way. They return with the map and they give it to King Zarek. Just then, the Marrowkai casts his hands to emerge from the ground, holding King Zarek hostage. The Fire Elemental sacrifices himself by fusing to a Water Elemental, creating an explosion, knocking King Zarek out. When he awakes not long after, he realizes he has a third of the map with the Elementals and the Kai have the other parts. You then go play the tutorial where you are hired to find the treasures by Zilaros.
Tutorial[]
A tutorial battle with a fixed deck to teach the player the basics of the game.
Proving Grounds[]
Allows the player to play a game against an AI opponent. There are ten selectable decks and scenarios to play against. These levels are:
1) Order Empire - Miners, Swordwrath, Archidons and Speartons.
2) Chaos Projectile - Enslaved Miners, Deads, Toxic Deads and Eclipsors.
3) Swords & Sorcercers - Miners, Swordwrath, Magikill and Merics.
4) Gold Rush - Enslaved Miners, Deads, Bombers and Juggerknights.
5) Order Ambush - Swordwrath, Archidons, Speartons, Shadowrath, Magikill and Ripriders.
6) Chaos Tunnel - Enslaved Miners, Deads, Toxic Deads and Juggerknights.
7) Fire & Thunder - Miners, Sicklewrath, Archidons and Ripriders.
8) Monstrosity - Enslaved Miners, Deads, Juggerknights and Giants.
9) Deathmatch - Miners, Archidons, Speartons and Magikill.
10) Chaos Ambush - Deads, Toxic Deads, Bombers, Eclipsors, Juggerknights and Giants.
Daily Battles[]
Allows the player to challenge the current Daily Battle, pitting a deck of the player's choice against an opponent in a special scenario. Daily Battles have fixed decks and may have other special conditions that do not appear in normal gameplay. Daily Battles have three difficulty levels (Normal, Hard, and Insane) and players gain gem rewards for completing each difficulty.
Practice (Removed Game Mode)[]
This game mode was replaced by Proving Grounds in Version 2022.1.3378.
Allowed the player to play a game against an AI opponent. The following decks were used by the AI, and it chose between them at random each game.
- Atreyos' Army: An Order army with a wide array of units for answering multiple threats.
- Blazing King: An Order army that relies on Archidons to pressure enemies from afar.
- Miner, Swordwrath, Archidon, Giant, Kytchu, Rage, Miner Upgrade, Blazing Bolts
- Necromancer: A Chaos army that aims to overwhelm foes with a mass of Deads.
- Voltaic Chaos: A Chaos army that backs up its powerful units with deadly offensive spells.
- Enslaved Miner, Dead, Eclipsor, Giant, Tesla Coil, Lightning Storm, Voltaic Armor, Vampiric Soul
Featured Level (Removed)[]
Featured level was a game mode, where you could play a level of the campaign. Unfortunately, only three such levels existed.
Here are links for them:
1: https://youtu.be/KbAhl3-D5fM
2: https://youtu.be/qDPqSFKF5Ck
3: Not found yet, please add link if you find it.
Multiplayer Game Modes[]
1v1[]
The player is matched with a human opponent of similar skill level in a normal game.
2v2[]
The player teams up with a party member, or a teammate chosen by matchmaking, to face another team of two players.
Each team shares resource patches (though an additional Crystal patch and several extra Gold patches are added to each base) and their Statue, however each player has their own population cap and resources.
Daily Battles[]
Allows the player to team up with another player to face off in a Daily Battle. Daily Battles have fixed decks and may have other special conditions that do not appear in normal gameplay. Daily Battles have three difficulty levels (Normal, Hard, and Insane) and players gain gem rewards for completing each difficulty.
How Development Started[]
An early announcement of Stick War 3 by Brock
Brockemon posted an update at the 27th of March, 2019 about it in the #official-news section of the Official Discord Server for the Stick War Series. A screenshot of it can be found on the right. Here's a basic summary of the information there:
- They have started early work on it and are confident with a multiplayer engine setup of 40 vs. 40 unit battles with individual unit control.
- Individual unit control will be similar to Stick War and Stick War: Legacy's, differentiating from Stick Empires.
- They are considering the idea of multiple players on the same team, i.e. 2 vs. 2 matches. They are imagining that the primary player will be in charge of managing the economy and building units. Any additional players would be "side-kicks"; they will be controlling individual units. "Side-kicks" may be rewarded or given a bonus in the game for doing this.
- The game will be rendered in 3D, though the sprites for the stickmen will be in 2D. This approach is predicted to improve camera effects as you move past the army, otherwise known as the Parallax Effect.
Further Updates[]
Stick War 3 - Teaser Trailer
The trailer of Stick War III
- On the 18th of January 2021, CrazyJay uploaded a trailer, showing the new game, where he mentioned the game's release in 2021.
- On the 26th of March 2021, the alpha version of the game was released for testing.
- On the 11th, 12th and 14th of December 2021, the game was released for early access to play on Android and iOS in Canada, Australia, and then globally.
- Stick War III would officially be released on March 2, 2024.