Thoughts by Mr Creosote (26 Oct 2024) – PC (DOS)
The men may have complained under their breaths when they have been drafted from their home county. But now, having kept them well-fed and equipped with the sharp swords forged by the blacksmiths, they are about to storm the enemy’s castle. Nothing else on their minds anymore. Pushing the heavy siege tower towards the stone walls, they know many of their ranks will not survive to see the next dawn. It is all for the glory of their lord.
Impressions had hit gold with Lords of the Realm. The combination of managing the economy of each county, building castles and sending armies into real-time battles offered a good balance and felt adventurous enough to inspire an audience in its niche. By now under Sierra management, the developers came up with this “re-imagination” type sequel. Doing the same thing again, just tweaked here and there.
Sid Meier famously “cut it in half” when designing Civilization, referring to the size of the in-game map. David Lester and his team applied the same to their game: facelift aside, the immediately apparent change is the drastically reduced number of counties on the selectable maps.
The default map of England thus now being divided into just 14, the importance of each county increases. Taking one wealthy one from a competitor can swing the odds considerably. The distance between the starting counties decreases as well, though the risk of an early surprise rush is mitigated by giving everyone a free starting castle.
Castles having been made more important, too. Gone is the option to freely design one, though the pre-defined layouts prove to be very resilient in battle and boost tax income as well. The only way to overcome a castle, in this game, is to storm its walls. Famishing it is no longer an option. Instead, a real-time battle needs to be won.
Those who read my treatment of the first game may remember I wasn’t too excited about the execution of those battles there. They are very different here, but unfortunately, not better in the slightest. Too little space to actually maneuver in a tactically meaningful way. The camera too close to have some real overview. Too fast and hectic to effectively control. Sure, the battles cannot be “gamed” anymore, there is no misusing the controls, the map etc. to achieve a desirable, but unrealistic outcome. Though this is hardly preferable. Particularly because there is no alternative: having battles automatically calculated leading to very bad outcomes usually.
On the global level, it is all much more satisfying. The strengthening of the castles gives more importance to strategies such as pillaging. Maybe an army isn’t strong enough to win a siege, but for sure, it can lay waste to fields, even kill villagers if so desired. Always keeping in mind that at some point, the same player who now wreaks havoc may want to conquer the same county later on.
Anyway, the new control scheme enables not just to display a lot of information right on the map, but most activities can be performed directly there as well, focussing much of the gameplay and player attention there. Doing away with most of the sub-menus, dedicated screens to manage and set things, retrieve information etc. Very immediate, very efficient.
It is apparent all over the board that they really wanted to improve further on what had already been quite good in the first place. This is not a lazy sequel, even if close in concept. And yet, they really wanted to squeeze in Warcraft 2. Understandably, as that had been a huge hit. Though including such a thing as a small mode into a larger game, it can’t have received the right amount of attention. The battles again… they are no fun, but even borderline unplayable this time around. For such an integral, non-bypassable part of the overall game, that’s hard to forgive, especially when the rest of the game is so good.
