The King is dead .....Let the contest for the Crown begin......
This is the premise to Sierra Software's "Lords of the Realm 2". A game which pits you against 4 other combatants, to rule over king-less medieval England. An older (1996) RTS, DOS-engine game. Despite this age, it remains fun and very playable.
As an early Real Time Strategy game, Lords2 dosen't conform to the RTS layout you expect- the genre was still being defined, so it yields more interest today. Instead of gathering resources across a broad full screen map, all that 'city building' is done within one screen, accessed by clicking on a Town (provided you own it) located upon the full screen map of England, divided by ancient county lines. (also maps of France, Germany, Ireland, Italy- you can conquer more than England) Most counties are still "empty"-no one conquered them (yet). Each county contains a single town and roads to get around impassible mountains and lakes.This main playing map has Traveling Merchants, supply wagons and farming plots- indicating how prosperous a county is to possess, and the screen where troop movement takes place- marked by one marching chess-piece soldier, dressed in your color. If this chess-piece icon is 2 or 3 soldiers, it means that army is composed of up to 1500 troops(Trouble for anyone nearby who isn't his color!) Some counties have an un-occupied castle, which makes a county easier to hold, harder to conquer. My favorite move on this map is to march across enemy farming plots- doing so actually destroys the crop supply an enemy uses to feed and finance his kingdom each season(slash and burn geurrilla warfare!) But WOW- the AI hates this tactic, although using it. Done enough, and you can often beat at least one opponent this way- it "starves them out". There is more....
Controlling all the counties is how you win - turn them your player color by attacking neutral towns, or if an opponent owns the place,seige and defeat his county castle or army (if he could afford any). When a map is all 'your color', you win then move on to another medieval nation, and do it all again -at a higher difficulty level. But there's more than simple combat- this game requires you keep counties in decent health and spirits, or they toss you out and return to neutral status.These counties become impovershed, starving unhappy with Black Plauge, and sparsely peopled. Hardly worth conquering, lots of resources/seasons to revitalize. Unpaid armies will desert you, too. More.....
Combat in Lords2 takes place on another screen, when 2 'chess pieces' meet, or march onto an enemy Town/Castle. A new screen randomly generates battlefields with creeks and bridges or rock walls and clumps of trees (providing cover for units) your chess piece then breaks into multiple combat units -Pikemen, Archers, Knights, Swordsmen etc.- the actual units you spent resources to build, back at the Town's Blacksmith. Best part of Lords2 combat- STRATEGY actually MATTERS in this game! You can win against superior numbers, if you're clever. Just because the enemy made a massive army of 2000 peasants, your more expensive 200 Archers will slaughter hundreds of them before taking a hit. Attacking a castle allows you to build Seige Towers, Rams and Catapults but this takes more seasons with a small army. Some castles have moats to fill in before getting to walls- and it WILL be raining arrows! Once a hole is made in a wall, or the gate down, storm in and capture the enemy flag there, the county is yours! BUT {whoopsie}, I suppose we'll have to put it back together now.....
There's more...Diplomacy, Merchants, Advanced Farming, customized Mult-player...
Gaaaa! You know what? Just go ahead and try Lords of the Realm 2 already!
- There's actually more here than meets the eye.