Creative Assembly gets Medieval on your azz and its even better the second time around
This game is hybrid of turn-based and real time strategy, a match made in heaven I tell you. As any strategy gamer will tell you RTS's alone often lack the complexity of what can be done in a tune based game because it is too hard hard to do that kind of stuff in a constantly fast paced environment. No problem with that here. The game plays out on a, very large map that covers all of Europe and much more. The management of you lands take place here, which includes such things as city management, and interactions with other civilizations, good or bad. The battle on the other hand are done in real time. It all works out pretty great and fans of both types of games should be happy.
There is a whole lot to do in this game and it is not for the faint of heart. If you dispise micromanagement you probably won;t have a whole lot of fun, though you can choose to atuomate your cites, and can even have the comp play automatically resolve you battles, though i would no suggest you choose that option because I can assure you that even if it wins it will do so in a way that cause you to sustain more losses than you would if you were in command.
In this game, like so many other, you choose a faction and do what you can to survive in the world. It is based on history a little more so than other games that have this premise. You will not , for, instance ever be teching up to modern day weapons and instead will have to use what was availibale in the time period. No big deal though, you won't miss it. Like I said there is a lot to do already, running a kingdom after all is not an easy task. There are 21 factions in this game with the religion being the element that splits them since this is of course the period where the crusades took place, and yes you will be asked to participate in them. That however is the least of your worries as this was also an incredibly violent period in history so al the while while the pope maihgt be asking you to help take back the holy lands you have to worry about your nieghbors too. War is only part of the game though of course and there is trade that can be, spying, assassinations, there are even priest units that can denounce other for being witches and heritics.
It should also be mentioned that there are unplayable factions such as the Papal states which is like the faction of the Pope, and the Mongols who also invade during this time. There is just so much that can go on this game I doubt I will even scratch the surface of in this review, but trust the game is pretty awsome. If your new it may seem a little daunting at first, but after you get some game time in it all becomes pretty routine. Overall this is a really great game though that I am having a ton of fun playing.