The developer, Reverie World Studios, released their new game on January 1336rd, bringing us to the year XNUMX. Those of you who are historians probably already know that it is about the Hundred Years War. The real-time strategy game promises not only exciting battles, but also the management of cities. But what exactly can you expect there? The article tries to bring it closer to you.
Rulers of cities and armies
The game promises its players a huge campaign, as every new campaign can be completely different. The over 50 selectable men in the game take care of that, which ensures a different gaming experience again and again. At the beginning of the game, I definitely recommend playing through the tutorial, otherwise getting into the game can be quite difficult. With a little story and different scenarios, the tutorial is definitely worth the investment of time. Because you not only get to know the important game mechanics, but also a bit of background knowledge about the historical event. If you have then played the tutorial to the end, you have several options for how you want to proceed. Either you go straight into the campaign and try to win battles and power with your army or you start with a small battle. You can either go to the battlefield with friends or play with and against an AI.
At the beginning, however, the game always focuses on your own city. A war is a resource hog that is looking for its equal. Units and urgently needed buildings always require large amounts of materials. Our farmers are always at our side to procure them, they collect wood for us to build important buildings or meat to take care of the hungry soldiers. If these basics are then in place, it goes on of course and we start with the first important structures. We have several structures to choose from in the construction menu for the specified building spaces. Either you try to continue hunting for resources, which is essential in the beginning, or you go straight to the military.
The following important resources should definitely be available in abundance, otherwise military units and other buildings will be difficult to build. At the beginning, a stone warehouse supplies us with stones, which we need for other buildings, such as the iron warehouse, to produce iron. From this, however, the will for one's own army slowly emerges. With these resources, a barracks to hire soldiers and a shooting range for archers are not far away. In order to accelerate the production of resources, buildings can of course also be improved, and a faster supply of soldiers can be achieved with building improvements. And with the army it can slowly go towards battle, right?
Battles for fame and glory
With our trained soldiers it can now go in the direction of the enemy, at least when we are in the attacking position. The battle then proceeds as in any other real-time strategy game. We command our troops and have multiple ways of interacting. We must now try to wage tactically clever battles and further expand our territory. At the beginning one should not be surprised that not all actions are available for the army. Because, as in reality, various war mechanics still have to be researched.
This is the case with archers, for example, at the beginning they can only help us with normal arrows. Later they can do more damage with fire arrows and turn entire cities into a burning inferno. Of course, catapults and ballista should not be missing either, these will also follow later in the game. With the selection options for the actions, however, you quickly notice that it is very clear and does not have too much scope. This can bring joy to a rather inexperienced player, because he does not have to remember an infinite number of things. For genre lovers, however, this could quickly lead to boredom. Because special tactics or actions are not possible, so it often remains to click the opponent and hope that your own troops will decide the clash for themselves. Personally, I think the selection of trainable units is okay. Since these are not always the same, but differ from army to army.
The strategic game Medieval Kingdom Wars cannot be blamed for a lack of built-in features:
- The campaign offers a high multiplayer value with its many possibilities and armies
- Should you fail you have to live with the consequences, because there is no such thing as simply starting over. The game is cached over and over again.
- Huge battles with up to 120 battalions make for epic proportions.
- Administration as a central part of the game
- Over 240 inventions in the technology tree (religion, military, buildings)
- As an army you can serve the king or try to become king yourself in the course of the game and overthrow the current one
- Huge world with 200 cities and villages in Western Europe
- Dynamic weather
- Epic music in the background
- More and more free updates for even more content
Medieval Kingdom Wars media
Infobox
Number of players: 1 (also online multiplayer)
Age: from approx. 16 years
Playing time: 30+ hours
Difficulty: medium
Long-term motivation: medium to high
Publisher: Reverie World Studios
Developer: Reverie World Studios
Year of publication: 2018
Platforms: PC
Language: multilingual
Cost: 16,79 Euro
Conclusion
With its complexity and scenario, the game offers a good gaming experience for genre novices or connoisseurs. After a short time everyone will be familiar with the game mechanics to be able to play the game to the fullest. It is better to have a game where you always learn something more than a simple game with little content. But once you have dared to take this step, you can look forward to a beautiful game world with good game mechanics.
The indie studio also mentioned in the email that the game is far from finished and that the game will continue to be developed. Due to the high replay value, I also see a long playing time with the game. In purely theoretical terms, you can play with all armies once and still get to know new units again and again, so the game doesn't get boring quickly. By linking administration and combat, there is always something to do and boredom or long waiting times are rare. The multiplayer mode is also fun, everything is well synchronized. Too bad: There is no possibility of exchanging resources with allies.
However, some aspects are noticeable negatively in the game. On the one hand there is the graphics, yes it is a big game world and somehow the performance has to be right, but you can do a little more there. The textures look very muddy and fuzzy, this becomes very clear when taking close-ups. The animations during the fights are also kept rather simple, a little something could be done about them. When we are already at the battles, you have to note the intelligence of the AI in some places. Some troops (opponents) run past each other without even bending a hair. On the one hand, you can say about the sound that the music is epic and appropriate and always accompanies the game. But the sound mix is not always good, if you can't hear the speaker during the campaign to be able to follow the story because the music is too loud, that dampens the actually good atmosphere of the game a bit.
But with all the errors, one thing can be said: many errors can be fixed with a few small patches and if you look at the current patch notes I am very confident that something will happen there in the future. As a result, it can be said that the game is recommended for every real-time strategy player, with the extensive campaign and high replay value, I see great potential for the game.
