Lord of the Realms 3: Come on, no comments? My 2 cents on it.
Richard Hutnik
game.
At $20, I picked it up and gave it a shot. I can give a brief rundown
of points that stood out:
- It installed ok, and ran without crashing. Didn't crash at all.
- The entire game is real time. Even while a battle is going on (can
go on for awhile) other events are happening. You can either let the
battles be or jump in and fight them. I didn't check pause and give
orders.
- The graphics look nice. 3D rendering I believe. Didn't find a way
to rotate or zoom with the strategic or tactical maps though.
- The tactical battles reminded me of a hybrid of Myth and the Total
War series, with the best of both involved. Aka, you command units
company level (aka Total War), but give order like in Myth, down to
facing of companies. And the tactical map has a myth like feel.
- The management of the Kingdom has been streamlined a bunch. You
don't appear to micromanage supplies. You run the Kingdom. You move
a peon into a realm and that is what kind of area it becomes. Move a
serf into an area and it produces food. Move a knight in, and it will
generate troops. Move a Burgher in, and it produces money. Move a
clergyman in, and it generates "Christianity" points, which earns
favor with the Church. And, if you do bad things (such as mindless
pillaging and looting), you can get excommunicated or branded a
heretic.
- The game says there is a decent amount of diplomacy. I just did the
tutorial, and didn't really see that. I am sure it is there, but
can't comment.
- The tutorial is pretty solid. It gets you into the game and
started. You must play through the 5 level tutorial (it isn't that
long), which acts as a mini-intro campaign, to unlock the other
campaigns. And the campaigns are done in stages, I believe with
different goals and whatnot that need to be completed. It is done to
represent the Invasion of William the Conqueror.
- The manual lays out the basics, but is only like 36 pages long and
is small I think 4" by 7" or so.
- I didn't try the battle modes by themselves, but it looks like the
major ones are in there from the time period: Hastings Bridge, The
Battle of Agincourt.
- The seige aspect of the game
All told, I would rate this title as being on part with Midaeval:Total
War in complexity, and less complex than Europa Universalis. Maybe
the strategy game is even simplier than in M:TW. But the idea is to
run a kingdom streamlined and do a lot of battles. And, the kindom
management definitely appears to have less micromanagement than
Stronghold.
- Richard Hutnik
Slug
Hutnik) wrote:
>All told, I would rate this title as being on part with Midaeval:Total
>War in complexity, and less complex than Europa Universalis. Maybe
>the strategy game is even simplier than in M:TW. But the idea is to
>run a kingdom streamlined and do a lot of battles. And, the kindom
>management definitely appears to have less micromanagement than
>Stronghold.
>
>- Richard Hutnik
Hmm, sounds interesting enough, but are the tactical battles realistic
or really gamey, like Stronghold? I didn't like Stronghold but like
M:TW.
John Secker
Hutnik <richar...@hotmail.com> writes
> Maybe
>the strategy game is even simplier than in M:TW. But the idea is to
>run a kingdom streamlined and do a lot of battles.
quite apart from the "real time" strategic level.
--
John Secker
Richard Hutnik
Well, there is morale with units and also formations. I am not an
expert so I can't comment here. I hope some others post comments.
- RIchard Hutnik
Slug
Hutnik) wrote:
>Well, there is morale with units and also formations. I am not an
>expert so I can't comment here. I hope some others post comments.
>
>- RIchard Hutnik
In Stronghold you could knock down castle walls with swords, that's
what I mean by "gamey".
Richard Hutnik
I don't believe that is possible in LOTR 3.
- Richard Hutnik