Reviews - shellaineur

This game is sheer awesomeness... as you might have figured out, this war strategy meets role playing. No joke. Only game of its kind.

Raise armies, court fair maidens, marry rich lords (if you're female), trade goods, build manufacturing centers, raze villages and get tons of loot (there are drawbacks), help peasants defend or save their villages, complete quests, duel with lords for the honor of maidens, engage in tournaments, become a vassal to a lord >> a lord/lady (Queen/King) >> emperor/empress to beat the game. In the meantime take down castles, with or without help, restore claimants to their thrones and complete other military campaigns, level up heroes so they can augment your party's general abilities and/or be awesome soldiers, sharing your burdens of responsibility as commander (you still must command everyone in battle regardless) or making super-units in combat... you level up as many as you can get to stay together, though different characters have squabbles with each other and if your skill in Persuasion is not high enough they will leave your party from frustration... you do have some real issues to side on, so are you okay with Pagan rants? (I am) Are you okay with someone being bloodthirsty in battle? Are you okay with being blamed for retreating? Burning a village down? It helps a little, personally, to pick characters whose ideologies reflect yours on a basic level, whether or not they are horse-rustlers originally, or turn-coat guardsmen, or what-have-you. You level up, too, and rest assured, your level-ups are the most important, mainly because of "leader skills." You choose between lots of skills, lots, getting one skill point and one attribute point every level up. Skills may make your vision radius on the main map bigger (meaning when your whole army is moving across the main map instead of going across a battle field), faster healing for your units, larger party size & lower troop wages, better trading prices, faster movement on the main map (for your army as a whole, again, when not in combat), better chances of winning, better siege equipment, better combat ability, better defense ability, faster movement, better ability to influence a lord or fellow vassal to attack a certain point, can carry more prisoners in tow, etc.

On an off note, you can also stock your own factories with hand-picked goods so that they don't have to buy locally and give you more money.

Haha, and I probably didn't need to specify, but of course there are massive battles with tons of troops and troop types. At first you are very limited, but you get to vary more as you branch outward in the game and build more massive armies as you gain renown for various things, most notably for fighting larger armies than your own, and leveling up Leadership or the attribute Charisma (with those you directly increase army size, not increase renown.)

Units: lots. There are archers, both who are just good at archery and who are good with throwing weapons (yeah, it's got that), then it's got crossbowmen, who do much more damage but much slower rate of fire and shorter range, melee knights, lancers (with a lance you can attack someone and keep going, mainly if there's some chaos going on regarding who's where), horse archers, infantry, and spear-fighting infantry, to name the ones I am using currently. Each of those I can command separately, and it's important to use them well, even if I don't manage to use each one by the end of a battle.

Oh... you'll note I admitted that. The learning curve on this game is super-steep, and you might be frustrated at the beginning even on the lowest difficulty setting. Later when you get better you'll be taking armies bigger than yours down at higher difficulty levels though, and replacing killed units quickly, even replacing units you have that you don't want there if you're a stickler and you can sweat the morale loss. Troop trees, units level up. Outta room. Game rocks.