March 2008 News Posts
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Medieval Heroes
1.5 review by David Eaton |
Date:
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23/05/2003
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Medieval Heroes 1.5 by
Arcona Magi
I was cruising around internet
the other day when something caught my eye – a news item about the
upcoming release of a Hi Res version of Medieval Heroes. Having just written a
review of Aggression, another “conquer the world” type game, I was
immediately intrigued and thought I’d check it out. Was I ever glad that I
did…
Many people, when asked, compared
this game to the old PC game “Lords of the Realm.” Not having ever
played that game, I can’t make that comparison. For those of you who, like
me, are unfamiliar with it, let me start by describing the plot of the
game.
Medieval Heroes is set in the
time period of 14th century central Europe during a period when the land, which
is divided into 21 different countries in the game, is being controlled by 4
different Lords, each of whom desire to control the whole thing. You play the
part of one of these Lords and attempt to conquer all the countries before
someone else conquers them – or you…
When you begin a new game you are
given the option of choosing one of 3 difficulty levels. I found myself getting
beat every game and thought it was because I was playing the part of the French
– but then discovered that I was on the highest difficulty setting. (Just
kidding… I like the French….) Seriously, though, I did find that the
difficulty settings made a big impact on how the game was played. On the easier
settings, for example, you may be given the offer to align yourself with
another one of the 4 countries. You can then choose which country you wish to
play (French, German, of Slavs) and which Lord you wish to play. Each country
has 3 Lords from which to choose and each of them has their own set of skills.
These are divided into 2 categories, tactics and covert operations, and are
indicated by symbols next to the name. (Note: the country you choose also
determines where you start the game. The French start in one of the 2 castles
in the West, the Slavs have one castle in the East, and the Germans have 2
castles in the middle – one in the North and the other in the South.)
During each turn you are given
the chance to recruit more soldiers, fortify your current country, attack an
adjacent country, or perform a covert action such as scout out or rob a
neighboring nation. I’ll cover each of these in depth.
You are given taxes during each
turn. These taxes can be accumulated and used to recruit more swordsmen,
archers, or knights into your army as well as purchase trebuchets, a
catapult-like device used to launch large stones at a castle wall in an attempt
to destroy them so that your army can enter. I could spend an entire page
talking about the advantages and disadvantages of each but the game comes with
excellent documentation so I’ll let you read it for yourself.
The thing I like most about this
game is the battles and castle siege scenarios. You get the option of having
the battle fought automatically or, if you’re a control freak like me, can
place your archers, swordsmen, and knights manually. Once the battle begins you
can also direct each group to different targets. Each castle is surrounded by a
moat and you must destroy the walls with your trebuchets in order to get your
swordsmen inside and let the draw bridge down. If you are defending your castle
against an attacking army, you can chose to let the draw bridge down yourself
and fight them on the field – just remember to close it again so that they
can’t sneak in…
The next option you are given
during each turn is the ability to either spy on a neighboring country or to
send a raiding party to rob them. Unlike other moves, you can send as many spy
missions as you want per turn as long as you have the spare people and money to
pay them. Either of these two options will result in a report telling you the
result of the mission: you lost your men, or they returned with information or
money for your treasury.
The final option you get each
turn is the ability to fortify a country or castle by leaving part of your men
there. It’s one thing to conquer a country – it’s something else
entirely to hold it against an attacking enemy. This feature adds a whole new
strategy to the game: do you want to put all your men in one army and reenact
the German’s blitzkrieg maneuver, or do you want to fortify each country
along the leading edge of your territory?
Version 1.5, which was released
on 5/21/03, provides Hi-Res and sound support as well as the ability to play
two different games on the same PDA (and switch between them), a limit to the
number of units you can control per turn in the advanced level, and some other
tweaking to make the game more stable, the game play more realistic, and add
more preferences to customize the game.
After having played the earlier
version extensively, I found version 1.5’s graphics to be refreshing and
clear. Although the sound effects leave a little to be desired, you don’t
really need sound to play this game to it’s fullest. As a matter of fact,
I find myself playing it more often than not in a setting where I have the
sound turned off anyway…
I’d also be terribly remiss
if I failed to mention the excellent tech support that I got from Dmitriy
Drevniy at Arcona Magi. When I first began playing with the latest release, I
began experiencing some problems. I emailed tech support and got a response
within an hour – despite what had to be a very busy day for them when they
released version 1.5 and the fact that it was after 11:00 PM in St-Petersburg,
Russia.
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