Medieval Sim and Real Time Strategy Perfection

UPDATE: September 11, 2007.
I finally eliminated every opponent except the Papal States. The year is 1710... took 710 years! The civilized world is now under the English rule (great faction to pick for beginners). The manual says, I can't eliminate the Papal States, but I think I'll give it a try. Since I dominate the entire world, Papal States shouldn't be able to seek refuge anywhere on the map. Of course, I'll face excommunication by the Pope, but...
***************************************************
RETAIL PATCH - fixes game crashes when battling Timurid faction - can be found here:
http://www.megagames.com/news/show.cgi?&idtype=patches&database=716§ion=downloads&
***************************************************
What you can compare the gameplay to:
Stronghold (definitely), Civilization X, Command and Conquer X, Warcraft x (somewhat). Way better than any of these, since this game is a hybrid of Sim, Turn-based strategy, and Real-time strategy.
***************************************************

First and foremost - be warned: once you are sucked into this game, there is no turning back. Ration your free time, because it will simply fly while playing this.

What to expect once you become immersed into this game:

- Huge map of Europe, The Mediterranean, East Asia, and some Africa. By the way, geography is very accurate (according to Medieval standards). Just pick your faction, set your game settings and difficulty, and rule!

- Active upgrade of settlements, displayed on the world map, by purchasing building upgrades. Your income is based on a huge number of options, main ones being taxation, looting when taking over enemy settlements, and trade by ground and sea.

- Active building of armies, which appear on the map as knightly figures walking to where you click and based on the number of mobility points. If your army consists of mounted forces, it will go further per turn than an army comprised of infantry or artillery units. Clicking on enemy armies or settlements will initiate attacks or sieges. Sometimes, when walking through forested areas, you can be ambushed (or you can ambush enemy forces). The biggest advantage or disadvantage to ambushes is that the army being ambushed has no chance to strategically position its forces prior to the battle.

- Sieges can happen either when your army has artillery units able to demolish enemy fortifications or has spent at least one turn building siege equipment, such as battering rams and siege towers. If you allow battle timers in your settings, the battle outcome will be calculated either by complete elimination of the enemy forces (or making them run), or by taking over the settlement strategic point, that usually looks like a town square surrounded by flags. Be warned: later in the game, that spot is located behind three walls, and if each wall is equipped with defensive towers that spew arrows, bolts, or cannon balls at the attacking army, this can surely turn into real hell.

- Battles between armies happen in a similar manner. You can pre-position your units any way you like before the battle starts, unless you've been ambushed. Take higher ground or hide in the woods. If there are other armies right next to yours or your enemies, they act as reinforcements. In automatic mode, they attack independently. In manual mode, they gradually replace your units as they perish.

- Accurate historical events occur throughout centuries of human evolution, such as The Great Plague, The Mongol Invasion, and even the creation of paper!

- Turn-based gameplay, where one turn equals one half a year. If your turn ended in the Summer, your next turn will become available in the Winter of the same year. Two turns equal one year's time span.

- Infantry, cavalry, artillery, and naval units ever produced during the Middle Ages are very accurately depicted. Clergy, spies, assassins, merchants, and diplomats are also accurately depicted. Any unit in the game gains experience and becomes better at its job, if they succeed at their tasks. They also face a risk of death or skill deterioration if they fail enough times. Oh, by the way - if you zoom in on your soldiers, their outfits will look colorful BUT stained with blood and dirt (two thumbs up in my book!).

- Nobles and Generals are characters that come with their own bodyguard units, usually around 20 to 30 soldiers per unit. Each noble has unique upbringing, potential, and talents as well as weaknesses. You can directly influence how your nobles evolve. If they spend too much time in a city with a brothel and a tavern in it, they will most likely become untrustworthy drunkards, who won't be able to effectively command their armies should the time come. Although any settlement can be managed without nobles, their presence in cities encourages population growth and based on their unique skills, improve (or worsen) their armies' abilities. Nobles are prime targets for heresy trials and assassinations by rival factions. These characters are either born, come of age, and become faction family members, or could be married into your family, or could be adopted, or could simply earn their General rank by heroic actions during battles. These noble characters are a huge plus to the settlement development and leading armies. Experienced general's unit can single-handedly slaughter a unit twice its size. Such attributes as dread, chivalry, or night fighting can be of great advantage. Not to mention that armies led by generals are a lot harder to sabotage through bribing (result of which yields losing that army, which becomes rebellious and leaves your faction). Finally, here's the best thing about generals - they can recruit mercenaries when outside settlements and on the ground only. Can we say, monster bombard and rocket launchers here we come???

- Real Time Strategy is available if you choose to fight enemy armies, well, in real time - by directly commanding the forces, instead of allowing the artificial intelligence roll the dice and produce the outcome based on either army's superiority in types of units they deploy. The automatic battle resolution is perfect when your well equipped and fully staffed army is facing a weaker foe or a poorly defended settlement. Do not rely on automatic combat heavily, though - I've managed to fight "Heroic" battles where only a handful of strategically placed units were able to raise panic among enemy armies outnumbering mine at least three to one, and running for their lives. Once their morale is broken and they route, your army can pursue and very quickly and easily sweep the running soldiers under the rug.

- Battles of epic proportions. Although your army on the field is limited to twenty units at any given time, even if you have reinforcements waiting on the edges of the battlefield, each of those units can vary in size from one (most likely, severely crippled) to 120 individual soldiers per unit. Do the math - that's a maximum of 4800 soldiers on the battlefield if both armies are staffed to the max!

- Genuine soundtracks, varying from early European to late Arabic tunes, surround sound and CD quality. Music changes based on what's happening on the battlefield, too. When your units begin to charge the enemy (or vice versa) the tempo of the music grows. If you zoom in on individual units engaged in a clash, the whole experience makes your heart beat faster and I personally got the goose bumps.

- Choice between "Auto-manage everything" to "Spend an hour per turn micromanaging it all". For example, each settlement develop in two different ways - it can become a fortress or a city. Each type of development offers specific types of buildings, and only a good balance between the number of cities vs. castles can produce both strong military and economy. Castles begin with a simple fort protected by a wooden wall, and gradually (with your help each turn) turn into huge citadels, capable of producing a great variety of military units, which in turn can be upgraded with better armor, weapons, or training. Cities are more economy oriented, and they generate better income, but do not offer much in terms of military until quite a bit later in the game. Any settlement will have religious buildings to recruit clergy, and an opportunity to build ports/docks/warehouses to improve trade and recruit naval units.

- Naval battles cannot be played in Real Time, and basically the bigger fleet with more experienced Admiral will win. Navy has the ability to blockade enemy ports and cut off some of their trade that way. Naval forces can also carry your armies and dignitaries across the water for either unexpected attacks or creating religious or political chaos in a passive-aggressive way.

- Non-military units are quite diverse. Priests can evolve into bishops and cardinals, and have a chance to be elected to Pope based on their experience and standing with the other countries. Their main function is to preach to prevent religious unrest among your populace. They also eliminate heretics and witches. Spies and Assassins will... spy and assassinate, as well as sabotage city buildings to stall production or cause religious chaos. Merchants will locate resources on the maps and start "sending" those back home, generating extra income. They can either eliminate or be eliminated by rival merchants with a different skill level. Diplomats facilitate negotiations with other factions' dignitaries, and pursue whatever goals your heart desires. Backstabbing politicians back in the day were pretty much commonplace, so go ahead and see how far your personality will take you on the way to glory and prosperity. Oh yes, there are also Princesses that will travel in search of suitable husbands from the opposing factions' armies, or do the diplomats' jobs part-time while unwed.

- Artillery units are my favorite. These are the units that can turn the course of the battle within a matter of seconds, if placed properly and combined with units to guard them. All artillery in this game was designed with one goal in mind: make the enemy panic so they turn and run. Mass destruction didn't really happen, since the weaponry was not very accurate. What the artillery did accomplish was panic among the enemy troops, as most of it used fire and produced loud explosions. And yes, the trebuchets used rotten cow carcasses (cool!).

All this is well and good - now the tech stuff. Here are the recommended system requirements:

System: Pentium 4® 2.4GHz (2400MHz) or equivalent AMD® Athlon 64 or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 9000 MB
Other: 128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 2 support
and the latest drivers. Must be 100% DirectX® 9.0c
compatible*. The Nvidia® GeForce 7300 or greater, or the
ATI Radeon® X1600 or greater is recommended.

I have to mention that even with a system surpassing the recommended specs will drop the framerate, especially when battles are those of epic proportions, specifically during the sieges. Overall, however, any system that's close to the specs above will perform just fine at least 80% of the time.

Now the not-so good news: in the last stages of the game (cir. year 1560) when I had half of the map under my rule, individual siege battles would produce an "Unexpected Error" and the game would simply shut down. Total bummer! Currently reinstalling the game after defragging the system, hopefully that will work. Too bad, the saved files could not be kept during the uninstallation.

Hey, if you loved Civilization game series, early Warcraft, Command and Conquer, or anything that remotely smells medieval, builder sim, or real-time strategy - give this one a shot. Even if you don't become a believer after several hours of game play, simply admire the graphics zoomed-in on the battlefield, and admit that this is the best looking game of this type ever created!

As a rule, I am not a huge fan of online gaming when it comes to Real Time Strategy - hence, can't report anything on the Online functionality.

One more thing that I found a bit annoying was that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the enemy armies sometimes is subpar even on Medium difficulty settings. This is true specifically in the siege battles, where massive enemy armies sometimes become confused as to where to go, and simply stand there until the battle timer runs out, and lose the battle that could otherwise be won in a matter of 20 seconds.