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Medieval Lords Review
Derek dela Fuente
10/11/2004
Round the peasants, it's time for Sim City styled action in a Medieval setting...
Digital Jesters latest acquisition Medieval Lords, with the tag āBuild, Defend and Expandā, comes from French developer and publisher Monte Cristo, which has created some half decent tycoon and strategy games, although along with some top notch games they have managed to also chuck out some real turkeys!
Medieval Lords is a strange one and is a sort of no-thrills city builder akin to the legendary Sim City series, where you must construct, assemble and foster a rapidly growing settlement. Yes, we have been here before where you are plopped down on a nice bit of unused land and must encourage a community to develop and grow stronger and become more resourceful ā“ well formed. They may have minds of their own but in effect you are the one that has to be encouraged to fuse everything together.
The game starts off with an enthralling rip roaring loading sequence with a birdās eye view swooping through a medieval town and then seeing some rebel rousing soldiers in action on horses. Ok it may be standard stuff but the graphics and animations are great and it does convey a good spirit of the time to get you in the mood. The question weād like to ask Monte Cristo is why the towns and streets are so clean, in those days they hummed!
Like Settlers and loads of other similar games, there are so many parameters, options, tasks, requirements and even a sequence line, time span that getting your head around things early on is a task and a half. You have to build, but you have to take into account that houses should be near water as the horses need to drink, the health of the people, their serenity and costs of building and producing food all take there toll if you do things in the wrong order. There are so many boxes, info text and the vast expansive undulating land mass - world - that the bustling community lives within, all getting on with their daily tasks which also needs to be thought out. With an ever expanding community comes the danger of attack from those that believe your hard graft can be their easy reward, so you plan for fortification, build a defence, recruit troops, not forgetting they have to be fed and looked after.
Building a community, let alone a larger city, with standard buildings - advanced ones ā“ not to even want to consider the costs involved is frightening but there is early help on hand for those that want to be eased gently into it. The tutorial is informative and pictorially allows you to learn at your own pace and see what the requirements are!
Iād like to say before long, well in a few hours, you have a bustling village with all the animals, food centres - orchards and crops - and needed expertise, like Blacksmith happily living life to the full...
Now although this is not a game where warfare is the central focus, there are conflicts but this comes over more as a sim building that a strategy game in the RTS sense. Itās more about peopleās welfare - micromanagement - and their well being than wanting to pillage other settlements and becoming bigger and bolder, although contradicting ourselves this is part of an ongoing process!
Like dropping water on the ground your community expands, grows and stretches and keeping it together is both a thankless and pleasing task. The mechanics of placing structures ā“ the rewards for good positioning as opposed to the downside of not thinking is sometimes hard and frustrating but then again that is what the game is about, using your brains and thinking ahead. If it was that simple no one would bother playing!
Taxes, progressions of new technologies, acquiring new technologies are all part of the growing experience and if in some cases things come too easily whilst others seem too detailed or complex we put this down to the developer trying to mix it up and ensure that you get a good reward whilst also having to work hard on some areas.
Trying to keep on the side of being positive whilst offering one or two negatives, in the fact that the sieges and military options are very restrained, must be put forward. Iāve got loads of soldiers, youāve got less so Iām better than you - could be the order of the day!
Although there is a predictability throughout, not in what happens but in what you have to do, there is always an insipid feel good factor to the game, alongside a delightful innocence that may captivate a small band of first time gamers although we would say this game IS possibly geared better towards the casual gamer than the hard core one.
Medieval Lords, as we keep saying, is a strange one, full of ideas but through its splendid looks and loads of things to do and achieve you never feel totally committed to the cause and everything seems like a Sunday morning pastime. There is no grit, no real soul to the game, it has no passion!
For all its extensive ideas and options, resources and choices Medieval Lords lacks the spark to catch the imagination and we found that after a few hours of scratching around we kept taking our eye off our goals, not feeling inclined to want to progress on.
It must also be noted that despite running on machines way in excess of the Recommended Specification, the game does struggle during its 3D perspectives, with the action chugging into an absolute mess at times ā“ a little more time optimising the game would have certainly paid dividends.
