Lords of the Realm II

by

Sierra (1997)

You are chosen to be the next King....of course you chose yourself. But that is not really important, afterall, with your army who is going to stop you? Well, one of the other three factions that has mobilized to prevent you from being crowned King. You will only succeed if you can manage to build self-sufficient territories that produce the materials you need for your castles and army.

This game seemed to have everything that I could want from an empire building game. But once again I was let down by Sierra. Although it is a pretty good game, there are some flaws that I think hold the game back from fulfilling its full potential. One of the major problems I had with this game was during the combat sequences. Your characters are just too difficult to fight with effectively. Although you can eventually learn to control them, it is much too difficult. The combat also became tedious and borring. It was not so much a tactical battle, as who can outslug who. Battles between similar armies were almost always determined by sheer numbers.

Another problem I had with the game was its poor graphcis. This game should have had much better graphics on both the map screen as well as the battle screen. With better graphics this game would have been much improved.

But before you get the wrong idea, this game was not as bad as I make it sound. There were definatly high points. I particularly liked the idea of a castle siege. Instead of the generic 50% defense bonus for castles like in many games, Lords of the Realm II actually used real castles. Each castle was different, which made the attacking army behave differently for each siege. Another solid aspect of the game was the interface. While a bit difficult to get a handle on at first, it became easy to use as you became used to each screen. Plus you could use your mouse to point and click at everything.

Rating

Graphics 7.2
Gameplay 8.7
Plot 8.5
Overall 8.1

Summary: If you like empire building games then this might be one that you would consider adding to your collection. While not the greatest game I have ever played, it is also not the worst. However, if you are not a fan of this genre, or are just getting into it, I would suggest spending your money elsewhere like Civilization 2 or Pax Imperia.

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