maddogdrivethru.net

An oldie but goodie.

I recently rediscovered this game. Thank you Steam for letting me never lose old games.

It's kind of a unique take on RTS games. You don't create units in the traditional way. Instead, people are drawn to your castle or leave depending on your popularity and the availability of housing. This is largely controlled by your tax rate and how much food you ration them but there are other issues like wolf or bear attacks, plagues, and other things.

They will all mill around the campfire until you create a job for them by building something. Then one or more random citizens will go to start working in that building.

Similarly military units are created not directly, but by first creating the weapons needed to arm them. If you need archers, you build bows and arrows. Some units need multiple things built to create like knights or crossbowmen (crossbows + leather armor).

Once the weapons are built, you recruit units from your pool of campfire vagrants.

This system allows for less micro, IMO, but also means more planning as many things require a multi step production chain.

For example, a wheat farm will take wheat to the stockpile. Then the mill will take that wheat and process it into flower. Finally, a baker will take that flower and turn it into bread. There are similar supply chains involved in making some of the weapons.

But the real core of this game is the castle building itself. You can build walls, towers and gates with wood or stone. You need to create staircases on the stone walls to get your archers up there. There are also moats, draw bridges and even hot oil to dump on the baddies.

Also, the voice acting is flat out hilarious.

The bummer is that although many sequels were made, only the first sequel is really any good and all of the others have received mostly negative reviews from the diehard fans of the original.

Anyone else play this?

It's a fun game and yea, the castle is the heart of it.

The different missions are essentially puzzles, you need to solve how to best defend against various enemies utilizing different troops.

There was also the possibility to lay tar or pitch on the field and create a trap by igniting it with a flaming arrow.

Oh yeah, forgot about the tar fires! Great way to take down a hoard!