Campaign Play

Let's follow the path of war in the "Lost King" campaign! This is probably the most appealing mode for solo play. It involves both managing resources and fighting it out with various foes. As usual the missions start-out quite easy and become progressively harder and more involved. New types of soldier and buildings are introduced with each mission.

In some missions you will start out with a castle keep only and the first task is to get your community built and running smoothly. You may have to fend off early attacks whilst building up yor own force. Sometimes attacks will come in the form of wolves. These animal packs can be dealt with by archers and spearmen or you can simply keep them at bay with a secure wall and gates.

The central hub of the settlement usually consists of a main keep, a stock-pile building and granary. It is important to ensure that these are always well defended and protected from criminal activity. Theives can be busted, brought to justice in the courts and perhaps flogged or slaughtered as the judge sees fit!

All resources gathered, such as building materials, are stored in your stock-pile until needed. Food is stowed away in the granary. Pheasant can be shot by hunters and their faithful dogs will eagerly return the dead birds to the granary for later use. Several types of farm can be built allowing for a wider variety of food, beer and fine wine.

Defences

Varoius measures must be employed to help keep an attacking force at bay. These include timber or stone walls, towers, gate houses, moats, burning logs mounted on walls, boiling oil and more. You can deploy archers to the top of walls and towers from where they will rain down deadly projectiles on any foes who come within range. As you would expect, archers have an advantge when they are positioned on walls.

The overall layout and design is fairly flexible and you can make use of nearby natural defences, such as rivers. It would have been nice if the game designers took flexibility further with an even wider selection of fortifications and perhaps some alternative building textures. This would allow a more personalised look to castles.

Sir Grey's castle under seige.

Once you have built up a powerful army you can start launching you're own sieges on your enemies castles. A sound strategy and a good understanding of battle will be needed. No matter what you can be sure that much blood will be spilt during the bombardment and onslaught! Siege camps can be built adjacent to the target of your attack. These camps are where siege equipment can be constructed and launched from.

As you become more experienced in battle you will soon find yourself developing and trying out your own tatics. One simple tatic is to use the opponents own walls and fortifications against him. This can be done by scaling the outer walls with ladders and blasting arrows down upon his troops inside the castle. Of course, to do this you must first clear his troops from the walls.

You can command your forces to blast their way in to the castle using catapults and other bombarding siege equipment. Once a wall has been breached, burning carts can be sent hurtling at the forces within.

Troops in column formation with Warrior Monks in the front line.


A tight knot formation.


The Bull's castle breached.

When playing in campaign mode the game will throw up a few suprises and special objectives which does greatly enhance enjoyment and keeps you on your toes. I have only provided here a quick insight in to the campaign mode, the rest you will need to discover for yourself.