Ancestors Legacy

At first I was excited. At first it seemed like a Dark Ages Company of Heros. But this impression didn't last too long. The Good: Solid squad management and combat mechanics, Attack, retreat, stances, special abilities that have can change the outcome of battles. Decent Graphics. Action Cam helps to appreciate the time spent on individual unit animations. Each unit in a sqaud can be having it own little fight with a differnt enemy. The Bad. The level design is Lazy. (invincible units intended to funnel you in a certain direction, Allied AI that stands half dead at the townhall and waits for you to be overrun before engaging) Factions seemed to be more of less reskined versions of the each other. (admittedly I've only played the first two, but they might as well be the same faction) Voice acting and dialouge is a little stiff Winning Strategies are repetitive. Start a skirmish at a critical point on the map, and then cycle your troops into the battle. Retreat, Heal, Attack, Retreat, Heal, Attack, Retreat. Conclusion Company of Heros did it better.

Don't want to spend much time into a detailed recension. It's really not worth it. Forced online multiplayer. Great engine, great coders, technically really good. BUT conceptually totally flawed, supersimple, nobrainer, no strategy, it's supersuperficial. Relatively easy to play and win, repetirepetirepetitive. I should have listened to Sagottarian's advise and I am really peeved about myself spending those bucks. I wouldn't even have it as a gift because it's really waste of time. Sorry for that harsh critics, but I'm sorry for these great coders having to fulfill such a *+/)8- task. Better go and play ninepenny for a strategy kick better than that. Glad to have so many other great games here on gog. Btw, when will gog finally distinguish between forced online multiplayer on one side and free classic LAN multi/coop on the other? This would really be an improvement for GOG and transparency in particular.

Pros - A solid take overall on a Medieval-themed Company of Heroes style RTS. - Pretty good graphics. The melee combat animations are pretty impressive, with the bonus of silly ragdolls. :P - Has a wider berth of tactics to try than you'd expect. This game makes pretty good use of its relatively limited unit variety. (The mechanics for Archers and Cavalry are great specifically.) - Decent Skirmish AI. Far from amazing, but it's ok. Cons - The campaigns are quite repetitive overall and their storylines are largely pointless. (Both Viking campaigns, the Teutonic Order campaign, Mieszko I's campaign, and the Saracen campaign if you get its DLC are the campaigns that are worth at least trying. IGNORE THE REST, including BOTH Anglo-saxon campaigns. The Anglo-saxon campaigns get special mention for being the worst in the game.) - Multiplayer/Skirmish settings are pretty limited. Not a lot of map variety either. - Don't zoom in on Cavalry combat animations... It's very clear that on-foot infantry got ALL of the animation attention here.

This is a great little hold over until WC3 Reforged. Most people will think this game is like CoH, but WC3 with its well defined unit v unit relationships is a better match and focus on using unique unit abilities. In addition, the games go about 20-40 minutes revolve around taking and holding expansions that generate resources.