Posted on: January 9, 2016
Brobdidnag
Verified ownerGames: 495 Reviews: 7
Better than Battles, more fun than TW
I have not yet written a review for GOG, but this forgotten gem deserves it. I am one of the few people who (I cannot remember exactly how - it may have been second-hand) bought and played this game shortly after it came out, based on nothing other than a low price and the intimation from the box blurb that it looked decent enough. To cut a long story short - it had issues! It felt a bit like an unfinished beta, and it took me a while to get it to run without problems. I assume these things have been addressed in the GOG release (I seem to recall there was an eventual patch that more or less sorted it out). It was also initially quite confusing and not entirely obvious what one was expected to do, or how to do it. But something kept me persevering. I found that the game ran too fast for my liking at its default speed, so a couple of hits of the minus key slows it to a much more leisurely pace and allows you to enjoy the rather beautiful landscape and the activities of your peasants as they go about their daily tasks. It also makes battles less frantic and more tactical, which I prefer. This game immersed me into its world more than almost any other RTS. Once you configure the totally free camera to your liking you will find you have complete and easy freedom to move around the (sometimes enormous) maps - this alone makes this game superior to most RTS-type games, where the view is weirdly restricted to a small area at a particular strange angle! Having experienced the total freedom in Warrior Kings many other RTS games will seem horribly limited, view-wise. The Artos campaign for me was highly enjoyable. Siege weapons are spectacular. The final battle of the single player campaign lives in my memory as one of the greatest experiences I have had in thirty years of PC gaming. WK:Battles was slightly more polished, but the maps seem smaller and the grand scale and atmosphere of the original is lost. Still great, but not quite as magical. Buy them both!
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