Posted on: September 2, 2009
n8mahr
Verified ownerGames: 608 Reviews: 40
I can´t love it nor hate it...
If you have played the older LordsOTR 1 and especially 2, you will have some demands on how a game of this series should look and feel like... But almost all of those expectations will be disappointed. This game is NOT turn based, it is NOT following the old "grow food and build weapons to supply your army" principle. The game is mostly about two things : hectic and pure luck. Why is this? 1) You need "Lords" to do anything, from building an army over generating money to even charm the church. You have only to recruit them and assign them to a piece of land, now becoming their fiefdom. Those "Lords" just pop up at your .. let it be called "lord recruiting pool" and come with greatly variing skills at their profession. Some bring big armies with them for just hiring them, some do not. But those lords do appear purely at random, especially the low level ones at the beginning of each game and it can be frustrating to see that the AI get´s all the good ones. Later on in the game there are better "high level lords", but they have special prerequirements like "army size xxl", "xyz gold in your treasurery" or "min. owned land" before you can hire them. This is where a little strategy and planning comes in and brings the game at least a little bit closer to the "S" in "RTS"... (I hope GOG has included the full manual and hints with this game, since in some european countries (germany and netherlands) , the game was distributed without any reference on how to aquire the higher level lords..) 2) The hectic clicking: Since all players, human and AI all act in real time, the lightning-fast assignment of lords is crucial especially at the beginning of the game. And did you look forward to fighting a battle in real time isometric combat? Do not think of it again, because while you lead your troops in the isometric combat, the AI is marching freely on the normal map towards your capital- the AI can do both - fight and manage resources, while you have to decide : fight or management... Yes, you can switch between both at will, but this is not really an option since most players will now let BOTH things go to ruin - the battle and the management. The game is not total rubbish, since the graphics are acceptable, the music and voiceacting is okay, (it really sounds medieval ;)) But if you wonder why you might have missed this game when it was published, or, did not know until now that it actiually HAS BEEN published.. This game looked old and outdated even as it was published, and it was never a "full price" AAA title, as if the publisher was ashamed of it. And he should be, at least a little bit for naming it lotr3...
Is this helpful to you?
