Posted on: February 17, 2009
Calli
Владелец игрыИгр: 68 Отзывов: 1
A worthwhile game with some minor issues
The Guild Gold Edition is an intriguing simulation, set in Europe from 1400 to 1600 AD and centered on managing a business (for certain values of 'business' in some cases, namely the Thieves' Guild), playing politics, and continuing your family line. Even with tasks growing repetitive after a while, I keep returning to play a few more rounds, because something always pulls me back in -- expanding a home or business, gaining a political office, embarassing a rival, starting a new job, spoiling the children that will eventually take over said job (and any others you've mastered)...when I get tired of one aspect of the game, there's something else to hold my interest. From the description, this game might sound complicated. "Complex" would be a better word: the in-game tutorial covers the basics of running a business and only briefly mentions obtaining a political office, leaving much of the game to be discovered in actual play. However, this is a double-edged sword: it's a joy to discover the finer points of the game on your own, but the learning curve is steep and it can be frustrating to try and figure out where everything is. The manual is somewhat helpful with this, but the game only runs full screen; with Alt+Tab disabled and on a single screen setup, it isn't practical to switch between the two. Game modes include free play, in which you start in the year 1400 and end when your dynasty dies out or you decide to stop, and assignments, which involve playing the game toward a specific goal (such as becoming rich, obtaining nobility, blackmail, et cetera). This is a long game: I haven't had any descendants take over for dynasty founders yet, and I estimate I've sunk at least twenty hours into this game so far. Each city has their own degree of difficulty, on top of the five difficulty modes for free play and assignment mode each. (London on Very Easy free game/assignment difficulty makes an excellent sandbox for new players, which really helps smooth out the difficulty curve.) You also have the option of playing with historical events and information interspersed throughout your turns, some of which will be unique to the city you chose at the start of the game. It's a thoughtful detail on top of the other game elements. Actual play is a combination of real-time and turn based: each year is one turn, but each turn plays out in real time. Curiously, each year is also a season: you'll start in Spring 1400, and the next year will be Summer 1401. Employee hours for many jobs are reliant on the season (thieves, on the other hand, are always at work), with more time in the summer and less in the winter. Your day starts at 6 AM and ends at 11 PM, regardless of season. There are fifteen occupations in the game, eleven of which are selectable when you start a game and the other four trainable during play. These jobs range from the respectable -- clergy, smithing, running a guardhouse, et cetera -- to thievery and highway robbery, and each have their benefits and drawbacks. When you master a job, there's no reason not to move onto another: you keep your previous business, although you may have to sink money into setting up your new occupation, depending on whether you own the applicable business. Of course, in order for your businesses not to end when your character dies, you'll have to have children, and in order to do that you'll have to find and woo a spouse. Courtships take time, and it's entirely possible for a rival to swoop in and steal them away before you win their heart! Rivals create problems elsewhere, too, besmirching your good (well, presumably good) name, committing arson, claiming much-desired political positions, et cetera. You can spy on your rivals and other people, though, and if you catch them committing a crime you can take them to court -- but proof doesn't always translate into a guilty verdict. If the crime's serious enough, a defendant found guilty will be ejected from any political position they hold (along with other punishments). And on the note of political positions, this is one part of the game that I've had problems with. It's not just rivals -- outside of Very Easy, it seems like the elector(s) will go out of their way to choose anyone but you. There are items and actions that can raise your standing with citizens (and diminish others), but it's a lot of work for questionable reward, considering that money and time can usually be spent doing something else with more tangible benefit. The other part of the game that's problematic is the interface. If you're trying to pick up multiple items without using the slider, click too quickly and it'll register as a double click and pick up everything. As someone else mentioned in another review, your units in combat don't always know you've clicked on them to deliver orders (and they have a tendency to get caught behind terrain, too, which means even more frustration trying to get them to move around the obstacle). Oddly, the 'right click to exit, hold down right click to see info' hasn't been a problem for me -- the game's pretty good at identifying which is which. The interface as it stands would be excellent with a tablet pen...but it doesn't quite work out that way, as I'll explain shortly. Moving on, to technical issues: I encountered a minor bug running this game on my Vista laptop, in which text entry (for character names) was impossible if number lock is on. Turning numlock off solves the problem, but it's still slightly annoying. (My desktop computer, which runs XP, doesn't have this problem.) Also, if you have a Wacom tablet, your stylus might not play nice: the tablet mouse for my Intuos2 works fine, but the stylus and The Guild Gold do not get along. At all. I wouldn't assume this is true for all tablet models, especially since mine is an older model, but it's worth keeping in mind. All in all, the problems I've had are easily forgivable, but holds The Guild Gold back from a five-star rating. It's still a fun game, and worth a look if you're a fan of micromanagement games, especially of the economic or historical variety.
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