8 people found this review helpful
3 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 1.8 hrs on record
Posted: Jan 8, 2015 @ 9:12pm
Updated: May 12, 2015 @ 5:03pm

Happily Nonbiased Review.

Graphics: By 2003 standards, this quite is kind of low compared to Rise of Nations which also released the same year. The ground looks very bland so does the units. (4/10).

Sounds: The music sometimes doesn't relate to the game and when in combat, the music can sound sometimes very awkward. (4/10).

Gameplay: Gameplay is simple, you build small settlements around a keep and your peasants farm/mine by a village, take the resources to the village and the cart will take the resources from the village to your keep (manor). You build troops to kill the other enemy. (4/10).

Level Design: Level design, for Skirmish, the maps are hideous, down right awful looking and a pain to the eye, there is very few limited maps and they all about look the same; some sand here and there, nice bland greenness for grass here and there and splotch down some random stone blobs and gold blobs as well as tree patches. (5/10).

AI: The AI aren't smart but are made simple (nothing outstanding), AI will sometimes derp out and not do what you tell them to do, and when idle, the game doesn't tell you that you have a group of villagers idle. When your troops move about they have bad pathfinding and I realized that my troops zig zagged left and right when moving to areas and controlling large amount of troops is awkward and hard to place into where you want them to perform combat while setting up their tactics. (4/10).

UI: The UI is very small but comfortable to the eye and gives you a huge portion of the map to look at, one flaw that deters me giving UI a 10 is that when hovering over what to build; it doesn't show you facts about the building and doesn't tell you what it does UNLESS you have the resources to build it. And all buildings until you build the presets for and research it, you can't see the building (it's whitened out). 7/10.

Game Writing: N/A (haven't played campaign).

Content Design: The game has quite a bit of content but it feels like it could have a lot more content because it feels so bland and feels like it has a gap with the content (for example, only about 5-6 infantry units you can build and about 3-5 cav units you can build). (6/10).

Verdict: 49%

Compariable and better games: Cossack series, Stronghold series.
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