How does it compare to Medieval Dynasty now?

[Lunar]

I am having a hard time picking between Bellwright, this and Medieval Dynasty for a coop experience with my partner.

[PakaNoHida]

I picked up Medieval Dynasty and returned it in under an hour, it just wasn't fun for me, but this game, I have a lot of hours in it since I bought it

[velasquezt43]

Sengoku has still got lots of rough ends compared to Medieval but I like it a lot more.

The thing that really makes me like SD over MD is the village/region system. Having villages that I can name and regions that I can take control over make me really feel immersed into the system. In Medieval Dynasty, you can build anywhere, sure, but you can't name places, create new villages. You just build in the countryside outside of the established places and it just feels like you aren't really part of the world. You're just some weirdo building strange things in the countryside.

I made a review of this game where I also said my other largest like of Sengoku. Most games like this are set in "Generic Medieval Europe" and its rather overdone and bland for me now. The setting of medieval Japan is refreshing and interesting for me. For instance, did you know that Lady Nijo was a real person? Not much is known about her but she kept a journal that survives to this day and gives a candid glimpse of imperial court life of the time. I just learned this doing some background reading about Japan because of this game.

I guess I just prefer 15th century Japan to 10th century Eastern Europe, I guess. X-D

PS: Bellwright got a thumbs down by me for the lack of a 1st Person POV. You can only play in 3rd person. I didn't get much past that failing.

[Summanus]

I haven't played much yet, but I've played a lot of Medieval Dynasty, so I can offer some observations so far on general gameplay differences (all the stuff about liberating areas etc I haven't reached yet, so I can't comment on those).

The most striking differences I've noticed so far are these:

- There is no family Dynasty system in this game like there was in MD.
Your villagers do not pair up and have children in this. You increase population only by recruiting more and more of them, but never any marriages or kids. Therefore age is not a thing in this game either. Villagers have virtually no stats at all.
Your character can marry and have a child, but at the moment that child is little more than a burdensome accessory that never grows up.

- Villagers don't have skill stats (other than their happiness).
Unlike in MD, villagers don't have stats in different skills - for example, you won't find a refugee who is great at mining, or one great at cooking - they are all basically identical and can fill any role with equal efficiency (depending upon their happiness). They don't age, they don't level up skills... they just get happier or sadder.
This kinda makes you less invested in each individual villager because they are all replaceable, which is a shame, but considering you're meant to build multiple villages in multiple regions I can understand why it was done. This game is more macro; MD is more micro.

- You don't need to upgrade buildings to new tiers.
In MD you had Barn tier 1, Barn tier 2, Barn tier 3 etc... and you had to upgrade the buildings to the latest tier each time you unlocked them. In this game its handled differently. Theres only 1 tier for each building type and instead you can add more furniture and workstations to them.
So, you want more foragers collecting food? Add another workstation to the grid in your Forager's Hut. You want more than 1 person sleeping in a house? Add another bed. You want them to live in the Forager's Hut? Add a bed there.

- You can move both buildings and furniture around after its built!
This is a big one and very welcome. No more building a building and then cursing about how its in the wrong place - now you can simply move it to where it should be. Same with the furniture inside the buildings. No need to deconstruct and rebuild anything.

- NPCs have short lines of Japanese dialogue audio.
This is a small thing but a welcome one. When you talk to someone they speak a short sentence in Japanese, which is a nice touch and really adds to the atmosphere.

There's a lot more to do in the surrounding world.
In MD you're just some guy/gal who wants to setup another random village in a fairly boring region and get people to live there. In this game you're setting up a network of multiple villages and creating a new kingdom really.
There are lots of quests to do for NPCs and even some major infrastructure projects like building a bridge etc. Sengoku definitely feels more alive.

Thats all I can think of right now. If I got anything wrong hopefully someone will correct me - as I say I'm not very far into this yet.

So far I'm enjoying it though. In terms of how vibrant and alive the world feels, it definitely feels like an upgrade on MD. Plus I love Japanese culture, so its an easy win for me. I do miss the whole villagers having families thing though and the no skill stats thing is a shame.

[Loir]

I played MD again and again and had a lot of fun of it.
Sengoku is far more complicated concerning the construction of buildings. You have to liberate a region first or get certain resources for example.
Sengoku also has a lot of fights, what you may like or not.

[Sleeping Knight]

I played and completed MD. SD has a few rough edges I hope they can smoothen in terms of management but the overall feel of the game is much nicer than MD.

The combat is more fun but I am playing on chill mode. I'm looking forward to the game improving as it goes along.

[El Presidente]

Originally posted by velasquezt43:

Sengoku has still got lots of rough ends compared to Medieval but I like it a lot more.

The thing that really makes me like SD over MD is the village/region system. Having villages that I can name and regions that I can take control over make me really feel immersed into the system. In Medieval Dynasty, you can build anywhere, sure, but you can't name places, create new villages. You just build in the countryside outside of the established places and it just feels like you aren't really part of the world. You're just some weirdo building strange things in the countryside.

I made a review of this game where I also said my other largest like of Sengoku. Most games like this are set in "Generic Medieval Europe" and its rather overdone and bland for me now. The setting of medieval Japan is refreshing and interesting for me. For instance, did you know that Lady Nijo was a real person? Not much is known about her but she kept a journal that survives to this day and gives a candid glimpse of imperial court life of the time. I just learned this doing some background reading about Japan because of this game.

I guess I just prefer 15th century Japan to 10th century Eastern Europe, I guess. X-D

PS: Bellwright got a thumbs down by me for the lack of a 1st Person POV. You can only play in 3rd person. I didn't get much past that failing.

You can create villages and name them now since the recent update! Not right way but after you get the king's permission.

[bateluer]

Originally posted by Summanus:

I haven't played much yet, but I've played a lot of Medieval Dynasty, so I can offer some observations so far on general gameplay differences (all the stuff about liberating areas etc I haven't reached yet, so I can't comment on those).

The most striking differences I've noticed so far are these:

- There is no family Dynasty system in this game like there was in MD.
Your villagers do not pair up and have children in this. You increase population only by recruiting more and more of them, but never any marriages or kids. Therefore age is not a thing in this game either. Villagers have virtually no stats at all.
Your character can marry and have a child, but at the moment that child is little more than a burdensome accessory that never grows up.

- Villagers don't have skill stats (other than their happiness).
Unlike in MD, villagers don't have stats in different skills - for example, you won't find a refugee who is great at mining, or one great at cooking - they are all basically identical and can fill any role with equal efficiency (depending upon their happiness). They don't age, they don't level up skills... they just get happier or sadder.
This kinda makes you less invested in each individual villager because they are all replaceable, which is a shame, but considering you're meant to build multiple villages in multiple regions I can understand why it was done. This game is more macro; MD is more micro.

- You don't need to upgrade buildings to new tiers.
In MD you had Barn tier 1, Barn tier 2, Barn tier 3 etc... and you had to upgrade the buildings to the latest tier each time you unlocked them. In this game its handled differently. Theres only 1 tier for each building type and instead you can add more furniture and workstations to them.
So, you want more foragers collecting food? Add another workstation to the grid in your Forager's Hut. You want more than 1 person sleeping in a house? Add another bed. You want them to live in the Forager's Hut? Add a bed there.

- You can move both buildings and furniture around after its built!
This is a big one and very welcome. No more building a building and then cursing about how its in the wrong place - now you can simply move it to where it should be. Same with the furniture inside the buildings. No need to deconstruct and rebuild anything.

- NPCs have short lines of Japanese dialogue audio.
This is a small thing but a welcome one. When you talk to someone they speak a short sentence in Japanese, which is a nice touch and really adds to the atmosphere.

There's a lot more to do in the surrounding world.
In MD you're just some guy/gal who wants to setup another random village in a fairly boring region and get people to live there. In this game you're setting up a network of multiple villages and creating a new kingdom really.
There are lots of quests to do for NPCs and even some major infrastructure projects like building a bridge etc. Sengoku definitely feels more alive.

Thats all I can think of right now. If I got anything wrong hopefully someone will correct me - as I say I'm not very far into this yet.

So far I'm enjoying it though. In terms of how vibrant and alive the world feels, it definitely feels like an upgrade on MD. Plus I love Japanese culture, so its an easy win for me. I do miss the whole villagers having families thing though and the no skill stats thing is a shame.

This post offers a good summary of the differences between the two games, IMO. My first attempt at SD failed miserably because I assumed it was just a reskin of MD and its not. While they're similar in many respect, the differences above make them play quite differently.

As far as which is better . . . I don't know. There are things I like from both games. I'm not sure how much collab there is between Toplitz's internal studios.