Warrior Kings: Victory!

K. Fields
2009-12-23T19:53:31-05:00
Video Games

I hadn’t played an RTS (real-time strategy) game since Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds over a year ago. Because of that, I was really looking forward to Warrior Kings, an epic RTS set in a world that blended history and fantasy. At its release in 2002, it was credited for its large scale battles played out in full 3D with a controllable camera. Its other claim to fame was a branching story that featured three different paths: imperial, pagan, and renaissance.

The game received very good reviews overall. The biggest knock against it was that it was fairly buggy when first released. Having played the game with the most recent patch, I only had problems on one level, “The Siege of Mordonis.” Other than that, it played fine. The campaign was called “The House of Cravant.” The campaign’s protagonist is Artos, a baron’s son who directs a war against the corrupt Holy Empire. I started down the imperial path but my decisions took Artos down the renaissance path for the second half of the campaign. The difficulty level was just about right up until the tenth and final level. As is typical with many games, the difficulty level jumped greatly for the last challenge. Strategically, it was fairly straightforward. However, the sheer number of troops and enemies turned it into a micromanagement nightmare. I needed to pause the game almost constantly to get through the level.

It was a very good game that reminded me of Age of Empires with fantasy elements mixed in. The final victory screen is below. Click to enlarge.