Customer Reviews

Lords of the Realm: Royal Collection

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are a fan of computer wargames and have not yet experienced Lord of the Realms II, then you have missed a real treat.

Players in this game assume the role of medieval lords, each the ruler of a county. Throughout the game, lords must divide the labor of their peasants between agriculture (herding cattle and growing wheat) and industry (mining iron, quarrying stone, cutting wood, and manufacturing weapons), decide how to tax their people, and adjust food distribution. When necessary, they can upgrade their fortifications, raise troops, hire mercenaries, and buy needed goods from merchants. The ultimate goal of the game is to conquer enemy counties and become king over the entire country.

Troop types include peasants, macemen, archers, crossbowmen, pikemen, swordsmen, and knights. Castles begin as simple, un- garrisoned palisades and can be upgraded, resources available, to a motte-and-bailey, Norman keep, stone castle, or royal castle (a big stone castle with a moat).

Sieges are the high point of this game. Attackers can assault fortifications with troops supported by catapults, siege towers, and battering rams, and defenders can man the walls with their soldiers and pour boiling oil on the besiegers.

Lords of the Realm II has improved upon the deficiencies of its predecessor, Lords of the Realm, and provides a good balance of strategy and tactics, economic management and battle.

Lords of the Realm 2 was the first strategy game I played. A friend brought it over in 7th grade, and in the past 7 years it's been the one game I've gone back to repeatedly. I have yet to grow tired of this game.

First, I love the game's soundtrack. I've actually put all the music WAV files in a playlist...and while I'm on the subject of the audio, if you haven't listened to setup2.wav, DO IT!

As for gameplay, it isn't exactly the most complicated of strategy games, but I think that's part of what makes it fun. If you're going to create an army, wait for one of the merchants to come through so you can buy ale. It's much easier to feed people on grain than cows, and it doesn't hurt happiness. The Knight is a spoiled brat. It is music to my ears to hear "The county is yours, my lord..." After countless hours playing this game, things like these are what you will discover. Oh, and defending your first siege without losing a guy (and no auto-calc either)...now there's a feeling of intense pride.

If you can manage to get the (now flaky) multiplayer system to work anymore (it sure as heck wasn't designed for XP!), you're in for quite a treat. The Siege Pack adds in a new gameplay form, the Skirmish. This is the real-time battles of the game played separate from the game itself. These are great for when you don't have time to sit through the typical hours for an RTS, but have a taste for medieval battle.

Although i have this game already for over 5 years, i still enjoy playing it. Sound, graphics and gameplay are great, considering the age of the game. The only sad thing perhaps is that you can perfectly calculate what to do in order to win the game: 1 cow feeds 10 people, next season i will have exactly produced 124 bows etc... The only random factors, which you can't influence at all, are events like the plague. If calculated well, you can defend one county against an invasion of all other counties together. So don't set the difficulty too easy. For the rest it is a recommender although its age.

I just found and played LOTRII 2 weeks ago for the first time in 3 years. I am a sucker for this time period and started with Defender of the Crown back in the Tandy days. I was still surprised how challenging and good LOTRII was after all this time!

This is a challenging game, especially when the difficulty level is set to anything over 'normal'.

The control over economy, farming resource management, castle building and military design is wonderful. The graphics are good for a game of its age as do the sounds.

Military battles are reminiscant of Warcraft controls.

It has run very successfully on my Windows XP box and sounds beter than ever through Audigy.

I give 4 out of 5 as AI diplomacy could use an upgrade. I can't wait for Lords Of The Realm III to come out. Until then enjoy this, its still worth the purchase!

James

This is a good turn-based strategy game. All the different kinds of units to command are quite fun. But, there is no surprise in this game and you get bored by the routine of the events, feed the people-build army-fight. The diplomacy is poor and easely foreseeable. Maybe it's just the medieval life that is not very varied.

This is a fun stratagy game although is an older game. Sometimes when playing the game you swere the other opponits are real players. AI is real good. I had fun.

This is a GREAT turn-based strategy game; perhaps on my list of top 5 of all time. The only real drawback is that it is pretty old, so it has to be in compatibility mode on Vista, and isn't as smooth on XP (though it still works, it doesn't play the cut screens). Not sure how it works on Linux-based OS. But it's simply to play and to learn to play with on-screen tips, and will keep you entertained for hours, notwithstanding its age.

This doesn't make me dizzy like some games do. I enjoy this time period and game play. I wish more games were like this. Improvements would be more weapons choices and fantasy creatures. I need a dragon.

This collection can be bought on GOG.com any given day for under $6, and will work on win7. Today the 18th of July it,s under $3 to buy.

i have played lords II for years , and i rate it over any game i have played, tryed to load it on my new puter with vista, but would not work, really love playing this game, so i bought lords III, it was terrible ,
i wish that they would update the lords II game , with other countries and features. i have all but wore out the one i have, and probably will have to purchase a new one, but i dont know if they work on xp or vista, as i could not get it to. i have an old puter with ME on it so i may have to get it out of storage . great game