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Warrior Kings: Battles Review - PC

30th June 2003 by
77%
The Lord Protector, Duke Ignis Hagens, has usurped the throne of the Empire, causing it to collapse into anarchy. You must reunite the Empire by destroying the Lord Protector, and conquering the province in which he dwells - Liguriensis. This may initially look like an easy task, but you will have to gain the support of many provinces before you have sufficient resources to face the enemy onslaught that you will find waiting for you!

Having just written a review for Rise of Nations, I come in to Warrior Kings: Battles (from now on, WK:B) with great expectations. Although I soon discovered that WK:B is an entirely different game. The original WK game featured a lot of waiting before battles, and this bored stiff the average gamer. So the developers spent months and months listening to what gamers had to say about the game, and created exactly what the stereotype gamer would have wanted to see in the original WK game.

Gameplay

The campaign mode involves plenty of hours of gameplay to keep you occupied during a cold winter. You start off in a province by the name of Angland. They'll start you off with a manor, a few buildings, units, and peasants to get you working. The province of Angland is not even safe from enemies, and you must conquer Angland before you can move any further, so get to work!

After conquering a province, it will be up to you for what journey you choose to take to get to Liguriensis. Once you get to Liguriensis and conquer it, the campaign mode will be complete, from where you can go back and conquer all the other provinces, or start a new game. But it is strongly suggested that you don't try to get to Liguriensis as fast as you can, because as mentioned in the introduction, you have to gain the support of many provinces in order to have sufficient resources.

Each province will become harder to capture as you get closer to Liguriensis. This doesn't just mean that there will be more generals to defeat; it also means that the generals will become harder. When you click on a province you can view what resources it holds, and what Generals live there with a brief description of them. If the resource is good, the chances are the General protecting it will have a strong foundation. My advice would be to take things slow, and gradually work your way around, before going in for the kill at Liguriensis.

Each time you conquer a province, the generals in it will be unlocked to be used as enemies in the other gameplay modes.

Other gameplay modes include:

  • Skirmish - A single-player game, where you can fight against multiple AI Generals on a map (or province) of your choice.
  • Standard - You start with (continued next page)
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