Medieval Kingdom Wars

Review

The Hundred Years War was a conflict which started in 1337 between two prominent houses:  the Plantagenet, who ruled the Kingdom of England, and the Valois, who ruled the Kingdom of France. They were each fighting for the throne of France. Wait . . . do you dare to change the course of history? Or maybe you will choose to repeat it.  Now, my Lord - which of the houses would you represent? Perhaps you would be more comfortable to represent one of their allies. It would be your choice in Medieval Kingdom Wars. All the best to you, Sire!

Medieval Kingdom Wars is a Strategy game based on historical facts which lead two houses to fight for the throne of France in what it is commonly known as the One Hundred Years War.

Before going further, Medieval Kingdom Wars is currently on early access and has partial features available to players. The most important is without a doubt playing against online opponents in a format of one versus one and two versus two, or just starting a new campaign in the single player mode. However, the campaign will only feature battles at this stage. Advisors, trades, economy and town management will be introduced in future updates, and will greatly enhance the game.

I strongly recommend that you play the tutorial; it will give you a great indication of how the game works, as well a good historical background. When you finish it, you’ll have a good hold on how to create and lead your army to battle.

From here, you’ll be able to either start a campaign, go straight into battle against an online opponent, or experience a skirmish against the AI too.

So what did I do? I started a campaign first and had a go at the skirmish option. In skirmish, you can setup a game where you select the map, how long the game will go for, the victory mode and how low or high the resources. If you want to start a campaign, you can select one of five regions; either England, France, Scotland, Castile or Burgundy. You’ll be able to move your army throughout the map, which is superbly laid-out. You can even cross the channel when you occupy a friendly town on the coast.

When you start a battle, you’ll see your manor house where you can create cerfs (workers) and give them jobs to cut trees, loot, or build houses for your military units. Within your camp and its vicinities, you’ll be able to erect new structures on specific locations. They could be military, towns or industry buildings and each of them have upgrades if you have collected the right number of resources to do so. From here, you’ll have to find the right balance between resources and habitations to raise a strong army to fight your enemies. Each of your buildings will have research technology to be discovered. If you do manage to research faster than your opponents, you’ll definitely have the edge in the battle. Will it be enough though?  Only time will tell.

I really like the graphics. The medieval map is in colourful relief, which is fabulous. The soundtrack is relative to that era but can be a bit annoying at times. However, I like the comments when you give orders to your troops, Sire! The controls are pretty good but I must admit, I personally had issues with my mouse. The great news is that the developers are listening and acting to community concerns. A big plus in my opinion.