Game Play

The campaign consists of twenty-five missions of increasing difficulty. Regardless of the magical aspects, these missions are tactical exercises, pure and simple. With the exception of dwarven bottles and demolition charges, explosive weapons have not been developed, so fighting is a matter of edged weapons and fortifications. The basic tenet of using sword slingers to protect ranged weapon fighters still holds. Yet, the formations allow differentiation from the bum's rush of other real-time games. Forming up archers on the reverse slope of a hill crowned by a crescent of fighters can break up most any attack. The range of field missions includes search-and-destroy, clearing an area and running a gauntlet. At the lowest of the three difficulty levels, the enemy allows the player time to heal units. They aren't so obliging on the higher levels.

Magic is factored into the game in three ways. Some units have limited healing powers while others can throw combat spells, functioning as powerful ranged weapons. More interesting is the way some monsters can move magically, floating to positions knights can't reach or hovering over deep waters. The variety of monsters and evil characters make each mission unique.

The AI is no dummy. It is capable of ambushes and traps. It rarely attacks piecemeal and knows when to run. Luckily, the player's units show some initiative and will defend themselves without orders although path finding is clumsy at times. Damage from friendly fire is also a nice realistic touch. One shortcoming of single-player gameplay is that the missions are scripted, and so once won, replaying them can get repetitive. An editor could improve this situation, and was listed on the game box, but none is provided with the game. The developers are working on a patch that is supposed to include these editors.

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