
Innovative game design: The unique mixture of RTS and RPG elements offers a brand new game experience. Soon, the time will come when the power of one may change the destiny of many. A human damned to immortality, bound forever by the power of the blood runes… Now, only a few years after the end of the Convocation, evil is back – stronger and more powerful than ever before – to finish what was started.

All that was left were a few islands, connected by magic portals. Huge armies, bound by the the power of ancient runes, brought war and destruction to the lands that survived the initial onslaught. Continents shattered like glass, the pieces strewn about like leaves in the wind. Entire countries were wiped out in the blink of an eye when the devastating power of the Elements was unleashed – Elements summoned by dark rituals. Yes, take that gold surplus and stimulate the economy by putting it back in.In their immeasurable greed and constant thirst for power, the thirteen most powerful Mages of all time doomed the land, hurling it into an endless spiral of chaos and despair. So now that you have a nice little city in place, how do you make sure the dwarves don’t just hang out at the tavern all day quaffing ale and singing dwarven drinking songs? Bounties. Wizards, elves, dwarves, thieves, and clerics will all frequent your city’s shops and taverns, and a little bit of it all goes back to you, the king, thanks to your trusty little fairy tale IRS. Those fighters could really use a little backup, so why now build a rangers guild to give them some long-range backup? The ranger’s armor isn’t quite as good, however, so you can build a smithy and sell upgraded armor and weapons, and onward it goes. Now your tax man can make the rounds and bring back the king’s cut. As your warriors roam the countryside fighting monsters and making gold, they’ll need to come back to town, buy potions, and pay their dues to the guild. Now your kingdom seems low on gold, so build a market selling health potions.


Want some fighters? Build a warriors guild near your castle. Instead of having to constantly order little people about, you simply set up the world around them and watch how they react to it. I wish The Sims had an “hands off” mode where you could just stand back and watch the Sims like a fancy ant farm as they figure out their lives for themselves, and didn’t just stand in the corner either pissing themselves or jumping and frolicking in puppy piss. It irritates me further that most strategy games have no option to let you set up A.I. I’ve always wished many video game characters were more autonomous. Nearly 10 years later, we’re finally getting a sequel, and I, for one, am ecstatic because I fell in love with that smart little game all those years ago. That was the premise behind Majesty, a game that turned the RTS genre on its ear and called itself a “fantasy kingdom sim” way back in 2000. But what if your little soldiers and grunts didn’t listen to you? What if they simply ignored you and went about having lives of their own? What if they used their own cash to buy their own equipment and went off to fight whoever they wanted to? One of the hallmarks of the real-time strategy game is ordering around all your little troops, be they orcs, knights, elves, aliens, marines, or tanks.
