this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Lords Of The Realm 2 is my gaming equivalent of comfort food. It might not have awards or hype buzzing around it, but it is always the perfect choice for a rainy day when I’m feeling restless. I’ve played and replayed it many times. Currently I own it on Steam.

The game was developed by the British studio Impressions Games. If you have played other titles by the studio such as the Caesar games, Pharaoh, or Civil War General games then the style and sensibilities of this game will feel instantly familiar.

Mechanically it is similar to the Total War series. There is a turn based overworld map where resources, production, construction, and army movements can be controlled; and then there are real time combat portions where field battles and sieges can be directed. However Lords Of The Realm 2 was released in 1996, itself a sequel to the first game that was released in 1994, far predates the Total War series. Rather than modern, clean 3D graphics the game has a more classic animated style to it.

The battlefields are viewed directly from overhead, rather than an isometric or oblique cavalier perspective, and soldiers do not move in prearranged formations but are dragged and selected in a style closer to a traditional real time strategy game.

The overworld map is divided into counties. By default the game is set in Britain, but a player can choose alternate scenarios such Ireland, Scotland, Italy, France, or all of Europe (with each country of the smaller scenarios representing a single county). There are also options such as China and India. There are even abstract formations of land to fight over. No matter what is chosen the visuals never change from the appearance and style of medieval Britain.

To conquer a county on the map the town center must be taken, or if there is a castle it must be sieged and overrun. Unaligned counties are easy pickings, fielding only peasants supported by a small hodgepodge of archers and macemen. Counties under control of enemy factions tend to be tougher, usually with their garrison inside of a castle. To crack a castle, the attacking army must commit to a multi-turn siege where it builds siege engines capable of either battering down the gates, smashing the walls, or allowing troops to scale over top.

The game has five possible castle types, which can be build in either an ascending order, or chosen from if the player has enough resources to build a better one right off the bat. Each castle in order is obviously clearly better than the preceding castle, although any castle in a county is better than one at all.

With counties under control, the taxes, food production, and resources must be managed from the town center. Paying attention to county happiness is vital. A county which becomes too unhappy for too long will revolt from control of the player, requiring force to retake, and in the process killing the villagers who make up the work force. Positive factors like increased rations, good health, or lower taxes will make a county happier while alternates like cut rations, plague, high taxes, or military recruitment from the county will lower it.

Building armies is done by recruiting from individual counties. In the recruitment screen troops can be assigned weapons from the armory. If no weapon is assigned, troops are unarmored peasants with pitchforks, the weakest but cheapest type of unit in the game. Solid early game choices are maces, which are cheap to make but significantly improve peasents to make them good all around melee troops. Archers are good for defending castle walls. Pikemen are good in theory, but the game doesn’t have the kind of options to consistly get them in good formations around units in need of protection. Later game crossbowmen are like slower firing but more powerful archers. They are a good counter to the swordsmen and expensive, but all around powerful knights. In addition to recruiting, sometimes there will be an opportunity to hire mercenaries. If money is available, mercenaries are almost always a good choice. Their recruitment doesn’t lower county morale. The only downside is that two different groups of mercenaries can not exist in a single army.

The AI opponents in control of the opposing factions are all colorful and appropriate to the tone. There is a haughty Countess, a sneering Bishop, a boisterous Knight, and a tired Baron vying for control of the map against me. I can send compliments or insults. Truly in many years I have never figured out if they have any effect, because even raising an AI’s disposition high enough to sign a treaty with them seems meaningless. If the AI decides it wants my territory, a treaty doesn’t even seem to slow it down. The different AIs might be programmed with different leadership styles by I can barely tell. The only tactic that stands out is the Knight’s habit of raising small peasant armies for the purpose of burning my crops and harassing my countryside. No matter, even if all the rest of the opponents are mechanically the same, their voice acting and lines makes me uniquely despise them, and motivates me to smash every last castle they own.

The audio is a huge factor in this game’s charm. The ambient music is a constant calming stream pipes and lutes that could have come straight from a renaissance fair. In the overworld cows will moo when clicked on. Blacksmiths shops will have the sound of hammering metal. In battle every unit will give a gruff reply when given an order. Men scream as castle defenders dump boiling oil onto them. The game is just alive with the sounds of an exaggerated, almost storybook like perception of the middle ages.

I recommend this game to anyone was wants a strategy game that isn’t overly demanding or stressful. A playthrough can easily be completed in a single evening. The mechanics may be dated, but they are rock solid, and the art style is timeless.

Post on my blog. (I have other stuff too!)

top 26 comments
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[–] MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.de 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Man i love theae reviews. Thank you for your work. I especially appreciate the gameplay Screenshots

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks. I'm trying to put that content everybody keeps asking for on lemmy. I'm mentally toying with the idea of videos if I become confident enough to script and edit.

I'm mentally toying with the idea of videos

If they're anything like this post I'd watch in a heartbeat!

[–] TehBamski@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

This is in my top 10 favorite games of my childhood. Loved this game so much! It blew my mind as a kid that you could maneuver your units around while sieging a castle. Even more so, was the fact that there were many different castle/fort maps to battle on. I was expecting it to be an automated battle when sieging. This game shined in its gameplay mechanics.

[–] Bert_the_Troll@reddthat.com 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I put hundreds of hours in to this game as a kid, absolutely loved it. Never could keep a supply of cattle sustained though. Eventually my whole population was milk maids until the eventual collapse.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I always go full vegetarian. Sell all the cows and use the money to buy a bunch of grain, preferably in winter. Plant everything, and you’re good. Once grain starts making surpluses you have enough to feed everyone and sell the excess back to the carts for the rest of the game.

In spring, summer, and winter grain needs fewer workers. Only in fall will it need reallocation.

[–] lemmydripzdotz123@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My lord? Yes? My lord? What now? Let's get digging! Ho! Alright.

[–] ensignrick@startrek.website 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow nostalgia. I haven't seen this for years. Love this game growing up

[–] Ithi@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Same here, one of my childhood habits that I had never beat and forget existed but played a lot... I've gone back and beat a lot, seems like this might be the next.

[–] Raziid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I’m developing a game that’s in this genre in between Total War and this (from my childhood memory) and Conquest of Elysium. This review inspired me to play it again.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I played this as a kid and I loved it. I bet now, as an adult who understands gameplay, it's probably a ton more interesting!

[–] Hermano@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Both lotr 1 and 2 were great games. Really sad that part 3 killed the franchise.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I never played 3. Back in the day my computer couldn’t run it, and I never got around to trying it out. I own it as part of the Steam pack I bought 2 with, but my next review will be a mystery game that I had to order a physical copy of.

[–] negativenull@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

This is (in my opinion) the best game ever made. Absolute banger

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Who in the hell carries a halberd while riding a horse?

[–] Wodge@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Sir Johnny of Concrete, the 'ardest man in thine Kingdom.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The caption calls him "For Win 95 & DOS CD". It's a very archaic set of titles.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

The rest of us simply call him "my liege".

[–] WarlockLawyer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I only had the demo as a child but replayed that endlessly. I miss the solid demos of the 90s. Like Age of Empires one had a whole campaign as a demo. Fucking glorious Hittites.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

For $1.29 you can buy a pack with Lords of The Realm 1,2,3 and Lords Of Magic on Steam right now. (This is not an ad, just saying, the game is still very accessible).

And I miss big thick paper manuals, especially ones with background info and art.

[–] Hermano@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Gog.com sells 1+2 for 2€ right now as well. So not as cheap, Lords of magic was another great game. Edit: confused Lords of magic with masters of magic, the latter is great, I don't actually know the former.

Paper manuals were great, some games had other cool stuff like cloth maps or metal figurines. Todays cheap always available games are cool as well though.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I’ve tried playing Lords Of Magic and have bounced off of it. The real time combat feels more like a real time tactics game than a strategy game, and I’m pretty bad at real time tactics games. It also makes use of heroic characters and faction specific abilities and magic. It’s something I haven’t fully wrapped around.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing. Have you played games in the Civ series? If so your description makes them sound similar, would you agree? I've been poking around other "4X" games, but don't have the best laptop so while I'd love to play more recent games they don't all pan out. Civ V works but Civ VI won't, for example. I'm also using steam on Ubuntu so I'd guess that might contribute to the issues.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Lords Of The Realm 2 is substantially different from the Civ games. In Lords Of The Realm 2 there is no tech tree and no eras to unlock, there are no alternative options for victory aside from military success, the player and AI do not create their villages but the village locations are preset on the map, there is no building of logistical infrastructure such as roads or mining quarries- instead each county has predetermined resources and the player only decides how many workers to assign to them, battles happen inside their own distinct level of play rather than happening on the world map.

The Civ games are 4x games where long term research and policy decisions are needed to build a faction. Lords Of The Realm 2 is set strictly in the medieval setting and is only concerned with the immediate local squabble.

[–] ctobrien84@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I loved this game.