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By Cheryl Booth (Cheryl)
Moderator
March 15, 2006

Developer: (Arcona Magi)
Price: US $14.95
Rating (out of 5):

Medieval Heroes II is a game of empire building and turn-based battles set in the Middle Ages.

As one of the medieval lords, you will engage in combat with surrounding provinces in an attempt to unite Medieval Europe under your leadership.

The game area consists of a great number of provinces. At the beginning, you control some of these provinces. Every province gives some resources (gold, metal and stone) to you.

You can spend collected resources on recruiting new troops and capture new territories with their help. You can use your special forces for scouting, robbing and assassinating your enemies.

You can also build castles, fortify them, and build additional buildings like markets or banks. During the game your hero will get experience and you can improve his skills.

Your goal is to unite all of the provinces under your control!

Testing Environment
Medieval Heroes II was installed to the CF card on my X50V. I also installed it to the SD card of my X5. No problems and the game ran flawlessly.

Playing the Game
I like to think I have an open mind when it comes to the games I play on my PPCs. I’ve played puzzle games, RPGs, adventure games…. just about any kind of game you can think of. I do not consider myself a fan of turn based strategy games, however. I tried one or two before and was just bored out of my mind. They were either too complicated or I was just too impatient to figure them out. I’m not the type of person who wants to have to read a manual before being able to understand a game well enough to play it. And then there were the graphics/effects. Nothing special. In fact, they were seriously lacking. I like to see a little action in my games and until now I just hadn’t found a turn based strategy game that was able to give me what I wanted. Then I was asked to review Medieval Heroes II. I looked at a couple of screenshots and figured I was in for another snooze fest and a terrible game. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Not only did I actually enjoy playing this game, I got my 8 year old son hooked on it, too!

At first glance Medieval Heroes II (MHII) is nothing special. Sure, it’s nice to look at, but there’s not too much going on. It didn’t take me long to see that the actual gameplay of MHII more than makes up for whatever it is lacking graphically.

There are five different missions available in MHII, each with four different levels of difficulty so there is something for gamers of every skill level. MHII allows up to six players. You can pit your army against computer armies and/or human armies via hotseat. This means that up to five human players can play against each other on the same device. I for one absolutely hate passing a Pocket PC around to other people during a game. It’s an inconvenience and it breaks up the flow of the game. I had to ask the folks at Arcona Magi if a wireless multiplayer mode was in the works. Sadly, the response was that none is planned at this time.

There is a manual that accompanies MHII. Of course I tried to play the game without even glancing at it. I’m sure if I had any experience with this type of game then I wouldn’t have had any trouble. But, being the novice that I am, I just couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. Areas on the map were flashing and sometimes changing color and I had no idea why. When it was my turn I did not have the faintest idea what to do. I did pick up a couple of things by trial and error. I discovered that I could send scouts to surrounding areas and determine an enemy army’s size and then decide if I wanted to do nothing, attack or send in assassins. I also found that I could attempt to rob an opponent’s castle.

I decided to take a look at the manual. I highly recommend that anyone playing MHII read the thing. It didn’t take me that long and I was able to better understand how to play the game. Not to mention I learned what all the different buttons on the screen were used for, how to build an army and other skills necessary to play the game. After reading the manual I decided to begin again. I quickly discovered that MHII is not an easy game to master.

You begin the game with a castle and a number of regions. Each player has the same. The goal of MHII is to conquer all of the other territories. While each player does not know the size/location of the opponents troops, I felt that my opponents always seemed to begin with more troops than I did. At the start of the game I would find one of my territories being attacked by one of the other armies. The attacking army always seemed to have more members than my poor defending army. I would have maybe five swordsmen and the other army would have, say, five swordsmen, two axemen and six archers. I got so that I spent less time trying to conquer new territories and more time building my army and having my assassins sneak around.

Eventually I was either forced to defend myself or I felt brave enough to attack a neighboring territory. When you go into battle you have the option of seeing the battle play out or you can choose quick battle and see the end result of the battle – whether you won or lost and how many casualties there were. I usually opted to watch the battle for a couple of reasons. Choosing quick battle allows the computer to control your army and I found that my casualty count was higher and the enemy suffered fewer losses when I did this. Not only did I prefer to control the placement and attack strategy of my army, I just like watching the little guys fight it out. The bowmen really shoot the arrows, the swordsmen use their swords… well, you get the idea.

I was a little disappointed when I saw that only one of each type of soldier is displayed on the screen with their number displayed over their heads. If I had nine archers, there would be one archer on the screen and a number nine over his head. Then I thought about how unreasonable and difficult it would be to have nine separate archers on the screen at one time. If the actual number of troops were displayed on the screen it would be too crowded and chaotic. Besides, you do have the option of splitting up your troops when it’s time to attack so you can have a group of four archers and a group of five archers if you so choose.

The thing you have to remember is that it costs money to expand/defend your empire. Each territory has different quantities of gold, stone and metal. Each type of soldier has a different cost. Then there are the upgrades, additional castles, banks, repairs, etc. You really have to be conscientious about what assets each territory has and what assets you require for your army and for your empire.

MHII is a little like an RPG (role-playing game) in that you earn experience points as you rob, assassinate and attack your opponents. These points can be used to increase Battle, Building or Strength. As an attribute increases you will become better/stronger or faster. For example, if you choose to increase your Building, not only will you build quicker you may notice that repairs to your buildings go faster as well.

Closing Words

Despite my initial impressions of the MHII (based solely on a couple of screenshots and previous failed attempts to play RTS games) I found myself thoroughly enjoying MHII. Even my eight year old son, who normally plays Snails, Warfare Inc and Age of Empires fell hard for MHII. While there is nothing extraordinary about the graphics, the screens are crisply colored and pleasing to look at. I actually had to read some of the game manual before I could play the game, but it was worth the effort. I discovered that RTS games can be a lot of fun if they are done well, as MHII has been. I know I have several more hours of gaming to look forward to even if I do eventually figure out how to outsmart the AI armies thanks to the mission editor available at the Medieval Heroes II website. Not to mention the missions that other players have created and made available. Priced under $15, Medieval Heroes II makes an affordable addition to any PPC gamers game collection.

Pros:

• Reasonable price
• Multiple levels of difficulty
• Expandability – You can create a new campaign or download one created by someone else
• Multiplayer via hotseat gaming
• VGA version available
• Unofficial MHII add ons (additional missions for MHII) can be found here

Cons:

• You will most likely have to at least glance at the user’s guide
• AI is not evenly matched
• Multiplayer via wireless not available

Thanks to Arona Magi for providing the review copy of Medieval Heroes II

Chris Leckness (3560 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.