Fantasy Friday XXVII - Kingdom Wars, a New Type of Single-Player Adventure

[Alex Walz]

FANTASY FRIDAY XXVII
Kingdom Wars
A New Type of Single-Player Adventure

The wait is over - at least one of them. Today, Reverie World Studios is proud to unveil the new single-player game mode we've been hinting at. As many of you have guessed, this new mode, Kingdom Wars - or Offline Kingdom, is a "Conquer the World" campaign with some new elements to offer an entertaining alternative to online play.

Essentially, Kingdom Wars is a Risk-style map with a mix of Skirmish and MMORTS gameplay elements to create a new, action-packed experience. We've taken the epic siege warfare, continuous army progression, army construction, and World Map from the Online Kingdom mode and paired it with an intelligent AI, while leaving out city construction, economic management, questing, and field combat to promote fast-paced action at every turn.

Players will start off with the ability to choose their kingdom name as well as their homecity, which can be any of the 12 main NPC towns of the game world of Mythador. This town will automatically be under your control, making your quest for world domination one stronghold easier.

Contrary to that of the other Dawn of Fantasy game modes, the default view in Kingdom Wars is the World Map. This map works similar to the MMORTS map and allows players to group their units into armies, merge or split armies to take on strongholds of any size, set up army camps adjacent to enemy strongholds, and lay siege to anything that stands in your way. One difference is that you will not be able to directly manage your land - meaning that you can not change to RTS view to micromanage your economy, construct new buildings, or anything else that you can do in an MMORTS homecity.

However, your economy will be entirely automated and the constant trickle of resources you get from each of your strongholds can be used to train, heal, or upgrade units in a new, user-friendly menu within the actual World Map View. You will also not be able to hire mercenaries or forge alliances - it's you versus the world.

From the beginning, you are presented with three, epic quests: Conquer Teria, Nhob'ru, and Gokkholm - the lands of each of the three playable races. To do so, you must conquer the four main strongholds of each race (See: FFI: Major Towns Overview). While seemingly simple, many of these strongholds are massive and will put up quite a fight. In addition, the AI is working toward the same goal as you and will simulate PvP combat by attempting to lay siege to your own towns. When this happens, you will receive an alert on the World Map View and you will have three options - Accept the Challenge, Pay Off the Attacker, or Retreat. Retreating causes you to automatically surrender the stronghold being attacked but allows you to save your units and will automatically group them into a new Army. Retreating can be done either before or during the battle, but if you retreat during the battle, your fleeing army will keep their battle wounds and will likely need to be healed at another one of your towns before facing another army.

If you choose to accept the challenge, the View will shift to your city and you will be given a couple minutes to build up defenses. The battle then carries out similar to what we've seen you in the MMORTS and Stronghold Defense Skirmish modes.

Unlike in the MMORTS mode, you will gain control of any strongholds you conquer, as well as their automated economies. These towns will work just like your original homecity and you will be able to train units of that stronghold's race - meaning that you do not have any set race and can wreak havoc on Mythador with Elven, Orc, and Human armies.

In addition, there are several smaller towns dotting the map. These towns are the Kingdom Wars simulation of the MMORTS' player homelands and look identical to the stronghold you'd be able to develop. Players will not be required to conquer these towns to complete their quests, but they are your easiest targets and can help a struggling player get started or recovered.

If you complete your quests by conquering the twelve main towns, victory is yours. If the AI takes all of your towns, you will still be in the game for as long as you have an army. If this happens, it's suggested that you try to recover by sieging one of the smaller main towns or one of the miscellaneous homelands mentioned above.

[Jack]

looks really great and didn't read yet

And i am first response

[szebus]

This sounds really like the Total war series only different :P

Second response.

[Henry Martin]

Sounds great, but I think I'll be playing online a lot more(and making my own maps with the editor).

[Yami-Yagari]

Interessting. I was kinda hoping for a different fantasy friday, but can be content with this.
Kinda downside of it all is that you automated the economy. 1 less feature to keep me occupied while playing offline.

[GPS51]

Will the economy trickle be the same rate for all resources or will different regions have different rates for each resource. The mixed armies sound like a blast. Looking forward to lots of practice in Kingdom wars before mixing it up online full time.

[Wizaerd]

I'm going to reserve my judgment until I see what other single player game modes there are, since you hinted at this being only one of them. This sounds like an extended skirmish mode, or a Total War mode. I'm hoping for a city construction, economic simulation similiar to that as found online, just as a single payer mode. It's not "fast action" I'm necessarily looking for. I'm also holding out for the editor, since that's my real primary interest...

[Kire]

Look nice but at same time also little empty.

My opinion how could be filled with some mod added to it (this just example but could be done many things): There are 3 kingdoms (elvish, orcish and humanish). You choose which race you want to play. Than it would be similar to Rome total wars SPQR and 3 different families (red, green and blue). Here would be King and 3 Lords (one of them is you). Lords are trying to expand on borders (where are same faction passive towns - like rebels or opposition or just neutral, and ofc also hostile other 2 factions. Later when you grew in power you can overthrow king and deal with other Lords if not joining you. Or you can stay loyal and deal with other disloyal lords.
The other thing that could be added are invasions or powerful quests (to add some more RP elements). Like you must stop some orcish necromancers of bringing legions of orcs from different dimensions. If you dont than it just becomes little harder to win but more exciting =).
The last thing on my mind is that you cant allow to have all 3 races at same time. If you are elf than you would accept just elvish soldiers not some filthy orcs and that would be betrayal =P. If you are elf (or any other) you wish just destruction for other races =). It would need to be possible to destroy towns or keep them but its buildings train your faction units.

In MMORTS the exciting part is PvP, but here without that can be boring and must be added something exciting to replace that.

Edit: another mod came to my mind: About you vs environment, where would be all vs all (every town for itself) and no big forces trying to win by conquering all others. The major part would play powerfull quest and the lead of this would be prophecy (every game different). Than you would try with questing to find clues (like suddenly you would see more dwarves attacking from their caves and you could go there and find ppl that gives quest about it which starts leading to prophecy or not) and how to stop it, meanwhile making ally with others or waging wars for trade roads.... And if prophecy comes true than there would not be game over, just you must pay the consequences (like massive dragon awakening) which leads to your destruction and game over =P.

[blackfang]

that showcase was awesome! I can't wait to try it Its just too bad that you can't micro the economy but ahh well, it will be fun anyways

[-Sigma-]

awesome

Total war but with Fantasy hahaha good stuff BETA SOON PLEASEEEEEEEE!!!