textfiles/games/REVIEWS/mlords.rev

 MEDIEVAL LORDS

 Have you ever wanted to create a dynasty? If so, then MEDIEVAL LORDS may be
the game for you! (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)

 MEDIEVAL LORDS was conceived by Martin Campion, a college history professor
who wanted to provide his students with an understanding of the problems
facing a ruler in medieval times. This game is not intended to be a
simulation of history, although correct names of actual rulers are used.
Campion's intention was to allow players to experience some of the dynamics
of ruling in the middle ages.

 Actually, you don't get to be the ruler: You're his advisor. This is just as
well, since rulers seem to die rather quickly. You are the power behind the
throne and call the shots...well, most of the shots. You discover rather
quickly that: the "boss" has ridiculous spending habits that can't be
controlled; nobles may overrule you at critical times; and the Pope gets a
cut of the action for Catholic rulers, and may cause you more grief than you
could ever believe (being excommunicated and forced to give up your most
valuable province is a _real_ pain).

 If this isn't enough, you may have to face the Black Death or obnoxious
neighbors bent upon appropriating your land! To counter, you may build
castles or invest in technology making you a tougher opponent. On top of all
these problems, your subjects may revolt if you don't inspire their loyalty
(meaning donate money). However, providing funding to towns tends to drop
noble loyalty and vice versa.

 Remember, though, it all costs money! In fact, that's what most of the
problems come down to...money, or, more specifically, the lack of money.
Funds always seem to be in short supply.

 Falling into debt is a sure way to lose everyone's confidence and may cause
a revolt. Once towns or nobles revolt, you must crush the uprising quickly or
their province will separate from your domain, further reducing the cash
flow. Raising an army to crush pesky revolts or invasions costs a _lot_ of
money. Armies who aren't paid will mutiny. Even mercenaries that are
disbanded will often go on a rampage and attack your towns. In short, you
must walk a fine line, attempting to keep everyone happy without bankrupting
the domain.

 The object of the game is to accumulate points by properly managing your
domain. Points are awarded as your fortunes improve and subtracted as they
decline. This doesn't necessarily mean you must raise armies and conquer your
neighboring provinces, but campaigning is hard to resist. MEDIEVAL LORDS
rates each player's achievement at the end of the game based on score and the
number of years played. There are ten levels ranging from Slave through
Prince.

 Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting into MEDIEVAL LORDS; it has a
number of problems:

 First, the graphics are a throwback to CGA. Although the program supports
CGA, TGA, and EGA, the map shows only large, blocky provinces without terrain
details. I've gotten so used to decent EGA or even 256-color VGA that chunky
16-color CGA was hard to accept. (For review purposes, I used a 16MHz, 386
IBM PC with VGA.)

 Second, the interface is truly archaic. This is a game that cries out for
mouse support, but there is only the keyboard. The menus are simple text,
which often call out other sub-menus. You have to use the arrow keys to move
between choices and hit the enter key for selections. You can't select the
item by typing the first letter.

 Third, the manual (although large at 42 pages) is very verbose. It's hard to
find the section you want and then sometimes it's wrong. At one point, the
player is referred to a Data Card for details on movement keys. There is
nothing on the Data Card that discusses movement keys! In fact, I had to find
the movement keys by trial and error. I definitely would have preferred a
shorter, more concise manual with background information handled as a
separate section.

 Fourth, MEDIEVAL LORDS simply lacks the polish expected in today's games.
There is no sound support at all. The program doesn't even use the IBM
internal speaker to beep when you make an incorrect choice. When I saved a
game to my fixed disk, I was told to insert a formatted diskette! Even the
opening title and credit screens are only white text on a black background. I
agree that play value is the most important factor of any game, but it
shouldn't be the _only_ factor!

 Still, if you can get past these shortcomings, MEDIEVAL LORDS is a fun game.
There are 159 separate provinces. The player has to juggle wars, plague,
nomadic hordes, revolts, six different religions, and a succession of rulers
whose characteristics greatly influence the outcome of any decisions. Most of
these factors are randomized, providing exceptional replay value.
Interestingly, the box estimates that playing time will vary from 20 to 80
hours.

 MEDIEVAL LORDS allows from one to ten human players, and from zero to six
computer opponents. The skill of the computer can be varied through three
levels. There are six scenarios starting at different years, and the length
of scenarios can vary from ten to 100 years, with a full campaign lasting up
to 500 years (each turn takes a year). The number of actions that can be
performed per year can be varied from three to six. Human or computer players
can be added or removed anytime during the game.

 Provinces, money, and ships may be given to other players. There is also the
ability to subvert neighboring nobles and towns, propose alliances, and
declare wars. Perhaps this is where the old saying that "Fences make good
neighbors" came from...?

 MEDIEVAL LORDS can be played either from floppies or a hard drive. I
installed it on my hard drive using the supplied install routine without any
trouble. I didn't try using floppies, but I don't believe speed would be a
problem. I do recommend turning off all messages except those that are
directly related to the player, or it will take forever to finish a game.

 The program requires 512K of memory and doesn't specify a version of DOS. I
played using DOS 3.3, but I assume that MEDIEVAL LORDS would work with 2.1 or
above. My version of MEDIEVAL LORDS came on 5-1/4" diskettes, but the box
states that 3-1/2" are also available. Although MEDIEVAL LORDS isn't copy-
protected, the game requires a manual lookup documentation check when
starting.

 MEDIEVAL LORDS suffers in comparison with other recently released games. Its
graphics and user interface simply don't reach the level expected by today's
players. Thus, many who buy MEDIEVAL LORDS will be immediately disappointed.
And that's unfortunate, because the game itself is excellent.

 MEDIEVAL LORDS is published and distributed by Strategic Simulations, Inc.