Neocore Games are back with their second attempt to try to make an alternative total war strategy game with Lionheart: Kings Crusade. I wasn't too impressed by their previous entry, King Arthur: A Role Playing Wargame which was simply quite unbalanced and the strategic layer was too paper thin. However this time around, they went for a more realistic historical period(as opposed to the mythological Arthur storyline with magic and the sorts) of the medieval era.
Lionheart: Kings Crusade has you in control of King Richard The Lionheart and his army as they arrive in the holy land for the third crusade. This engagement saw one of the most well known rivalries in history with Richard going up against the Egyptian conquerer, Saladin. Enough with this history lesson, all you need to know is that some buttkicking is in the plans.
Unfortunately, Lionheart sacrifices the few things that made battles in King Arthur interesting, namely fantastical units, magic, and special places or power on the tactical map. Sure, the medieval era is not fantastical in nature but in place of all that is a drab tactical map setting that doesn't inspire much awe(although the maps themselves are pretty big). It's also quite light in terms of tactics. If you get used to the sluggish camera control(that slides uncontrollably when you just want it to pan a little bit) and the inverted middle mouse zoom, you'd find tactical battles to be an arcadish experience.
You can't create group formations and the only option you have for formations is to set your units at horde formation(essentially loose formation that reduces casualties from ranged misslies) or closed formation which is how you should fight your battles in. Certain units get a slightly different formation such as wedge. Like spearmen get to form a wedge formation. How is this considered realistic? I have no idea... The AI sadly can't even utilise the formations it has on its own units as enemy units under fire don't seem to change to horde formation to minimise loses(maybe this is a conscious design decision to model the less disciplined eastern troops?).
Tactical battles are more closer to an RTS and each battle normally starts with a few objectives that needs to be fulfilled before the final battle can take place. For instance in the seige of Jerusalem(the first mission in the demo), I was tasked of defending the port until all reinforcement can embark and then take an enemy defensive position to siege Jerusalem from. I'm given no information about enemy troop size and the only hint I get is a battle difficulty in the briefing screen(easy, medium, hard etc).
The entire mission was a lengthy affair and there is no way to save the game from here. Once the siege site has been claimed, the game allows you to redeploy your troops on the field and build siege equipments on certain nodes on the field. Once all the defence towers on the walls were cleared and the rallying defenders beaten, I took the town square and won the battle. The battle summary screen shows that I've some new items. It seems you can accrue relics and items that can impart bonuses to Lionheart and his troops. And then....
Great! Now I'll have to replay that entire battle to see whats the next mission. Well this sucks, the game crashes at this point for me without fail, every time. Anyway I'll explain the strategy map stuff before closing up this impression of the demo. The strategy map looks more promising. There is a whole leveling up mechanic to Lionheart where your units can gain new skills. Lionheart can also gain new skills and grow more stronger. I really like this part of the game as it emulates what I think the crusade must have been like. You bring an inexperienced army and by the end of the campaign, you must've had a grizzled group of soldiers.
On top of equipping skills(these get activated automatically in the tactical battles, you don't micro their skills like in Starcraft), you could also improve their armour, attack rating by paying for them to be trained. You could also hire special people such as priest(for each unit) that will further buff your units(priests buff morale). There is a strong emphasis on keeping your units alive and shaping them up to be crack soldiers. What I find a tad disappointing is that, I would have much preferred if soldiers automatically got better without the need to 'assign' them points to their armour, attack, ranged stats. It feels too 'gamey'.
Another interesting feature are the factions involved in Lionheart: Kings Crusade. As you might know, the crusades involved many factions with an interest to their outcome. In Lionheart, the four factions you have to 'kowtow' to are the papacy(well duh), the French, Holy Roman Empire and the Templars. Each one of them might be more interested in the capture of certain regions. If you placate them, you can win their favour and gain benefits from that faction such as unique units, heroes, even discounts on stuff.
Lionheart: Kings Crusade strategy map campaign doesn't offer much freedom in the sense that you just move on from region to region and complete missions(tactical battles) to conquer the region. From what I have played(and that is admittedly a limited look at it with the crashes and all that), the strategy map just serves as a pretty looking list of missions(they could have entirely done away with the map).
I think the decisions you have to make between prioritising the interests of the four factions is something unique and could serve well if explored in more depth. Lionheart: Kings Crusade to me is a pass. It is a disappointing effort even if compared to their flawed previous King Arthur game. There are interesting ideas, but what you get instead is a tame affair that perhaps is only worth it if you find this in the bargain bin(or heavily discounted).
Go grab the demo here.
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