The thought behind this game may have had good intentions, but the creation of it is all together something different. First let me set up what the game is supposed to accomplish. You are one of eight rulers vying to win through diplomacy, power, or conquest. There are four campaigns which are supposed to be from the Hundred Years War to the War of the Roses. The two main rulers are Great Britain and France, with the others as minor rulers over certain provinces. You raise armies to take over these provinces, ally with others through marriage, or bribe them to your side. At the same time you must strive to balance your own territories between the barons, church, merchants and lowly peasants.

What’s nice about the game? The graphics, somewhat simplistic nature, the instruction book, at twenty pages, and as an after thought the pop up boxes in the game..... after thinking it over that’s about it. I can’t in good taste claim to any reader that I enjoyed playing this game, when in fact I have played better ones from the same period of time. You, the reader will have to decide whether it’s worthy of your pocketbook and the money you’ll have to pay for something that is in my opinion, very low on my list of replayability.

Lets get down to the bad stuff, shall we? First, the instructions are somewhat misleading since you think you’ll need to build everything from the ground up. Nope, you get all of that from the start of the game. Your set up amounts to picking your ruler then playing the campaign of your choice. The first time I played as Great Britain and became completely overwhelmed with all the buildings that had been placed in each province. I didn’t know where to begin, and called it quits after I had a troop transport get promptly sunk, because I forgot to protect it with galleys (which are warships by the way).

I then played as a smaller ruler and that was a mistake because France would have promptly stomped my behind if I had conquered any of its territories. I got stomped anyways! Can you go after neutral provinces? Why - yes you can. But why would you as there is no benefit from doing so. You’re really caught between playing France or Great Britain, which dominate the world. The management portion is simple except you really can’t adjust to far as rebellion will cause needed materials or men at arms to shut down your plans for conquest.

You can upgrade all your buildings, which will either make the peasantry complacent, or the church, or the barons, or the merchants. Galleys and troops ships are needed if you want to invade the mainland or the island. There are no turns to speak of as you just decide to move or fight over the provinces. Movement is from province to province. Fighting is just watching your troops win or getting wiped out if you didn’t have enough to fight the opposing army.

If you’re a single player, there are only three strategies available, ally the two strongest and wipe out the smaller rulers. Smaller rulers ally with each other to give you a fighting chance, or the two main power brokers beat on each other, while the other rulers nibble around the edges. If you play multiplayer then there are only three ways to play, and you just read them.

There’s not much more to say about this game other I can’t recommend it so really, don’t waste your time or your money. Get something with more depth and game playability.