I have to admit, I was surprised by Empires and Dungeons. It is a pretty simple concept. You are a feudal lord, vying with other lords for control of the kingdom. The game is turn-based and plays quite a bit like a board game, with each player moving simultaneously. You move around the main game area gathering resources and clearing dungeons to collect money for the purchase of an army, which you use to defeat your opponent. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it's more difficult than you would think.
First, I worked through the tutorial, which gave me a pretty good handle on how the game played. As you move around the map, you see different icons pop up in the squares. Some represent resources, which you use to add onto your castle. Some represent dungeons, which allow you to find treasure and level up your avatar. And some represent special icons, which have special options, based on the scenario you are playing. There are also towns, which you can take control of for a steady stream of tax income, as long as you maintain control. I finished the tutorial and was off to try the real thing.
I started the first scenario and began moving around the map collecting resources. Everyone seemed to be inclined to give me their lumber, stone and iron, so I was soon well-stocked on most of the basic building materials. After wandering around for some time — and conquering the closest town and collecting some taxes — I was off to find a dungeon.
When I went into the dungeon, it felt like I was playing pen and paper "Dungeons and Dragons" again. Everything is text-based, and as I moved from room to room, descriptive text popped up for each area I entered. The biggest problem here is the text starts repeating pretty fast, which made the dungeon part very tedious, since I had to click through the several text boxes to be able to move on or to enter combat.
Combat is a bit lacking. The game gives the option for three basic attacks: One does low damage with a high hit chance; the second one is balanced: and the third, you guessed it, gives high damage with a low hit chance. Every so often, it also pops what it calls a heroic opportunity, which allows you to strike your opponent (high damage, high hit chance), heal or retreat. I'm still trying to figure out how retreating is a heroic action. Also, every dungeon has a boss monster, who is usually a couple of levels higher than you. Again, with just the same options, I just bashed away at it,\ and healed when the opportunity arose. The combat overall was not very challenging.
As I fought through the dungeon, I started to build up cash from the random loot drops. There are random events in the dungeons as well, which can add to your wealth or kill you where you stand. The problem here was the same as the overall dungeon design — there is not enough variety. There are only about five or six random events that I saw while traipsing through the game, which again is very repetitive.
Once I had some resources built up, I started adding to my castle. There are several different build options, such as the keep, which allows you to move all over the map (you start with a limited range of movement); the guild house, which allows knights; and the treasury, which doubles your tax income from towns. There are several more options, which give a little variety to the game, although on the harder scenarios, you need to build most or all of the enhancements to be successful.
After I built up my army, it was off to slay my opponent. I went in with a large number of soldiers and a couple of catapults ... and I was slaughtered. Suddenly, the game was a bit more of a challenge. I had to scramble around and build up cash to hire more soldiers and, at the same time, try and defend my own castle from the enemy.
Unfortunately, the army combat is pretty much the same as the regular hero combat. You have three moves: attack, flank and defend. What is interesting is the troop types you have play into how effective each of these attacks are. A large force of knights will allow you to be much more effective flanking, which kills off the enemy archers. You receive heroic opportunities here as well: duel and retreat. Duel allows you to enter single combat with the opposing leader and gives you a substantial bonus to your combat odds if you win. Retreat, well, allows you to retreat ...
Once I figured out the right mix of troops, I was able to walk in and slaughter my enemy. Now the land is mine! OK, now what? The game ends, and a new scenario unlocks (there are 12 total). Each scenario presents you with a different land layout and a different theme. The first one had a dragon to either kill or bribe; the second had tribes of orcs you could ally with or fight. Each is fairly unique, but the overall game design is still very limited. Also, the difficulty goes up quite a bit with each level, so the game becomes much more challenging the higher it is set.
What I find interesting is that even with the shortcomings I mentioned, the game is still fun to play. Now, this is not something you would want to play for hours and hours on end, but I found it very enjoyable to play through a scenario (which took about 45 minutes). It is repetitive, but the gameplay still holds my interest. With 12 scenarios, it's a great little pick-up and play and for $15-19 what more can you ask for?
