Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim Preview
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Heroes act autonomously; once created, they start wandering about, looking for adventure, and they decide when to attack and flee by themselves. Left to their own devices, they will never attack enemy buildings, nor effectively work together to defeat powerful foes. The essential gameplay elements of Majesty are the reward flags used to influence their behavior: if a powerful foe is approaching your town, set an attack flag on him and put a hefty reward on the flag, and soon half a dozen heroes will gang up on the monster in hopes of killing it and thus claiming the reward. Majesty 2 features four types of rewards you can offer the heroes: explore, attack, protect, and fear. Explore and attack familiar from Majesty entices a hero to go to an (unexplored) area or attack a certain unit. Protect is used to protect helpless friendly units (like caravans), while fear flags create an area to ward off friendly heroes, if you wish to keep them away from somewhere (as they do tend to wander off). Different hero classes respond differently to the flags - rangers are more apt to explore, while warriors will be glad to attack.
Compared to the original Majesty, the hero AI seems to be fairly improved in complexity. Heroes will flee or refuse to engage in a fight if they deem the opponent too strong, while lower level heroes are more likely to pick up low reward quests than higher level ones.
All heroes you create start at level 1. They will level up by fighting enemies or destroying enemy buildings. They also gather money from slain foes, exploring the map, or other (rogues can even earn coin by stealing), which they partially return to you as tribute but mostly spend on themselves by buying better equipment at the smithy, or health and mana potions at the market. The difference between a well-equipped level 10 warrior or an ill-equipped level 1 warrior is massive. To add some flavor, each hero has a unique name, and they also look slightly different and change appearance as they level up.
Heroes gain special abilities or spells as you upgrade their guilds. They will use these automatically, so you'll often see your warrior open up combat with a special powerful sword-swing, or a ranger use his ice arrow to finish off an opponent. Spells are available to clerics and wizards, and once bought they too will use it automatically, whether it is hurling fireballs at the enemy or using a healing spell on another hero.
The most powerful mode of offense comes in grouping together heroes in adventuring parties, possible by bringing them together in a tavern. A high-level heroes group, directed correctly with reward flags, will easily clear out the map for you.
Conclusion
This preview version of Majesty 2 was a bit too rough around the edges for me to really be able to tell how well it will please Majesty fans, though that might also be because I haven't played a whole lot of the original Majesty. Like Majesty, Majesty 2 really doesn't feel like the usual RTS, and there's both joy and frustration to be found in its fairly passive reward system. Assuming they implement the balance of genres well, and from the preview version this does look likely, this will be an enjoyable title.
