About the Game

A group of settlers flee their home island which is under invasion. Arriving on the mainland, they set off on a journey of exploration into a medieval fantasy society as they attempt to find the promised land of their ancestors where they can settle and rebuild their civilisation.

You must build settlements, find allies, explore new islands, and fight bandits, with the game’s main emphases being to explore, expand, and conquer. But do it carefully: expand too quickly, your men are easy targets; but if you go too slow, your nearby resources will be snatched up by enemies!

The game’s graphics are richly detailed and vibrant, having been reimagined from the ground up. The stunning scenery is diverse, ranging through various biomes: lush green forests or dry arid deserts and featuring pristine territories, completely unexplored, abandoned ruins, or – and this is where your army comes in – other settlements! The different biomes all offer different resources, so it is worth your while to explore thoroughly and expand your borders.

As is common with building games, crafting is an important feature. It enables you to bigger and better weapons, and build bigger and better settlements, so you can explore more and find more materials, and so on!

There are various types of people in your faction, all vital for your success. Engineers explore and gain new territory, then surveying it to uncover mineral deposits that can be mined. They are quite slow, however, and must be protected as they cannot fight back when they are under attack – so you must send some of your army with them for their own protection.

Your army protect the engineers, but must also make sure that the home base – and especially your warehouse – are safe from intruders. As well as engineers and soldiers there are a number of specialist craftsmen who help speed up your construction process; while your villagers fetch and carry as needed. You must build your infrastructure and economy to attract new settlers so you can outfit and train up your army.

Activities include mining for raw materials – or stealing them from other settlements (another task for your army!). Building your army is key to your survival, and you can upgrade your troops by conducting military research and boosting support and siege units. Your soldiers are a good mix between up close melee fighters and ranged weapon fighters, allowing you a good amount of control over the way battles play out.

The Nitty Gritty

You can play single player or buddy up with two against two. You can play with a real person or an AI in these co-op games. Multiplayer offers various modes, all for up to eight players at a time. There is a full tutorial in the opening stages, so you know what you’re doing right from the off. Onslaught mode is a new way to play, allowing you to increase the difficulty by removing some of your advantages and boosting your opponents’.

Building your settlement couldn’t be easier: click to select the right building from the menu, click again to position it, and then don’t forget to draw roads in between to connect them all up. Some defensive buildings are automatically triggered to protect your village, raining down arrows on unsuspecting enemy armies that are approaching, even if you are focusing elsewhere on the map.

Sawmills make logs into planks, quarries turn boulders into bricks, and houses help your villagers to – ahem – produce more villagers! Your main inventory goes into your warehouse which should be central and protected fiercely – if you lose that, the game is pretty much over for you! Other buildings, while useful and a use of resources can come and go without impacting you too much – it is easy enough to rebuild, as long as you have a warehouse!

Farms produce grain, windmills grind the grain into flour, and fishing huts and bakeries keep everyone fed and happy. Donkeys are useful as they provide faster transportation – they come from ranches, as do steaks which make your well-fed workers even more productive than fish and bread!

Who Are You?

There are three factions to chose between, and each have moderate differences in skill, weapons and the way they look and move. Once you’ve picked a faction, your people all wear the same colour scheme so it is easy to tell who is on who’s side, as well as there being some ethnic differences too:

• The Elari – vaguely central European they like clothes of blue, brown and white
   
• The Maru – of African descent, their striking colour scheme of cyan (sort of light blue-green), gold, and silver
• The Jorn – are essentially Vikings, vibrant and rowdy in green