Tim assumed I'd want to play the Teutonic Knights - the playboy Crusader order that savaged the Baltic states just to show off what they'd learned in the wars of the Middle East. But no. I actually wanted to give those self-righteous Christians a kicking, and play as the last pagan nation in Europe: Lithuania. My soldiers might be unsophisticated and unruly, but by the Gods I'm going to give those Bible bashers what for.
These are the kind of militant options that Kingdoms, the Medieval II expansion pack, gives you. Instead of simply taking on the whole of the Old World and a chunk of the New in one giant campaign, it focuses a little closer on the history. You're playing the individual decades of war that made Europe, America and the Middle East such extreme and bloody places to live in those earlier times, and they make superb scenarios.
There are four modules to choose from, each one bringing you a specific theatre of pike-hefting, and a handful of factions that make up that specific conflict. This means you get less overall variety than in the original game, but also far more access to quick and gripping campaigns that have unique factions, unique cities, unique events, and unique units.
With a bit of effort you should be able to fight through one of the modules in a weekend and a day, but you can still come back to it from another angle too. Once I've satiated my pagan urges with the Lithuanians I can come back and enjoy commanding the expensive, powerful cavalry-led armies of the Teutonic Order itself. Once my enraged Welshmen rule the British Isles I can spend some time as King Edward.
So let's take a look at the four iron-clad campaigns. You can choose to play whichever one you like after installation, but I suspect for quite a few people the Britannia campaign will come first. This is the classic unification of England in Medieval times.
Assuming you play as England (and you might well want to play as one of the other great factions of Albion, or Norway) you'll be starting with those central southern regions and working outwards. As you fight you'll encounter a load more historical situations that will change the course of your campaign.
You might have to face the Baron's Alliance as they try to usurp the monarchy, or if you're the Welsh king you might be facing tough duels in the border counties as you attempt to cement your position against England. Britannia is a superb campaign that encompasses the full range of early Medieval warfare.
Also fully rooted in the mire of temperate Medieval swords and shield stuff are the Teutonic Wars. These have a superb Eastern European feel to them, with lots of muddy or icy battlefields.
Some of the largest battles of the early Middle Ages took place as the Teutonic Order and Poland duked it out with Lithuania and the powers of the East, and you can recreate those battles readily. If you're Lithuania you can choose to convert to Catholicism (never!) and open up more advanced units types, at the cost of losing all your native pagan soldiers.
Other factions get involved in the region via events and missions, such as the Union of Kalmar (pesky Crusading nobles) and the Hanseatic League (Medieval multi-national corporation, trading their way to dominance in the Baltic area). This is a really interesting fight, but much easier if you're the Teutonic chaps. You've got excellent knight units and a focus on castle building to make you into a military superpower.
The campaign I was initially least excited about was the Americas. Perhaps it's simply that I have less interest in that particular period of history, but it might also be with the kinds of units I end up fielding. I play Medieval II for the massed cavalry charges, the Crusader sieges, and loads of heavily-armoured men clubbing each other with maces.
I have a soft spot for arquebusiers, I'll admit, but the native American hordes leave me a bit cold. Nevertheless there are those folks who will relish the opportunity to give Spanish chancers a pasting with obsidian hammers, and others who'll enjoy using the Conquistador-focused mercenary armies to carve out a new world. (I did enjoy seeing a huge Aztec infantry horde surge over a smaller Spanish army.)
Those Spanish armies will require the favour of their home nation for success - and that means having lots of ports and performing well in the missions that your council of nobles sets you.
The Aztecs and Mayans meanwhile rely on the new Mesoamerican city structures and - radically - the ability to perform human sacrifices once you have a Temple of the Sun. That's a new option for prisoners that will boost the performance of your region. There's also the possibility of epidemic sickness, since it was actually smallpox that defeated the Aztecs, rather than the Spanish. Yikes.
Finally, gloriously, there's the Crusades. I'm a sucker for beating up pompous European knights, as I've mentioned, so I got stuck in as the Turks, but you've also got the Principality of Antioch (Hospitaller nights), the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Templars), and the Byzantine Empire to play with. A few complex game changes are going on in The Crusades campaign, including hero units for each faction.
These are generals who make a big difference on the field and have unique abilities that replace the 'rally troops' command. Saladin, for example, can set all non-routing units to maximum morale for a brief time, while Richard the Lionheart can rally all troops on the field once per battle. Additionally, the Crusade victory conditions are tough.
You need to take a set of particular cities and castles, but also hold them for stated length of time. That can be particularly tricky.
These four campaigns represent a gigantic amount of new material. It's all presented brilliantly - new animations and cinematics for each of them, and a unique front end and rack of options. This feels like four expansion packs rather than one muscular bundle. The smaller changes mean they all feel different to play, and the tiny tweaks and foibles mean it's not quite like Medieval II any more.
I think what Kingdoms does most effectively, however, is simply to provide new and interesting tactical challenges. Beating an army of knights with just horse archers and peasants might have been possible in the original game, but taking pagan axemen against Teutonic clergymen and Teutonic cavalry is all new - not to mention the Byzantine flamethrowers.
Winning a battle because you've used a crusader hero effectively is thrilling. Moreover, the smaller challenges thrown down by the constant stream of events and missions means that there's much more to cope with at the overall strategic level. These focused maps are more fun than the larger campaign map because you have a much better sense of what's taking place, and the missions and events seem more urgent, and more influential.
Back on the field of war you also now have the ability to influence the behaviour of an allied faction. They can be changed from 'stand and fire' through 'defensive' to 'aggressive'. How you use these can influence the way that the battle will flow. I managed to win a couple of battles by running my general's horse-gang behind the allied force and setting the friendlies to 'aggressive'... Works a treat.
Each of these campaigns is also supported by its own historical battles, its own quick battles, and the attendant multiplayer. What's more is that you can now enter into a kind of multiplayer campaign, in a hotseat campaign mode. This is a bit like playing chess with someone - slow gaps as you each go about your turns. It's an odd way of playing, and not entirely satisfying to those of us who still want some way to play more than simply the battles in an online scenario.
However, and this is a big however, you can play all the factions yourself, making a campaign in which you control all sides - a unique and weird challenge. Once I'd started playing like this I found myself setting up the most absurd battles against myself - but they can only be auto-resolved, of course.
In short, there's almost no reason not to mount your horse and charge through the doors of PC World, beheading the security guard with a Zweihander and screaming blood-oaths as you enter your pin number, to get hold of a copy of Kingdoms. Only the weak will not be buying this expansion pack, and frankly, the weak are there to be trampled.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
