DESCRIPTION

The Kingdom of Ardania needs a sovereign ruler. Although diversity flourishes in the many races that make up its population, this ancient land of magic, strange creatures and shifting aspects is in dire need of a ruler to unite the people and defeat the creeping evil that is causing the dead to grow restless. It needs a strong hand at the reins — a strong leader to reign supreme and bring the kingdom once again to the heights of its Majesty. That leader is you.

In Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim single-player mode, quests come in the guise of 19 missions or campaigns filled with random elements. The quests come in three levels of difficulty: beginner, advanced and expert and can be played in any order. However, certain quests are not available at the start of a new game and can only be accessed after pre-determined quests are completed. Each quest is preceded by a briefing from a Royal Advisor and is then, in turn, followed by an outline of the goals for the quest.

In multi-player mode, randomly generated freestyle scenarios must be created (they can also be played as single-player scenarios). The game's map generator creates a new and different map for every quest each time it's played. Although gameplay varies with each new quest, certain actions form the core of kingdom-generation such as building guilds and temples from which to recruit heroes.

It is through these heroes that you'll accomplish goals by offering rewards for various activities such as fighting monsters and enemies, finding gold, exploring the surroundings, gathering magic and so forth. All heroes have unique abilities and attributes as well as individual priorities and goals. Only through the offer of rewards can you motivate them to do your bidding as you establish attack and exploration flags on various locales, buildings and enemies throughout the land.

Through the use of control windows for each major area in the game (palace, heroes and buildings), all levels of activity are tracked. Current focus, experience, weapon usage, armor, spells available, statistics, items, hit points, name and more are but some of the aspects that can be maintained and manipulated. Heroes gain experience and, thus, enhanced abilities through several means including training and competition at Fairgrounds, libraries (researching spells and increasing magical ability) and improvement in equipment as well as through purchase of potions, items, research and magic at Marketplaces.

Victory conditions in Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim are adjustable and include elimination of all foes, gathering a set amount of gold, surviving a specified amount of time and having the last palace standing. Other areas of customization include numbers of player and enemy forces and heroes allowed in each scenario, types and numbers of wandering monsters, terrain options (freestyle scenarios) and amount of gold. All maps have a generation number that can be used for replay purposes.

By the numbers, the game contains more than two dozen buildings available for construction, eight buildings that "appear" during gameplay, 16 types of heroes, a half-dozen indigenous units (e.g., tax collectors, peasants, guards) who operate outside your influence, more than 20 monster-types (some with sub-levels), 22 hero spells and 22 sovereign spells connected to specific temples and guilds.

Multi-player action over a LAN and the Internet supports up to four players, each controlling a single kingdom at the start of the game. Victory conditions are chosen by the host of each multi-player game with online action available at the MSN Gaming Zone (www.zone.com). ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide