Oh man, I might be one of the few but I still love Lords of the Realm III. It might be purely because of nostalgia though. These days I've been replaying it and a lot of its issues have become pretty glaring. One of which can be seen in the video: cathedrals and solars are way too easy to capture, which is why you should never put them down, making them pretty much useless.
I agree. The benefit they provide is not worth the risk of losing the province or the lost potential of the decently sized army you have to leave behind to protect them. I've seen the AI throw a large army deep into my territory to attack a Cathedral before, so even provinces far from the front line still need a decent army to just twiddle their thumbs guarding it.
I used to love Master of Orion 3. I played a ridiculous amount of it on a bad computer that couldn't run much else while watching TV late at night when I couldn't sleep.
It's a funny game but was too different from the second one. I've been playing it this weekend actually. The AI never manages to defend castles well unfortunately. The strategic AI is good enough to make it fun though. On a side note, just before they released the game, they were very upset about Knights of Honor, saying that they were copying this.
I haven't heard about this story, but I think it would be a stretch to claim Knights of Honor was copying Lords 3. I've played both, (I'm really excited that there is a new Knights of Honor coming out), and I think the battle systems are quite different... I would also say Knights of Honor was a better overall game with more mechanics and replayability than Lords 3. I liked Lords 3, but it has a lot of weaknesses. I agree that the combat AI is lacking, especially in sieges.
i played Lords 2 alot back in '96 when it released. i was only 16 at the time, and it blew our minds. the graphics were amazing and the battlefield mechanics were something we had never really seen before. but i never played this one. Lords 3 seems to get alot of hate. and it really doesnt look as fun for some reason, judging by the fews vids ive seen. have you played both? whats your take? favorite of the series?
I played a lot more of Lords 2 than I did Lords 3. My favorite would be Lords 2, but I've only played a tiny bit of the original Lords of the Realm, so that game could be a hidden gem for all I know. Lords 3 is a big departure from Lords 2, so that could be the main reason people weren't very happy with it (because they wanted an improved Lords 2). Lords 3's main issues, to me, were the limited scenarios and the conditions for getting vassals to join you. It was easy to fulfill the conditions to get the majority of the vassals and then brute force your way through scenarios. The sabotage functions that could be purchased didn't flow well in my opinion because the AI was just annoying when using it, but the AI struggled to recover if the player used it. Because there was a set number of vassals available for scenarios, it was possible to kill off all unique characters and be left with only the sub-par generated vassals, which made the game stale (because not only were they weak, but they only had certain unit types available to them, meaning that every army would suddenly start looking exactly the same).
Yes. Some of the employees went to Tilted Mill Entertainment. I am unsure if Tilted Mill has closed or not. Some employees went to Firefly Studios. It's a shame though, because they made a lot of games I really enjoyed before they shut down.
It's available for purchasing (and it's very cheap when it's on sale) at both GOG.com and on Steam. I played the Steam version and it worked fine, but I have heard that the GOG version is slightly better. GOG also sells Lords II and the original as a bundle. www.gog.com/game/lords_of_the_realm_3
