Developer: Hoplite Research LLC
Publisher: KISS ltd, Funbox Media Ltd
Platform: PC, Android
Tested on: PC
Broadsword: Age of Chivalry – Review
Broadsword: Age of Chivalry is a game by Hoplite Research LLC. In this game you’ll play as one of 4 different armies and battle them from mission to mission in the Middle Ages. Let’s see what this turn-based strategy game is all about.
Story
In Broadsword: Age of Chivalry, you move from mission to mission as you fight historic battles in the Middle Ages. In the campaign, you can either play as France or England. As the French army, you’ll help Joan of Arc drive out the English from her lands. As the English army, you’ll be facing King Philip VI to reclaim lands that were yours by birth right.
Sadly, that’s about all the story there is. Before you start a mission, you get a short description situating the mission in time. But it really doesn’t add that much value to the story and isn’t important in any way, you just play mission after mission until you’re done.
Graphics
The graphics in this game are nothing to get amazed about. It’s a really light weight game and it shows, it has ok landscaping, simple looking units and awful battle scenes and animations. According to the recommended specifications, it requires about 8 GB of ram, but don’t be fooled because you could probably run it with as little as 2 GB. There is something positive worth adding though: even though the game is available on Android platforms, the PC version is not a port. It has been completely rebuilt for the PC.
Sound
Broadsword’s sound effects and music aren’t the greatest either. The music is ok most of the times, but sound effects are pretty bad. For example: whenever you click a menu item, you get a really loud and annoying beep which really shouldn’t be there. Other sound effects like speech when moving a unit or fighting in battle aren’t really that spectacular either and they get very repetitive over time.
Gameplay
Last but not least, the gameplay. Broadsword: Age of Chivalry is a turn-based strategy game that is won by destroying the enemy stronghold. This can be done by training soldiers and building an army. The game can fully be controlled with clicking, there are no shortcuts or any other interactions whatsoever.
In each mission you’ll start with a couple of basic units. You’ll always have your commander of your army at your disposal, who may not die. You’ll also have your armies’ stronghold, where you can train Peasants, your basic building units. The game also features resources, which are gold, wood and food. You can increase the regeneration of these resources by building sawmills, farms and gold mines on their respective positions (a loaf of bread, bundle of wood or gold bar will hover where you can build). Gold is used to build stronghold upgrades and to train units, wood is used to upgrade and build buildings and food indicates the amount of units you can have in your army.
With your peasants, you can build training facilities next to your stronghold. In the French campaign you can build stables, a blacksmith or an archery range. Your stronghold can also be upgraded, which increases its health and the amount of resources you generate each turn.
Moving your units is as simple as clicking on one and clicking again on a hexagon field that’s blue. Each unit can move a certain amount of blocks over a certain type of terrain and this is indicated by the hexagons. Red means you can’t reach it or something is in the way, blue means you can move there. Moving over grass costs 1 movement point, and moving over a road costs half that. This means that if you follow the road, you can travel double as far each turn. Attacking other units is pretty simple as well. You just move your unit next to the enemies’ and then press attack (catapults and archers can stay away a bit further). When you do this, a battle cinematic starts, which is pretty useless. So useless in fact that you can skip it by clicking or disable them all together in the options menu.
As far as strategic decisions go, there are very little of them. You can however research and develop some skills. These can be abilities for your commander or passive skills. Passive skills include being able to build more farms, sawmills or goldmines on a node (you start with 3, upgradeable to 6). Abilities can be buffs for adjacent units to your commander, a heal or an armor decrease for adjacent enemies.
The key to winning the campaign is mostly relying on the AI being stupid, which happens pretty often. You can have units about 6 hexagons away from its stronghold and it will keep trying to train peasants instead of attacking you with swordsmen or archers. This way you can pretty much do what you want and make a big army without having to worry about the AI, which is extremely boring. Luckily, there is a multiplayer, but it’s local only. So if you want to have a real challenge, get your friends over to play, otherwise the game is even more boring.
Conclusion
Broadsword: Age of Chivalry seemed like an interesting game at first, but turned out to be a big disappointment. The little amount of gameplay, bad AI, local multiplayer, bad story, and the list goes on, outweighs the good points about the game by far. The only fun you’ll be having in this game is if you bring a friend over to battle against, but even then you’ll probably play a different game. Also for what you get, the game is way overpriced. So don’t fret if you miss out on this title.
Broadsword: Age of Chivalry - Review,
No Comments