A sequel to the original installment released in 2000 is finally out. If there were prizes given out for originality and innovative design, I’m sure the Majesty series would at least be mentioned as a nominee. Nowadays it’s hard to find a game that attempts to offer something new and if that game is an RTS then the surprise is many times bigger than in the case of other games genre. That’s because the first thing that comes to mind when mimicking strategic warfare in games is that you can’t improve something that has its current form based on centuries of evolution and development. But the truth is that you can, especially if you do no lose sight of the fact that a game should include the element of fun, something the cold reality which functions as inspiration might lack. So instead of using the same old RTS recipe, 1C:Ino-Co changed it a bit, added a few more ingredients and eventually released a game which can at least be complimented for trying something new. Let’s see what’s so different about Majesty 2.

I mentioned there is a basic recipe when it comes to building an RTS. There are many ingredients one must take into consideration when doing this, but one of the most important one is the economical system which supports the whole “war effort”. This usually means that you have building facilities that offer resources used for raising new buildings that in turn offer the possibility of training or upgrading troops – simple, yet common, boring and clearly overused. Majesty 2 puts a twist to this whole idea by transforming the troops into a major source of income. Whenever one of these troops kills an enemy, it is rewarded with a sum of money that it can then use to purchase weapons, armors or potions at the player’s market. Thus the money finds its way into the royal treasury, allowing you to upgrade or build new buildings and of course improve the goods your market has to offer. So in other words, having a set of fully functional economical buildings doesn’t help you much if there is no one to buy the products you offer.

This also offers new gameplay perspectives and strategies you might have used in other RTS games no longer function. For example you can no longer barricade your base, build an impressive army and then storm the entire map. That’s because you won’t have the resources to build those defenses, you won’t have the resources to build that army, and even if you have, your army will not be strong to defeat the opposing forces. That’s because armies in Majesty 2 are made only from heroes – autonomous units with special abilities and that can carry different sets of armor, certain weapons and potions and level up through combat, thus becoming more effective in battle. If these heroes do not see battle, they will not level up, they will not have the money to upgrade their equipment and they will most certainly die when facing an average opponent. This is why attacking a fortified position with one hundred heroes lacking equipment and battle experience will turn into a disaster. Performing the same action against a level twenty hero will have the same result. So the game forces you think a bit out of the box for a change and include troop training in the strategy equation. This is a bit harder than it sounds.

The control the player has over these heroes is indirect. You can’t select them all and issue an attack or defense order; you can’t order them around at all actually. What you can do is set prize money for actions you wish performed and hope that one of your heroes will be interested in lending you his services. For example, if you need a building protected, then you will need to set a defense “bounty” for that building. The amount of money offered will determine the number of troops that will show up to patrol around that building for a period of time and engage any enemy that comes in range. But there is a second factor that you need to consider when issuing such indirect orders: heroes’ personalities. Each class has a predefined behavior and depending on it heroes will respond differently to certain “orders”. Rangers are the first to follow scouting requests, warriors are eager to attack or defend and rogues will do almost anything as long as the price is right. There are many more classes in Majesty 2 and these three are used just as an example of what you can expect when wanting to get things done. When the task is completed the money prize is split between the heroes that have participated and will most likely return into the player’s pockets as soon as they decide to upgrade their equipment. So the money used for such indirect orders is not lost, but lent or invested if you wish.

This quickly sums up pretty much everything Majesty 2 has to offer in the novelty sector. Now, everything mentioned above works together fine, but not perfect. There are flaws all around, some minor, some major, but nothing that can’t be addressed in a future installment. One of the major ones and in the same time a constant source of frustration is the level of hero responsiveness to tasks. As long as you have a single task to take care of at a time everything is fine. But as soon as you have to deal with more complex situations where defending, attacking and scouting are required in the same time, balancing the available heroes and funding becomes a serious pain. You will end up having too many people defending and none attacking or the other way around. When that happens readjusting the tasks’ importance level is almost impossible due to the delay heroes have when switching from one action to another. To make matters worse, you will have heroes shopping at the market place when the actual building is in flames, currently under attack and ready to crumble to the ground. This is just one of the many situations where they seem completely blind and non-responsive to their surroundings. And I wouldn’t mind so much if their shopping preferences would be a bit more logical: stop spending all your money on mana potions and save for the next level armor, you dumb mage!