(This is a guest post by new-ish Serpent King Games staff member Brunnhilde Przibram Sturrock; a close reading of “Warrior Kings”, a classic Dave Morris videogame)
I began my time with Warrior Kings, an overlooked Medieval-fantasy Real-Time Strategy game from the 2000s inspired by Arthurian legend, while playing a whole different overlooked Medieval-fantasy Real-time Strategy game from the 2000s inspired by Arthurian legend, this time King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame. The storepage for King Arthur advertised two similar games, Warrior Kings and Warrior Kings: Battles, for only 50p each. My interest was piqued, and I googled them. It was piqued even further when I found out they were designed by Dragon Warriors creator Dave Morris. There was absolutely no question as to whether 50p was worth it to at least try them.
And so it begins.
Opening the game and selecting single player, I’m asked to choose what campaign I want to play. The only options, however, are either the tutorial, or “The House of Cravant”. Choosing the latter reveals a description: “Can the young Artos prevail against the might of the empire? His destiny, and the future of the empire are in your hands.” I’m reminded of games that have a character select screen, but then only feature one character on it. I can’t help but get the idea that it was designed for there to be multiple campaigns, perhaps added in future expansion packs. I would love to see this, as this is a game which lends itself to such. It is a shame to have it be one and done the way it is.
Selecting the tutorial, we first get treated to a loading screen with a slide show of grandiose images of battlefields that go by a little too fast to fully take in. Having played the game, however, I wonder if this is deliberate. The images we see here certainly feel like they could and should be screenshots, yet having actually played the game, they aren’t anything possible to replicate in actual gameplay.
This still image conjures a very particular idea in my mind of what the gameplay should look like. A somewhat simulationist approach to medieval warfare, strongly in the vein of the Total War series. A game where battles play out between hundreds of soldiers on either side, with physical space being represented realistically enough that it would not be feasible to, say, walk a single warrior from Cornwall to Scotland in a matter of minutes.
For better or worse, however, the game itself is highly abstracted compared to this, with gameplay playing out much more like a conventional RTS like Age of Empires. This comes with a lot of leaps in logic in the service of gameplay. A handful of peasant labourers can, for example, construct any building one commands them to in a matter of moments. The full infrastructure of a whole nation or even continent can be represented by a smattering of fortifications and huts, and will be fought over by two armies which each number in the double-digits.
Playing the tutorial, we are introduced to the various advantages of this approach. There is something greatly satisfying about the way in which villagers toil at farms growing wheat, or chop down trees to collect lumber; then deposit these resources into a horse-drawn cart which gradually fills up before driving away to deliver the resources to the player’s castle, where they can finally be put to use. Expanding one’s economic infrastructure like this, building more and more villages in advantageous locations, is a majorly rewarding gameplay mechanic. Do you build a village in a flat, grassy area, where it can be supplied by numerous farms and deliver food to support your growing army? Do you build it among forests, outcroppings of rocks, veins of gold, to finance the empire? Are you more concerned with defensibility, and build it upon a hill, investing in walls, watchtowers, bowmen, etc before you start investing the time and resources to make it profitable? These are all factors one must be constantly considering in Warrior Kings, before even getting into the first military engagement.
Battles are similarly intricate. Where the stereotype of mediocre RTS games is that one needs only make more soldiers than the enemy to win, the battles in Warrior Kings operate on a Rock Paper Scissors system. Infantry almost invariably carry two-handed polearms, and easily defeat enemy cavalry, especially when standing in tight formation and facing their enemy head-on. Archers counter infantry, able to shoot them down in droves while maintaining distance with their superior mobility. Cavalry counter archers, easily closing the distance and riding them down. Complicating this dynamic are further factors: Ranged cavalry, consisting of mounted units with javelins, bows, and even muskets, can safely harass infantry or melee cavalry and escape before they suffer any kind of reprisal, but they are easily countered by archers on foot who have superior range and damage. Ranged units are also limited by their ammunition supplies, and thus must be accompanied by a supply wagon or else need to retreat to their barracks to resupply themselves after loosing too many shots. A tactical maneuver to destroy the enemy army’s supply wagons can cripple their ranged offense. Terrain is also a factor, with tall slopes slowing down units immensely and giving archers a further advantage. There are even other units that do not fall into one of the other four categories: Siege equipment, ravenous scuttling demons, shambling undead, wizards, and even titanic monsters will all reveal themselves as the campaign progresses.
The campaign begins with a wonderfully cheesy narration segment over a familiar looking world map (Similarly to Dragon Warriors, the world of Warrior Kings is just Earth with the names changed.) “The Empire of the One God”, or just the Empire, is ruled by a religious leader, the Patriarch, and a secular military leader, the Holy Protector. However, the current Patriarch, Icthyus Granitas, is a tyrant, wielding unchecked power with the Holy Protector, Karlem Agnus, being nothing more than his lackey. Wealth is being centralised at the capital city of Telemagna, and within the Patriarch’s palace, “Dark deeds” are being performed. The Patriarch’s enemies, and any followers of religions besides the One God, are viciously persecuted, with the Empire’s army being turned against its own population to stamp out “The enemy within”. (Margaret Thatcher had brought new life into this old-fashioned far-right talking point in Britain throughout the 1980s, and it is still in use by those in power to this day such as Donald Trump.) Those unhappy with the Patriarch’s rule flock to prominent nobleman Duke Amalric of Cravant for protection. The camera skims over numerous intriguing names of locations. “The Iron City”, “Black Bear Keep”, hinting at a far larger world existing in this setting than is ever seen by the player. The narrator reads his lines with a dramatic flair, but maintains a cold detachment from the proceedings until he mentions the Patriarch’s “Stooges and lickspittles”, which he delivers with the venom such a line deserves.
Level One: A Province at Peace
Coming into the game proper at long last, we’re greeted by a large, bustling city (Shown on the world map to be the city of Ambros) rendered in wonderfully retro 3D graphics. There is a marvelous coherence within this game – no cutscenes means there is never any kind of artstyle shift, everything is conveyed to us within the terms of the game itself. While larger and designed with more intentionality and flair for aesthetic, the great city Duke Amalric stewards is not fundamentally different from one the player can and will construct themselves later in the game.
We take control of Amalric’s son, Artos, who is tasked with bringing in the harvest this season. He is given a detachment of mercenaries – our first infantry unit, a classic medieval warrior with a greathelm and a sword and shield – as well as a contingent of mounted warriors armed with javelins, and sets out to oversee the nearby villages.
Immediately we discover some peasants doing the one thing peasants must never be allowed to do: Taking a break. The game implores us to be on the lookout for this, as peasants who finish a job and are not immediately assigned a new one are a drain on the economy.
From here on out we will use Artos to order caravans to begin transporting food to the city. Then we will need to defend them. There are barbarian tribesmen inhabiting villages throughout the mountains of Cravant, and they regularly send raiding parties out to ambush caravans on their way from the outlying villages to the safety of the city. Here we will learn an important lesson – that defense in this game does not just mean castle walls and towers manned by archers, or lines of infantrymen in a chokepoint. These are only good for defending a particular location. It is far easier for the enemy to assault villages whose farmlands will take up far too much space to surround with walls, or lengthy caravan routes through the untamed lands between two beacons of civilization. Trying to defend a caravan with the sluggish mercenaries is a losing battle – even though each barbarian warrior is weak individually, there are enough of them that they will slip past the guards and make off with the caravan before you can stop them. Mounted javelineers, on the other hand, are perfect. They can be wherever you need them to be at a moment’s notice, and the slower moving barbarians will never be able to engage them in melee to tie them down.
Why then, you may wonder, did the game give Artos these mercenaries? Well, mercenaries are heartless by nature, and are remarkably good at burning down enemy villages. If the player tires of patrolling the caravan routes for raiding parties, it is perfectly possible to cut out the very cause of the problem – the barbarian settlements. Tracking the raiding parties to their source is a simple task, and the disorganised warriors will put up little struggle against a concentrated force of hardened mercenaries, who will then delight in setting alight the smattering of huts the mountain dwellers call home, leaving nothing but ash and corpses. I understand that the barbarians attacked us first, but I must ask, Are we the baddies? The game makes you look at these things from the cold, calculating perspective of the medieval nobility. Barbarian raids are a threat to the economy, to our wealth, and the way to end that threat is to destroy the villages.
There are more interesting features about the map if one finds time to explore – a small church on the outskirts of the city offers healing to any soldier in need. There are also abandoned sites of pagan worship – ominous standing stones we will one day come to know as summoning circles for demonic sorcerers.
When the harvest is fully brought in, and, more than likely, the last mountain village is burnt to the ground, a narrative segment begins. A large army approaches the city, led by a black clad, pale-skinned, nosferatu-esque figure whose name is revealed to be “Lothar, the Evil Bishop”. Duke Amalric leaves the city to meet with him, accompanied by an army of his own. The match-up, however, is rather one-sided. While we only have appearances to go off of as a new player, learning the units and their strength levels reveals that Amalric is only accompanied by tier 1 peasant spearmen, the most basic melee infantry unit available to any faction starting off, while Lothar has brought with him a combined arms force of imperial pikemen and longbowmen, head to toe in armour, and Holy Warriors – mounted knights clad in bright yellow priestly robes on top of their plate harness. The absolute most elite forces the Empire has to offer. Amalric attempts to negotiate, but the outcome is clear: Lothar accuses Amalric (Correctly, if the introductory narration was to be believed) of plotting against Patriarch Granitas, and has him killed. Amalric’s small army is slaughtered, and the city is set alight by a rain of flaming arrows and catapults. It is all Artos and his small band of warriors can do to escape on a ship at the nearby dock. Artos vows his revenge.
Level Two: Flight to Angland
Artos’ ship sails across the channel, taking them to Angland. While the landmass itself is referred to as Angland, the map reveals it is three different regions. Angland, the largest, makes up what in real life is England, while to the north, making up Scotland, is Caledon (Clearly etymologically similar to Caledonia, the Roman name for the Scottish highlands north of the Antonine Wall.), and to the west, making up Wales, is Gryffid (This is a variation of the Welsh name Gruffudd, like Ioan Gruffudd. Which is kinda like if the fantasy version of England had been called “The Kingdom of Steve”.). Despite the narration repeatedly telling us that Artos has landed in the city of Jarlsford, the map shows Jarlsford is on the southern coast of Angland, while both the animation of Artos’ ship landing, and the starting position on the in-game map, show Artos landing on the eastern coast of Caledon. The narrator informs us that Angland is a land in disarray, being perpetually warred over by “bandit barons and barbarian chieftains”. The most deadly of these rulers, living far to the south (Presumably around where Jarlsford actually is), is Baron Ragnar the Ruthless, who the narrator suggests we defeat, either by battle or diplomacy.
Artos, still accompanied by his mounted javelineers, begins by rescuing a village from a barbarian attack, and the villagers show their gratitude by making Artos their leader, and allowing him to recruit spearmen. I love this level. It is the time we see Artos most unambiguously as a classic good guy, traveling Angland righting wrongs and being helped in turn by those he helps. Progressing further south (The whole island of Angland makes up the map of this level, making it feel hilariously small when one realises that between all three countries there are only around half a dozen minor settlements), we continue to pick up more quests from other villages, expanding our empire with farms, lumber yards, trading posts, barracks, and getting the opportunity to fortify strategic points, allowing us to hold off barbarian attacks without taking the bulk of our army’s attention away from pursuing our main objectives. We destroy another barbarian village (This takes an embarrassingly long time without mercenaries to put it to the torch. Other units only whittle away at the large healthbars of buildings using swords) and are rewarded with flaming arrows for our bowmen (Meaning we never have to do that again). A village elder begs us to rescue his son, who was kidnapped by barbarians for one of their dark rituals. We assault the next barbarian settlement and interrupt the ritual, freeing the child, but a portal still opens up to some hellish outer plane, letting in a “Wild Behemoth”. A gigantic troll-like monster we now have to defeat.
There is no use in trying to face the behemoth in melee: It will tear through the most orderly of spearwalls. Artos himself and the spearmen should flee, allowing the archers and javelineers to bring it down from afar. When that is over and done with, we can return for our reward from the happy father.
Somewhere amongst all this, we learn the truth behind all these barbarian attacks. Ragnar the Ruthless, threatened by the arrival of Artos, has been bribing the tribes with caravans full of food in exchange for them hindering Artos at every step. If we were to, say, send raiders out to ambush the caravans, we could get valuable resources while also ending the attacks.
Finally reaching the southern coast, we’re faced with military power far beyond our own in the form of fortified wooden watchtowers manned by archers, and armoured knights on horseback. Only through effective use of our limited resources can we overcome opposition like this, but it is certainly doable as the knights can be baited into a foolhardy charge only to be ambushed and flanked by spearmen. Once we arrive outside Ragnar’s stronghold, (Again I choose to believe this is Jarlsford. It fits with the viking-ish name of Ragnar.) he emerges from the gates to parley.
Ragnar: “Don’t kill me! I surrender! Will you accept?”
Advisor: “Choose carefully, my lord.”
A difficult choice, made all the more difficult by the lack of context. I’m all for mercy against a defeated foe, but does letting him live also involve leaving him as liege lord of all Angland when the time comes to leave? This guy, who earned the name “The Ruthless” and bribes barbarian tribes to attack his own subjects? On my initial playthrough I accepted, but my preferred option now, knowing what I know, is to refuse.
In this case, we don’t manage to kill him. In fact, he flees and vows to return. That sounds kind of familiar by this point.
Level 3: Angland Invaded
Now the narrator introduces “The Islands of the Northlanders”, this world’s version of Scandinavia. Ragnar has fled there, and is now returning with a vast fleet of ships to retake Angland, promising the Northlanders a great bounty of pillaged goods if they follow him. Winter has arrived when we start the level, meaning we’re on the same map, only now blanketed with snow (This also follows on from the mention in A Province at Peace that it was late autumn, implying an only minor passage of time since then). For defense, Artos and the people have retreated to a large hill in the center of Angland, though the snow makes farming difficult and we immediately need to start establishing villages on the outskirts to work what remains of the grassland. This means we’ll need to put to the test our skills of defending large areas of land from spontaneous raids, though we’re aided by the new options of building watchtowers, walls, and sounding an alarm which orders all peasants to flee to safety in the event of an attack. We must get ready quickly, because Ragnar’s army is coming, and the Northlanders are a threat far greater than anything we’ve faced already.
Help comes in the form of an unexpected ally. A band of barbarians, the kind of which would attack on sight in either of the previous levels, come to the stronghold in peace. They tell us their village has been destroyed by the Northlanders, and they will repay us with everything they have if we accept them into our ranks. No matter one’s opinion on these pagans, turning down an ally at a time like this would be foolish.
“Excellent! We are now brothers!”
Barbarians are a unique unit. They are too weak to be effective melee infantry unless in truly overwhelming numbers, and too undisciplined to form formations. However, they are a far cheaper way of accomplishing the same thing as mercenaries: Torching enemy settlements to the ground. They are also one of the only units to have various different models, despite all being the same in gameplay. Their hair and beards will be different, they will have different kinds of kilt (All barbarians wear kilts), and can have a variety of weapons from clubs and shields to two handed axes. In dialogue, they are a guy doing a classic Arnie impression talking about blood and raiding. I truly believe that for all the barbarians’ bravado in battle, the reason they have repeatedly lost so far is that they simply do not conceptualise warfare on the same level as a “civilised” society does. To a barbarian, wars are combats between champions followed by a cattle raid on the neighbouring village. To those from the Empire, a war is armies. Lines upon lines of trained soldiers head to toe in armour manufactured from elsewhere in the empire. The conquest of whole nations. The complete annihilation of the enemy’s way of life.
The barbarians also give us some information: In the ruins of their village there is the foundational stone of their maypole (A real life holy symbol, assumed to be of importance to early pagan cultures, though no knowledge of what it truly meant remains to this day). If we can venture far enough to get it, we can construct our own. This brings us the blessings of the pagan harvest goddess, improving the yield of our farms.
In a string of battles, aided by the now united peoples of Angland, the Northlander army is defeated, and Ragnar is finally slain. Now we can focus our attention elsewhere.
It is around here that I wonder about the history of Angland. It is not a part of the Empire, yet seems to have undergone a process of Christianisation at some point or there would be no distinction between barbarians and civilized folk. Saying “it’s just the fantasy version of Britain” is less of a clear descriptor of a fictional nation than I, at age 13, writing lore for my schoolfriends’ tabletop campaign, once believed. Britain has a long and complex history and the people and cultures within it have been ever changing. Yet, in a game where two levels and two text crawls are all we have to go off of, Angland feels as though it has as rich of a history as the real Britain. My theory is that the barbarians are the indigenous people of the island (Analogous to the Britons), the simple Christian folk are later migrants (Analogous to the Saxons), taking what is now the nation of Angland (As opposed to the island also called Angland), thus establishing a divide between their own territory and the old lands of Gryffid and Caledon. Ragnar’s name, and alliance with the Northlanders, suggests him to be a third group, conquerors of all others. Vikings.
Level 4: Retreat and Regroup
Returning to the mainland, the armies of the Empire are overwhelming, and no sooner has Artos’ new army landed in Cravant than the decision is made they must leave again. Only this time, they won’t leave a man behind.
Hiding out from the Empire are a band of Battle Riders, a new class of cavalryman equivalent to the Empire’s knights, all voiced by a really angry cockney man perpetually indignant when he’s forced to do anything not involving fighting and killing, repeatedly saying “I love a bit of MAYHEM and SLAUGHTAH!!”. They join with Artos, introducing themselves as the remnants of Amalric’s household guard. I wonder, now, if going down the pagan or Christian paths also backfills the lore, as the presence of pagan units here suggests Artos, Amalric, and all Cravant were always pagan since the beginning. Nevertheless, with a variety of new allies at our disposal, we escape Cravant once again.
Level 5: The Tharingian Wilds
While pursued by the vast army of Duke Guiscard of Gallicus, presumably one of the “stooges and lickspittles” loyal to Granitas, Artos seeks the aid of his distant relatives among the Forest Princes of Tharingia, a historically pagan region.
We befriend a pagan priestess, who allows us to make her temple our new base of operations, gaining access to the Sacred Grove, from which we can buy pagan themed faction upgrades. She will also advise us to take a group of peasants to a nearby holy site, saying “Do not be surprised by, nor interfere with what occurs. The gods will reward you for your bravery.” When we do so, lightning strikes, the peasants are killed, and rising in the place is a horde of zombies at our command.
The zombies, and their creation, are truly horrific. By the zombies’ dialogue on ordering them around, they are confirmed to be fully cognizant of who and what they are, in constant pain, yet compelled to obey Artos’ will by the foul magic that has summoned them back to our plain. Not only is this inspired writing, bringing zombies back to their roots in literature and tradition, but it is also great worldbuilding. Until this point, from a modern, left-leaning perspective, I have seen the barbarians as the good guys in this world. All they want is to live in their villages, carrying out their religious practices, and fighting amongst themselves, yet they face the threat of total annihilation by the all consuming force that is the Empire, simply for being a distinct culture from it. The practice of not just necromancy, but specifically killing those deemed less valuable to society and enslaving their corpses to use as cannon fodder in battle, is a concept both disturbing and believable to their culture. It challenges us to hold true to the beliefs of anti-imperialism and multicultural freedom. It’s lucky I’m up to the challenge, since this level is the last chance to dip out before we’re locked into the pagan path for the rest of the campaign.
We ally ourselves with Artos’ cousin, one of the Margraves of Tharingia, gaining access to further pagan units (Our basic spearmen and bowmen fall aside, replaced by amazon warrior women all dressed as Xena). Together, we overcome the forces of Margrave Heinrich, a “Bloodthirsty robber baron in the pay of the Empire”, before shoring up our defenses to fight off Duke Guiscard and his army, routing them and slaying Guiscard himself on the battlefield.
Level 6: Sneaky Succubi
Here the narrator introduces us to the Tharingian Knights, a holy order of devoutly christian knights sponsored by the Empire to convert the pagans of Tharingia by force. They control a powerfully fortified mountain pass, and taking both it and their stronghold, the Holy of Holies, will be the essential next move in Artos’ crusade.
Though his time in Angland is at an end, the influence of the barbarians has rapidly shown on Artos, and from this level onwards he is known as “Artos the Warlord” and sports a long warrior-braid, a bare chest, blue warpaint, an axe in his right hand, and gladiator-like armour upon his left arm. He frequently shouts “FOR FREEDOM!” (Braveheart was released seven years prior).
On our side of the mountain pass is the stronghold of “Baron Guido the Greedy”, which is perhaps the only way they could have topped Ragnar the Ruthless in terms of silly names.
At our disposal now are succubi, who, unless their powers are being nullified by a nearby priest, can seduce enemy units to our side. Taking control of the catapults the Tharingian Knights use for their regular sorties into our territory gives a huge advantage early on when we’re still building ourselves up. They can also be used to pay Guido a visit, so long as you can sneak one past his priest and into his personal chambers. For one or two he will provide you with valuable units, and for three he will give up his entire fiefdom giving us a great headstart on building up a base.
The Tharingian Knights are well fortified and have access to many of the strongest units the Empire has to offer, but we bulldoze through them all the same.
Level 7: Recruit the Pagans
Still not satisfied with his army, Artos turns to another unlikely source for help: His old enemies the Northlanders. Compared to the last several levels, which have all been standard affairs of build up an army, recruit allies, and destroy the enemy, this one is very linear and objective driven. In an imperial village, people are trying to do the classic “Burn the witch” routine on another pagan priestess, and Artos’ warriors must rescue her. Outside the village, some peasants are being attacked by an old friend: The Wild Behemoth. The priestess assures us she can capture it if we weaken it first without killing it, so we do that, and the Behemoth is whisked away into some kind of pocket dimension for later use. Finally we arrive at our destination, the home of the great Queen of the Northlanders and site of the Wyvern Throne. After a short parley, she agrees to ally herself with Artos on the condition that his army defeats hers in their humongous battle arena.
The battle arena falls dramatically in our favour the moment the priestess brings out a Wild Behemoth. It is very satisfying to give an enemy army a taste of what we had to face back in level 2.
Proving our might, the Northlanders’ queen agrees to fight for us.
Level 8: Kill the Bishop!
Despite being one level away from the end, it is here the game really comes into its own. Finally having unlocked the full extent of our faction’s abilities (Almost), we are set loose on a large map to expand and conquer against a powerful imperial force occupying Gallicus, led by our old adversary Lothar the Evil Bishop, holed up in his citadel, the Red Tower. We’re both at the height of our power now, and the ensuing campaign across Gallicus is long and bloody. The map is large enough to necessitate building and managing multiple large bases in order to get the resources and unit production necessary to overcome Lothar, as well as have locations to fall back to if his assaults get overwhelming. More so than the earlier levels, it really gives the impression of the drawn out process that is conquering a whole region, gaining ground and needing to fight to keep it.
Our new units come from the priestess’ Summoning Pentacle, giving us a wealth of weird and wonderful demons to bring into the world. One such demon is a ranged variant of the Behemoth, hurling gigantic boulders like an unusually powerful catapult, known as a “Formorian beast” despite not being aquatic in any way and Ireland not existing in this setting.
We surround the Red Tower with formorians and bombard it with boulders till it’s reduced to rubble. Lothar is slain. The only enemies left to us are Granitas and Karlem Agnus.
As the narrator tells us: The Red Tower was the site of the final battle that finalised the Empire’s conquest of Gallicus. Now, the same location sees the battle that liberates it.
Level 9: The Patriarch’s Mercenaries
The whole region of Gallicus has been lost, and Granitas is panicking. Throwing the Empire’s hatred of heretical science to the wind, he drains the Empire’s treasury to hire a private army equipped with all manner of gunpowder weapons, and marches overland to retake Gallicus, while the rest of the Imperial Army, led by the as yet unseen Holy Protector Karlem Agnus, travel by sea to attack us from both sides. This is the final battle.
While shoring up our defenses, we’re contacted by a whole new character: The Arch-Druid.
“Artos! Long have I awaited the day these lands would be reclaimed by a follower of the old gods.”
Finally, our destiny reveals itself. Artos is the man prophesied by the Arch-Druid to deliver the lands to freedom from the unyielding grip of the Empire. He must only pass one final test, and the Arch-Druid will pass on his teachings that will secure Artos’ victory.
Or so I thought. The game bugged out at this point, making it impossible to construct the pagans’ most powerful building: The wicker man. The information I now relay is entirely secondhand.
The pagans’ ultimate move is to build a wicker man, just like in the film of the same name, and cram it full of their own peasants as a mass human sacrifice, and in doing so summon the gigantic demon Abaddon. Abaddon is controlled by the AI, and rampages through whatever enemies he encounters until he is killed. We won’t be seeing any of that, and I am forced to complete the game’s hardest challenge without the strongest ability it gave me to do so.
What I do get from him, however, is the ability to make the highest tier of pagan units. The Battle Rider becomes the War Rider, the scantily clad female archer in war paint is switched out for another, stronger scantily clad female archer in war paint. The Xena-esque warrior woman is switched out for an orc.
Yeah, orcs exist in this setting, and they’re best friends with the barbarians. He’s not referred to as an orc anywhere in-game, but his model says orc to me. I like the idea of the orcs taking this moment to resurface – hunted nearly to extinction by the cruel Empire for being something antithetical to the civilized way of life, they are called upon by the Arch-Druid to aid Artos towards bringing about a future where they can prosper. They are the strongest form of heavy infantry not just in the pagan repertoire, but in the whole game.
The most unfortunate thing about not having Abaddon, of course, is that the Imperials brought their equivalent to him. After building a large enough cathedral and having priests pray there long enough, the Empire is aided by intervention from the Lord God himself, sending a gigantic angel warrior, known as The Sword of God, to strike down the enemies of Christendom. He attacks my castle while my main force is out assaulting Granitas, and the peppering of arrows by the amazon bow-women I left stationed there hardly tickles his healthbar. God’s mercy is… lacking, and he indiscriminately slaughters the dozens of harmless peasants I had crowded in the keep for safety. Clearly it’s better for them to die now and have a chance of going to heaven, rather than live sinful lives under Artos’ rule and be certain to go to hell. The capital city of Gallicus is reduced to rubble. The Patriarch’s attack is successful.
However, the game doesn’t end there. While the tutorial assured me that the loss of one’s keep meant failure, you don’t actually receive a game over unless Artos himself is killed. That means as long as the final assault on Granitas is successful, we still have a chance to win.
A desperate battle unfolds. Time and again, Artos’ force is put in situations where any sane general would order a full retreat. Yet there is nothing to retreat to but the Sword of God. We take losses. A lot of losses. Fighting a force that outmatches you can be done, but not without sacrifice.
The army that makes it to the final confrontation with Granitas is a tiny remnant of the army that set out from the capital. Even after all his losses, “The Corrupt and Scheming Patriarch Granitas” personally commands ranks upon ranks of the Empire’s finest, carrying his elaborate holy standard, silver armour gleaming, grandiose purple cloak billowing behind him. The pikemen and longbowmen, head to toe in armour. The Holy Warriors in their bright yellow robes. It’s just like the fall of Ambros, so long ago. Only this time we have more than that line of peasant spearmen. This time we have a chance.
Artos sends whatever men he can into the bloodbath that this fight descends into. War Riders sacrificed, suicidally charging into walls of pikes. Brave orcs are turned into pin cushions by volleys of arrows. But they do their job: They create an opening in the enemy lines.
Artos personally leads the charge, and forsakes all other objectives. Whatever else happens, Granitas must fall.
He does.
The battle stops immediately. The lackeys of a tyrant have no loyalty to him, only to themselves, and the convenience offered by serving a master generous with his gold. Why continue to fight when no one is ordering them to?
A final narrated excerpt tells us all we need to know.
“After such a crushing defeat, the Empire begins to collapse in on itself. The Anglander Barons, the Gallican Earls and Dukes, and the Chieftains of the Northlands all declare Artos as High King of the Free Peoples of the North, the ruler of a great new empire…
In this new Artosian Empire all religions are tolerated, and a great charter is drawn up, guaranteeing the rights of each nation as all equal under Artos.
Tharingia unanimously secedes from the Empire, and throws out all the Imperial fanatics, reverting entirely to the Old Religion. The Shaman Chiefs of New Tharingia declare Tharingia as a protectorate of the Artosian Empire, paying a substantial yearly tax to Artos.
The Empire collapses into a rump of its former self… Hopelessly weak… Artos levies a heavy tribute, which the Empire is all too happy to pay in return for peace. The expansionist dreams of the Empire are over forever. All hail the high king, Artos the magnificent!”
I love this game. Fantasy all too often portrays an uncritical good versus evil narrative, where powerful figures such as the church and the nobility just so happen to be good aligned. There is nothing I can imagine more empowering than a revolution of all those considered evil, considered lesser, considered not fitting in with civilized society, and have it go quite this well. Even the practice of charging money in exchange for peace, a brutal tradition among vikings and other raiding cultures, is portrayed here as a triumph. The intro may have implied that the problem with the Empire was always only the corruption and tyranny of Granitas, but in this ending, it is the Empire itself, not Granitas, which is toppled. A new order, one where none are outcast from society or subjugated under tyrannical rule, is possible. It only took toil, sacrifice, and sheer brutality to make it happen.