Heritage of Kings sees the fifth installment of the Settlers series, and its release coincides with another sequel, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords. However, unlike its sci-fi counterpart, Heritage of Kings presents a drastic departure from its predecessors. Hardcore fans of the Settlers series will perhaps hold the very simple, yet complex at the same time, economics system to be the one true appeal of the game. Heritage of Kings has apparently dumped this, but not without good reason.
Heritage of Kings is essentially a real-time strategy game with a slightly more complex economy than run-of-the-mill RTSes, and when I mean slightly, I mean slightly. Gone are the grand budgeting of 'serfs' to decide who works as what. No more choosing which tools to build over another. And, quite personally the most traitorous change yet, gone is the splendid road-making system.
Your core building will be your village center, which churns out settlers according to what buildings you build. If you build a mine which requires five miners, out comes five miners automatically, tools, skills and all. The only thing you have to balance is the need for housing and farming. With every industry that you build, additional houses and farms will need to be built with them in order to facilitate population happiness and overall efficiency. It is this simple. Blacksmiths, brickmakers and smithies still remain, but not to convert raw materials. These buildings somehow magically extend your ability to collect resources. It is this simple.
The military aspect has been changed as well. You no longer attempt to expand your borders by building military buildings. As a matter of fact there are no borders at all. Soldiers are produced by the barracks and archery range and stables. They are churned out like any other RTS game, popping out after a short training time and ready for heavy-duty bashing anywhere on the map.
Heritage of Kings this time lends heavily to a plot, and this is played out on the single campaign. You control several heroes over a span of maps in an attempt to re-unite the 'Old Kingdom' in defence against the 'Black Robber Knights'. Nothing really outstanding or surprising, but it's not much you can expect. The voiceovers are a mixed bag. It features many accents from the United Kingdom, including Yorkshire, Scottish, Irish and London-ish, which is a breather from stereotype English accents. This however still fails to hide the fact that the talents behind the voices are horrendous and lack any real conviction; it plays out more like pre-juvenile cartoon characters rather than anything else.
All in all, I must find this game disappointing strictly from a very pro-Settlers I to IV perspective. Other RTS fans might still want to give it a try. The graphics are good enough, and you have to give an A to Ubisoft for effort. Unfortunately that's all they have to give.
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