Seize the Day. Rule the Knights.
Lords of the Realm III is the long-awaited, highly anticipated continuation of
the award-winning Lords series. With its all-new 3D engine, easy-to-use
interface, and real-time action, Lords III offers a carefully researched, richly
detailed historical game of warfare and politics set in a beautifully rendered
medieval world. Lords of the Realm III features authentic medieval
history, multi-layered strategy, and lifelike battle action rendered in stunning
visual detail.
Lords of the Realm III is a computer strategy game of medieval conquest. As one
of the great lords of the age, you raise companies of knights and commoners,
found towns and cities, hire mercenaries, build castles to protect your lands
and lead armies to victory over your foes. Your goal is to protect your
territories and take over your neighbors, rising from petty noble to a great
lord or even king. Your playing field isn't just some abstract map, it is the
real world. Invade England, conquer Scotland, sack Paris, or build a castle in
Flanders. It is all up to you.
Combat in Lords III means leading companies of men in real-time in a fully 3D
environment. Array your troops outside the gates of a city or under the towering
walls of your rival's castle. Command noble knights, mounted cavalry, mercenary
crossbowmen, Irish axemen, catapults, battering rams and more. Besiege your
enemies and storm their strongholds to become the sole king of the land. You
must also manage an empire - again in full 3D and real-time. You have to assign
vassals to fiefs, grow food, build up your treasury, sponsor cathedrals, earn
favor with the Church, negotiate with your enemies, hire artisans, and most
important of all build castles to defend your estates. Your land is the backbone
of your resources, the source of the men and money you need to win. Neglect it
at your peril! Finally, both your empire and your battles are continuously
running. There are no turns, just the steady tick of the clock.
From these four types of vassals you acquire the basic resources of the game:
troops, crowns, and food. With these resources you can conquer lands, build
castles, hire mercenaries, and more.
Knights
Knights are the source of your military power and form your armies. When you
place a knight, he creates a fief or basic castle, which defends that land from
enemy attack. With him are one or more companies of soldiers - anything from
peasants to heavy cavalry. You move knights and their companies to build armies
and attack the enemy.
Burghers
Burghers are the source of crowns. Placing a burgher creates a town or a city
that generates crowns for your treasury. Cities have walls and small garrisons
to protect them and are gathering points for mercenaries you can hire to add to
your armies.
Serfs
Serfs create farms and manors that grow the food you need for your troops.
Serfs are defenseless, so you will have to protect them from attacking armies.
Clergymen
Clergymen found churches or great cathedrals. Their presence gains you favor in
the eyes of the Church and gives comfort to your people, increasing their
productivity.
Land is power, but to use that power a lord needs vassals - men sworn to serve
him by oaths of fealty. Vassals are the key to managing your lands in Lords III.
By choosing vassals and granting them estates, you add soldiers to your army,
gold to your treasury, and food to your granaries. Every lord starts the
game with a group of loyal vassals in his retinue - knights, clergymen,
burghers, and serfs. Whenever the lord gains a new territory, he must assign a
vassal to oversee it for him. The choice of vassal determines what that land
will produce.
Lords of the Realm III is an RTS (real-time strategy) game. This means that the
action never stops; there are no turns. While you are fighting a battle, armies
are also marching across the countryside. To do this we have a unique approach
to handling both the tactical and strategic elements of the game in a continuous
real-time setting. You have a strategic level where you command armies, manage
your lands, engage in diplomacy, hire mercenaries and do the tasks a great lord
should do. When any of your armies get into a battle, you can zoom down to that
battlefield and take command. You can move between battles and grand strategy
freely, giving orders on one and then going back and checking the progress on
the other.
Because you have to rule a kingdom and wage war all at the same time, Lords III
takes a different approach to resource management and unit building from other
games. Tedious tasks are automated or just plain removed, leaving you with the
task of ruling like a true king.
Authentic Environment
Do battle against the backdrop of medieval Europe, as you witness the rise of
kings, cash economies, and the dominance of religion. Lords of the Realm III is
true to actual history, with a unique, romantic, and earthy look and feel that
separates it from other historical games.
Three In-Depth Levels
Build castles and amass resources on the Kingdom level, then besiege castles or
engage in open-field warfare in stunning visual detail on the Combat level and
engage in diplomacy on the Political Level. Lords of the Realm III offers all
this, presented in real time.
Realistic Combat
Repel castle attackers with boiling oil, catapult farm animals atop charging
armies, and experience all the brutal tactics of the times as you lead knights,
archers, and peasant foot soldiers—each highly individualized - into raging
battle. In Lords of the Realm III, the sights and sounds of battle are rendered
in all their realistic detail.
Playable Noblemen
Begin as a English, French, or German lord or lady, winning clergy, burghers,
and knights to your cause. Enter alliances with neighboring lords to gain
political and military advantage. But be mindful of the motivations of each
group, and be prepared to suffer the consequences if a pact is broken.
Advanced 3D Engine
High walls tumble to earth, flames billow from castle stores, and steel clashes
with steel in this startlingly realistic re-creation of medieval warfare. Zoom
in or out, or rotate your view of the battlefield a full 360 degrees - Lords of
the Realm III's advanced 3D engine plunges you into the midst of the fray!
Castle Editor
The Lords of the Realm III Castle Editor lets you construct castles to defend
your feudal domain. You can select from a variety of ready-made castles, or
design your own. Designs range from early stockades and stout stone Norman
towers to the grand Edwardian castles of the early 1300s.
"Lords of the Realm III")
