Battle Realms

Discount Price: $40.99

Features:

• Fantasy RTS game inspired by kung-fu movies and Japanese mythology
• Develop village of peasants into clan of highly specialized warriors
• Earn Zen points with noble acts during combat to improve weapons and magic
• Realistic battlefields with weather and wildlife; combat changes as elements shift
• For 1 to 8 players

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Modern software [Posted on 2005-06-27]
Terrain Graphics and Unit movement Ai are good, but that is about it. The concept of unit alchemy, which is where a unit trains in one building and then another to become more powerful is fairly unique but little else is offered. UNit graphics and animations are dull and uninspired. The game has bugs and little balance. The sound and music are pathetic albeit amusing from time to time. The interface is a crime against gamers. There is a fourty unit population limit and the game grates along slowly anyway. Players are limited to four towers, which are far from impressive. Battle gear and other upgrades can be aquires just like unit alchemy, but fail to make up for the glaring shortcomings of this game.
Overall Reveiw. 2 Stars and a waste of money. Buy Warlords Battlecry 1 or 2.

A near-perfect game [Posted on 2005-07-05]
I'm not a strategy gamer per se -- I enjoy *some* strategy games, but also play games from other genres. So I don't approach this game the same way someone who has mastered Warcraft does.

I like this game for several reasons. First, it isn't difficult to pick up; the training missions teach you how to play the game in a short amount of time. Second, while learning the game is simple, there is plenty of depth and strategy to be found. I like the idea of "unit alchemy", where different units can be trained in other skills and become other units. But training all of your units to the highest attainable type is NOT the way to win -- you must balance your troop types. Third, I like the asian setting and themes (the main menu even displays the 5 elements of traditional chinese medicine and philosophy). Fourth, though challenging, the game is not overly difficult or too easy.

A great game. I wish they'd make a "Battle Realms 2". I have not tried the "Winter Of The Wolf" expansion, but have heard that it was not nearly as good as the original game.

the most realistic a game can get [Posted on 2005-07-23]
unlike other strategy games which are set in the future, this is set in the past where swords were used and guns were only in the musket stage. in skrimish games you start out with a peasant, who is the backbone of any army. peasants either collect water or rice (which is the monetary units in this game), build and repair buildings, or train to become a soldier. unlike other strategy games there is a limit to the number of units you can have. they are either 20, 30, or 40 at maximum. since the number of units you can build is limited, you need to decide how which troops are devoted to economy or combat. you don't "build units", you train them in buildings such as dojos, target ranges, etc. a great game overall and one of the few strategy games that actually REQUIRE usage of your brain. good game at good bargain, but the detail of the units is horrible (their faces from the side are shaped like quarter-circles so their face is flat with no moving features)

Fun Revolutionary Game! [Posted on 2006-11-02]
This game is WAY FUN! It's different than a lot of other strategy games because you can train each unit into something else, or just augment it with special powers, which is ESPECIALLY revolutionary. I would recomend this game to ANYONE who likes PC Strategy games just because of the new way of playing a strategy game that you encounter. Instead of turning the units out cookie cutter style, it makes you realize that they are little pseudo-people who require different types of training.

May favorite units were the Werewolves and the Master Warlocks. I subtracted a star because I thought if could've been cooler if each unit had an experience level, and it could advance into something stronger, like for Werewolves it could've been SilverBack Werewolf, then BloodFang Werewolf or something, you know?

Anyways, the game pretty much ROCKS!

Decent game [Posted on 2007-01-12]
This game is pretty difficult, there are no cheats if you need help, or any trainers that I could find that worked. You can pick a couple different paths from the beginning of the game, good or evil, different clans depending on whether you slaughter or help some villagers being attacked in the first mission. It takes a different approach to training, you take peasants and send them into buildings to get skills and then those troops can go into other buildings to train into more advanced soldiers. You only get so many peasents at a time, they build slowly automatically. You harvest water, and rice to build troops.

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