Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Neocore Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent CPU, 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB for Vista/Win 7), 256 MB Radeon X700 or equivalent graphics card, DirectX 9-compatible sound card, DirectX 9.0c, 8 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy RPG
Release date: Available now

I feel the need to start off on a bit of a somber note here. Perhaps even tragic, depending on the way you look at it. Ladies and gentlemen, we historians universally agree that King Arthur did not actually exist. The logic-nerds among you have undoubtedly made the connection already—yes, this means he cannot possibly return to rule England once again. Sorry, I hope you aren’t too upset about this. If you are, allow me to offer something of a remedy. You can escape into games, like you always have. In this case, I even have a reasonably fitting game in mind: King Arthur: The Druids. I say “reasonably” because The Druids is an expansion in which you don’t play as Arthur himself, but since you have to own the full game to enjoy it, most of your basic Arthur-related needs should be met.

For an imaginary person, Arthur Pendragonovich has a remarkably well established series of “facts” that are known about him. For instance, all legends agree that he was a Christian. Now, even though I played the original campaign in favor of the Old Faith, my efforts to stomp out Christianity felt somewhat out of context, since this is clearly not what Arthur himself would do. With the release of The Druids, all of the pagan-minded gamers can pillage churches and consort with the Sidhe without appearing hypocritical. After all, hey—it’s the druids! They can turn into trees and heal raids…wait, no that’s another game.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You want the details. I’ll give them to you. The Druids takes place during the same time as the events of King Arthur proper. This time around you get to set your own victory conditions when beginning the campaign, which is a nice touch since it lets you indirectly set both the length and the difficulty of the experience. The mechanics are the same as in the original, which is to say that the bulk of the game is played out in a turn-based fashion, very much like Heroes of Might and Magic, while the combat is real-time and bears close resemblance to the Total War games. I’m not particularly well versed in either series, but even as a relative newcomer I felt reasonably comfortable navigating my way through the interface.

Just as in the main game, this expansion does a very good job with its tutorial. At the start of the campaign you’re introduced to the changes, which consist largely of the new diplomacy screen. You can enter into fancy peace treaties and alliances if you’re into that sort of thing, or you can threaten the neighboring monarchs like a man. There are also ladies, and you can get with them provided you have a high enough reputation and spend enough money. Once you succeed, they grant significant boons to various attributes of your kingdom. Kind of like in real life, except without drama, in-laws, etc. Also of interest is the fact that many of the Welsh units that you can command are noticeably more powerful than the English units available in the initial campaign.

Graphics-wise, the game is reasonably pretty, but I’m reluctant to call it gorgeous. It also didn’t feel particularly well optimized; it would sometimes choke a little on my computer, which is ahead of the system requirements by leaps and bounds. Also, I have experienced very strange graphical corruption, where certain objects would lose their textures and instead appear as a mesh of rainbow-colored pixels. I have made sure my RAM and videocards are in top working order, so I can only attribute this problem to the game itself. To be fair, I experienced the same issues with vanilla King Arthur, so I don’t believe it’s a problem with The Druids as such.

I’m not a connoisseur of this genre, so it’s entirely possible, and in fact probable, that I missed some of the finer points that differentiate this game from similar offerings. Those who like this type of strategy are certain to have more fun than I did, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in the comments someone mentions something that I neglected to cover. Still, this felt like a reasonably solid game, certainly not any less impressive than the most recent Heroes of Might and Magic, so those of you who enjoy the genre would probably do well to take notice of King Arthur: The Druids. Another point I want to mention is the price. As I’m writing this, the original game is $2.99 on Steam, while the “complete pack” (original game + 2 DLCs + 2 expansions) is a mere $11.99. Budget-oriented gamers, this should pique your interest.

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