Aren

Dear Friends,

After seeing the posts about Castle's II I couldn't help but add in my own review and thoughts/reflections about one of the best games ever made. (yes I am bias)

First I want to start off by saying that my parents got this game for me when I was in like 3rd grade at a booksale in my Elementary school and I have played it off and on for almost 20 years. I've played lots of different games of various types but I keep on being drawn back to Castles II. It has a special place in my heart and for a few of my friends it has become sort of a cult classic.

What made me get so attached to this game was the fact that it is difficult to master. Even the easiest difficulty can be challenging at first.
The two other difficulties Hard and Impossible are both fun in their own way.
I beat the Impossible difficulty before the Hard because the Impossible is much more intense military wise while Hard is much easier to beat militaryi-wise unless you have some diplomatic strategy in my opinion.


After about 20 years of playing the game I have come to realize that there is A LOT more strategy to the game than people might first realize. The review mentions that combat is very simple. I have to disagree.

I do not want to give up the game secrets but everything can be honed in the game from resources/allocations to the combat.

The combat is very complex. Archers standing in trees for example shooting out at soldiers on the plains do much better offensively than archers in the open shooting into trees. Also the different terrains totally change the speeds at which the different units move. Because many battles take place on a field with different terrains, one would want to position their troops in a way that they have the best cover or maneuverability. The positioning and formation of soldiers can totally win or lose a battle. Again, I'm not going into too many specifics but the composition of soldiers that the enemy has vs your composition of soldiers- unit moral (happiness) and offense/defence - home field advantage, terrain...gods it gets so complicated. Number of archers... starting position. The fact that if you are defending you get to decide over what terrain the battle takes place.

Well I guess that is what lit a fire under my-

I hope you guys enjoy the game and I'd recommend it to anyone!

Good luck!

-Aren