LotR Successor games, Kingdoms or no?

**Cecil XIX** · 03-27-2009, 04:12

Deus Lo Vult is very polished, adding many new features designed to slow down player growth by charging him boatloads of extra fees in order to expand, as well as forcing each character to focus on being a govenor or general. I've played a bit of one version of Vanilla, though I don't remember which one, and the recent 6.1 version for Kingdoms. The Kingdoms version may be a bit too restrictive for game meant to be shared among many, but on the other hand we can selectively choose which of it's 8 scripts to run. The Vanilla version is less restrictive, but only because it has less feature implemented. The Vanilla campaign I played also had me going broke from uncontrolled Family Tree expansion, but I'm not sure if that was a feature as I haven't heard it mentioned in the literature.

The main points of contention are that the extra fees may slow down growth too much, players may not like being forced to pick between general and govenor, and the civil wars. However, the first two may not turn out to be problems. They might even be plusses depending on the consensus. Also, the last two are implemented via traits and thus are easily correctly, either in the mod's files or on an ad hoc basis via the console.

It's pros are that it provides a superb roleplaying environment, mainly in the form of it's career path for generals. Each avatar who is not the FL or FH has one of five ranks, the progression being "Squire > Knight > Knight Banneret > Knight Commander > Knight Grand Cross" for Catholic factions. The surest way to climb up the path is to end your turn outside a settlement, but winning battles and Heroic Victories in particular can also help. Squires and Knights receive penalties to morale, with Knight Banneret and above gaining a bonus in the form of special Battle Standards. There is actually a limit to the number of standards for each rank, such that there can only be four Knights of the Grand Cross in any faction at a given time. Deus Lo Vult also has legendary swords as ancillaries.

There's a guide to many of the features here.

Many of the features in the guide are not in the vanilla version, such as the point system for cities and castles amongst others. The features not in vanilla are listed in this post under the lists of features added, including those for old releases at the bottom.

**Rowan** · 03-27-2009, 08:58

Cecil just sold me on Deus lo vult. I think it would actually suit the game if you had to be either a great general or a great governor. Builders and destroyers again

**mini** · 03-27-2009, 09:24

the kingdoms version would be really cool to play yeah.

Why can't ppl just grab the expansion? You can buy it for an apple and an egg in stores these days! :p

**Zim** · 03-27-2009, 09:25

Lots of people hate Securom, which I guess isn't always taken off your computer even if Kingdoms is uninstalled...

**mini** · 03-27-2009, 09:31

hmm.. Beats me.
Never bothered me atleast.

**Zim** · 03-27-2009, 10:04

Me neither but I noticed it was a huge deal when Kingdoms came out.

So Kingdoms is pretty cheap now? I've never had much money so it was tough on me buying it when it came out. Luckily I was able to save by skimping on unimportant things, like food.

**mini** · 03-27-2009, 10:07

last time I saw it in stores here, it was 3€.

And games are utterly expensive in this country :D
Well since Kingdoms brings some awesome mods with it, I'd pick it up if I didn't have it already.