8 Kingdoms 36.3Mb
“Are you ready to rule the 8 Kingdoms? Catapulting you into a world of 3-D fantasy, 8 Kingdoms is a turn-based strategy game that will challenge your skill as well as your ambition! As one of the many ruling Kings, your goal in this game is to become the greatest King in the land as you fortify your armies and conquer surrounding enemy kingdoms. 8 Kingdoms allows you to explore its world in either single-player or multiplayer mode. Either way you'll have your hands full as you plot and devise your way to the top.”
I haven’t posted many turn-based strategy games, but I hope to make up for this with ‘8 Kingdoms’. It’s a real cracker, with outstanding graphics, excellent music and packed with features, including single-player, as well as multiplayer options, and solid gameplay.
It’s open source and under continuing, if slow development, having been taken over from the original ‘crew’ by a small team of dedicated enthusiasts. It is fully playable and the latest update has just been issued last month. It's available for Linux and Windows as version 1.1.0.
It’s a highly professional title that should satisfy even the most ardent turn-based strategy players. The screen can be rotated and zoomed during gameplay.
It’s fully 3D with hex-based maps and the graphics are styled to look like Medieval board game characters for the figures and buildings. This works really well, especially for this genre; - as having developed from board games originally, in the first place. Don't let the graphics put you off at all ; the game has real depth and playability!
Players construct buildings, recruit units including infantry, mounted units, mages and catapults; and finally attack enemies, or help allies. Units gain experiences during the battle, and each unit can get abilities upgraded to become stronger.
There are a number of buildings with different properties and the option to train several different units; for short range or long range combat. Additionally you can conquer villages, which will provide more gold at the beginning of the next turn. Units all give spoken feedback when selected.
The terrains and surfaces influence movement realistically, with weather to contend with as well. The different terrains also influence where you can set up buildings. There is a monetary system with money, taxes and payment to the army, and most of all, there is calculated computation of fights, including counter-attacks, visibility and experiences, siege weapons and magical units.
It can take up to several minutes for the AI to produce a turn in more complicated battle scenarios when playing against the computer, time to get a snack or a cuppa! Of course human players can take a while to make their minds up too . . .!
It comes with a professionally designed set of maps for multiplayer, and single-player; and the map editor has a random map generator to easily make new maps. The AI is well-developed for single-player games.
It also has a multiplayer game discovery feature to look for online games to join in with. It doesn’t lag and rarely crashes. You can ally with other players or just simply have war with everyone!
It’s a whole load of fun if you like turn based wargames! Definitely one of the better free hex-based map strategy games!
8 Kingdoms has stacks of replayability, as much as you and your friends/other players can come up with!
- Just not to vanish for days at a time while playing and being thoroughly engrossed with '8 Kingdoms'!
Download HERE
