Majesty

Not just another RTS

One of the most pleasant surprises at the event was Majesty, a fantasy based RTS which just went gold a couple of days ago. Sounds pretty standard right? What sets Majesty apart is its gameplay model, which contrasts sharply with the current real time strategy paradigm. In every other RTS, you create units and you directly control their actions by clicking on them to do your bidding. In Majesty you have no direct control over the units! How can that be appealing you ask? We were skeptical at first until we sat down to play.

Ransom on the dragon's lair

His majesty's palace

Ransom

The gameplay centers around the development of your castle and the area around it. The player takes the role of a local king in a wilderness inhabited by random wandering monsters and riddled with secret temples and treasures. As king of the land, you levy taxes on all the surrounding buildings, including marketplaces, rogue's guilds, wizard temples, warrior barracks, etc. The taxes are how you raise money. You can then use the tax money to build additional buildings like marketplaces, ranger camps, etc. So how do you explore the land and kill things? Like any king - you lay out a ransom for it. Wish to explore the uncharted territory north of you? Put an exploratory bounty in that area, and one or more of the local heroes you've hired will bravely trek out there to collect the reward. Is there a giant wererat attacking your marketplace? Then put a bounty on its head and the brave heroes of your realm will attempt to slay the beast for the money.

That rock golem could be a problem

Yikes that's a big dragon!

Why taxes work

So if you're spending all this money on ransoms, how can you expect to make any money? That's the beauty of taxation - you end up getting a percentage of all your ransoms back. You see, your heroes pocket the money from ransoms and the money they find fighting monsters on their own. BUT, they have to pay a lot of that money to their guilds (the special buildings you create to hire your heroes). And your heroes also use their money to buy products at the marketplaces and inns that you create. Then your tax collector makes the rounds over to all the guilds, and businesses to take their money, which you use to create more ransoms and hire more people, etc. It's a true, bustling economy that happens on the fly, right before your eyes!

Features

There are a number of neat safeguards and features built into Majesty. If you get into the habit of letting all your heroes die and hiring new ones, eventually graveyards will be created. Gravesites have the nasty habit of releasing zombies and skeletons to terrorize your town - so that encourages players to not view their heroes as disposable mercenaries. Use your spells to protect them, and create marketplaces for them to buy healing potions! Another neat feature are the special properties of each of the hero buildings. The Ranger's camp can be picked up and moved at any time if it comes under attack. The Rogue's guild has an "extortion" feature. If you're in need of quick money, you can use the extort button and the Rogues will instantly collect the taxes for you, mafia style. They keep a sizable cut but you get to have some instant money instead of waiting for your tax collector to round up the gold.

There's a lot to like about Majesty, and the game will be in stores very soon. If you're a strategy or fantasy game fan, you owe it to yourself to check out Majesty, which, in our brief time playing it, proved to be quite a fascinating take on the real time strategy genre.