Motte and Bailey (2019) Walkthrough + Review, ZX Spectrum
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A motte-and-bailey castle is a fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled, often forced, labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales following their invasion in 1066. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. By the end of the 13th century, the design was largely superseded by alternative forms of fortification, but the earthworks remain a prominent feature in many countries. (From Wikipedia)
The aim of the game is to fully control the King’s land, and to do this you will need to be in charge of a large and healthy population. You start with a population of 40 citizens, and the way to get more people is to distribute the different tasks that has to be done between the citizens, and if possible let some of them be off duty so they can make some children.
This is a turn based game and for every turn you have to select how many people you want to do certain things: Defend the castle, defend the forest around the castle, go on raiding party, go hunting, work in the castle, work in the fields.
You have to choose a leader for each of these things, and these leaders will gain experience points for every turn, but they will also all die regularly, and then you will have to start from zero again with a new leader.
The castle and the forest is always under attack, and you do off course have to provide enough soldiers to defend this, else you will lose the castle, or the field workers will be attacked. The raiding party is important in the beginning of the game because these people will get back with weapons and horses they have stolen, but when you have a fine supply of these things you have to stop going raiding, because else you will get way too many horses, and you will then run low on food.
The horses will soon be able to reproduce them self so you will have plenty of them, and make sure to send as many people as possible to work in the fields, because they will use the horses, so some of the horses will die in each turn keeping the amount down. When you have enough horses you will also have plenty of stolen weapons, and you don’t need the raiding party anymore, because then you just set up the amount of people working in the castle and they will make new weapons for every turn.
You have to adjust a lot of stuff for every turn; like the food rations – set it low and people and horses will die from starvation, how many weapons and which weapons the soldiers have to use, and how many horses you want the soldiers to use.
The King will help you – When you provide good results, and the population is getting bigger he will upgrade your castle. There is also a big dragon flying around, and when this dragon "visits" you, you will lose a lot of citizens / horses. Sometimes you will get offered to buy a talisman that will protect you from the next attack from the dragon, but it will only protect you from one attack.
This is a pretty good attempt of making a strategy game (or castle management game, as the author says) for the Spectrum, it plays fast and well, and there is a lot to consider and adjust before each turn. Compared to some of the old strategy games it could be more advanced, but it still does a pretty good job, and it might appeal to more people by not being extremely difficult to get into. More strategy games like this would be nice!
The game was made by Jason Taylor in 2019.
Rating = 89%
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