Sword of Aragon: The Empire Grows

One city has joined my side. I prepare to attack another.

Sword of Aragon presents an odd but not-unlikable fusion of strategy game, RPG, and adventure game. It has defied the expectations that led me to start my last posting with an explanation about how I don't enjoy strategy games. Now that I've played a bit of Aragon, I suspect strategy-game lovers might actually dislike it.

To enjoy Aragon, I've had to shake off the template created by my previous exposure to strategy games, where you start the game with a general campaign goal (usually to conquer the realm) and choose the specific ways that you achieve it. This game gives you a standard campaign map but requires--or at least strongly suggests--that you approach "conquest" in a specific order, and not always (in fact, so far, hardly ever) in ways that involve laying siege to other cities.

A typical RPG quest amidst strategy-game-style logistics.

Instead, I've received a selection of standard RPG-style quests--kill a monster, rescue a child, find some treasure--but instead of setting out to complete them as a lone hero, I have a company of cavalry and a battalion of bowmen at my back. One frankly wonders why more RPG protagonists don't try this route. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar--Accompanied by the 9th Mounted Legion and Space Rogue and His Fleet of Mercenary Ships would sure play a lot faster, although I recognize they would lose some of the challenge.

When I last wrote, I had finished the first quest (defend the city from orcs) and was trying to finish the second, to slay a monster holding captives to the southwest of the city. I spent a fair amount of time futilely trying to win combat against some giants before I realized I was in the wrong place, and the "monster" was actually a cyclops a lot closer to the city than I had been searching. He was pretty easy--just one creature with no allies. I overran him with my main hero, my mage, some javelins, and some bowmen. The cash reward, 3,500 gold pieces, was far more than I had when I started the game. As I'm only making about 100 gold pieces per month in city income, I can see why my commenters have said that most of the cash in the game comes from combat.

The land that I must unite into an empire. All action has been taking place in the northwest quadrant so far.

While I was still in the midst of the cyclops quest, I got a suggestion as to another one: a young boy kidnapped by a horde of goblins somewhere between Marinia and Brocada (not too far to the north of my city).  His merchant father was offering a 5,000 gold piece reward for his return. I returned to Aladda, swapped out some units, and rode north to find the goblins.

But even as I was hunting them, I got yet another quest, from yet another local merchant, who reported that a "hideous monster" had kidnapped his daughter and taken her to his lair northwest of Aladda.

A less benevolent ruler wouldn't put up with this.

Clearing these two quests involved a couple of different approaches to combat. The minotaur was just one creature, but all of my regular soldiers were too afraid to fight him, so I stacked my heroes, attacked, and wiped him out with one charge. It took but a few moments.

The heroes against the minotaur.

The goblins were arranged in various battalions of archers and infantrymen and took a little more strategy, and my success wasn't nearly so clear-cut. I've found that enemy archers seem to have a better range, and do more damage, than my own archers, and it seems almost inevitable that my heroes and soldiers will take some damage as they approach enemy positions. Sometimes, the damage is enough that the hero's or unit's morale plummets and I can't do anything with them for the rest of the battle. In this battle, I had my ground soldiers attack in two groups while my archers supported from the rear. I lost one of my priests in the battle but only five regular soldiers.

The neat thing is that the enemy will declare defeat when its loss percentage gets to a certain level, and that number isn't necessarily very high. The goblins surrendered when I'd defeated only 40% of their army. This, it must be said, is more realistic than the typical strategy game, where units will bravely fight until utterly obliterated.

The post-goblin battle summary.

Unfortunately, when the battle was over, I didn't find the merchant's kidnapped son--only a pile of charred bones. I don't know if there was anything I could have done differently to save him (get there faster?) but I declined to reload and kept playing. When you successfully complete a quest, you get a certain number of points (one of the adventure game elements), but I didn't get any for this one. I don't know if this will have a long-term effect on my success or not.

By the time these battles were over, winter was almost upon me and I had almost 10,000 gold pieces to spend. I had no more quests for the time being, and both commenters and experience taught me that marching around in winter is a very bad idea, risking death and desertion for everyone. Hence, I decided to hole up in Aladda during the winter to form some new units, develop the city, and train everyone. Among the new recruits (morale was high in the city, supplying me with lots of bodies), I made a new company of bowmen, made a company of cavalry, and hired a knight. I trained both companies of bowmen up to Level 3. I ensured everyone was equipped with the best weapons and armor and developed the city's agricultural, lumber, and mining resources.

Forming and equipping a new unit can get expensive.

A couple of things happened during the winter that were worth noting:

• I got some intelligence that Brocada--a city directly to the north--was perturbed at my growing might and that of Paritan. There were rumblings of war between Brocada and Paritan, but then later some intel that they were thinking about an "economic and military alliance." I'm not sure if I should have done anything with this.

• In a neat interlude, the people of Aladda approached me with a petition to pardon Olaf, a young man accused of robbing and murdering another man whose body was reportedly dumped in the river and never found. Though there were two witnesses implicating Olaf, he had so many character references--including some from extremely prominent citizens--that I decided to pardon him. Everyone was happy with this decision, and it turned out to be the right one, because a month later the "victim" showed up alive and well, saying he was robbed by the two "witnesses" who had accused Olaf.

A neat role-playing option in a strategy game.

• The Duke of Marinia (a city to the northwest) died of a pox and the city descended into civil war.

• I received an emissary from the Tranavan Elves claiming to want relations with my people, but upset at all the lumber development I had initiated. At his request, I agreed to reduce our lumbering. The ambassador later told me that the elves hate King Pitlag of Paritan.

Every month brings new intrigue.

Just as winter ended, I received news that Malacon, leader of the Marinian cavalry, had been exiled from the city on "patrol" to keep him from leading the peasants against the corrupt army junta that had taken over after the duke's death. I took this as a sign to gather some forces and head up the road to Marinia. I met Malacon on the way and agreed to support him in his coup against the city in exchange for his vassalship.

This is one way to conquer a city, I guess.

The fight against the "rabble" was a little harder than I expected, though perhaps I didn't bring enough with me (three heroes, one company of bowmen, one company of cavalry). The defenders clustered in the city in a single knot, making it difficult to pick off one group at a time. I tried to weaken them with my bowmen and then charge with my heroes, but the heroes ended up getting largely dispersed and demoralized, as did the units from Malacon's army. Fortunately, the enemy didn't seem to be interested in leaving the city, so for the last three or four rounds of the combat, I just shot them with arrows until they surrendered.

Approaching the city of Marinia.

Malacon took over Marinia, and Marinia became a "vassal" city to me, which means I can't control anything about its development but I get gold from them now and then.

After that, some time passed in which the game didn't give me any hints as to what to do next. There are only a few roads out of Aladda. All northern roads lead to the cities of Brocada and Paritan; the southern routes branch off a bit, but you have to deal with a giant camp no matter what. It felt like I needed to deal with Brocada and Paritan before I continued onward, but every time I approached those cities, I was warned about their military strength, which far exceeded that of Marinia, where I'd already had a difficult combat. I dithered around for a couple months, seeking random combats to build my sense of tactics and to gain levels.

Eventually, I got word that Lord Pitlag of Paritan was sending an Armada to destroy Brocada, leaving his own city undefended. I immediately headed up the road to attack. When I arrived at the city, I was joined by 100 soldiers sent by my allies, the Tranavan Elves (there was a previous rumor that Pitlag had put out a bounty on their ears).

Companies of bowmen lay siege to the city.

The battle was long and devastating for my side. The elves were slow to come out of their starting points, and Pitlag's cavalary was horrifyingly effective in its attacks on my footsoldiers and heroes. I lost two heroes and had most of the rest of my units dispersed in the first three rounds. Oddly, though, Pitlag's forces seemed curiously reluctant to engage archer units, and so my companies of archers and the elves were able to slowly chip away at them. After we took care of the cavalry, we hovered near the city and just fired volley after volley at the entrenched defenders until they surrendered. Unlike Marinia, Paritan became fully mine, with the ability to make units, levy taxes, and develop the city.

I suspect I'll see him again.

As I left the city, I had a weird encounter with an old man (he'd cackled something at my army on the way past him to Paritan). He called me the "rightful ruler of the ancient empire," did a somersault, and vanished, giving me 10 points for virtually no effort.

In the next round, I heard that Pitlag had taken Brocada, so I gathered my forces and headed in that direction. I met with the defeated Brocadan forces south of the city and agreed to help them retake it, but the game warned me that Pitlag has more than 550 fresh soldiers in there, including 100 cavalry, 350 infantry, and 100 bowmen. I think I need to spend some time building units before I can hope to prevail against them.

This is going to be a tough battle.

A few notes:

• The game really wants you to follow a particular path. If you try to go too far from the Aladda in the opening stages, you get warnings to turn around.

Maybe we'll go south anyway. What is my "trusted advisor" trying to hide?

• As you explore the wilderness, there are frequent random encounters with monsters. You have the option to "ignore" them--an option I've been mostly taking to avoid depleting my unit strength. Perhaps I should spend more time on random encounters as a way to build my units.

I assume "surprise" means I start combat with an advantage.

• Each game session starts with a copy protection screen. It asks you to match the icon of a city with the name of the city on a poster, then type the first word in the paragraph description of the city. It's an annoying process, and it might not even be necessary, since I'm pretty sure I've gotten it wrong a few times, to no ill effects.

I'm curious about a couple of things, and perhaps my commenters can contribute here:

1) Despite the game's intentions, could you win by simply ignoring the "quests," building armies, and conquering each city one by one?

2) What happens if my main hero--Gideon, the ranger son of the old king--dies? Is the game over, or can his followers continue his dream?

3) Does the "score" affect your ability to win the game? (I guess that's related to Question 1.)

I'm enjoying it, but have limited time to play this week. I hope to give it a lot more time this weekend and devote the next posting to combat tactics, which I'm finally beginning to understand.