Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania reviewed on PC by Allan Walsh. Game supplied for review by Paradox Interactive

Loyal subjects, hear me! The Kingdom of Ardania is once again in peril, mostly because His Majesty was pretty much bored out of his gourd with how well things had been going of late. Adventuring is in the blood you know. Well, it's in the blood of whomever He sends off to get mauled, er, I mean to get heroic deeds done in the name of the sovereignty. Huzzah!

As silly as that first paragraph may sound it's exactly how Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania portrays itself. It's an expansion for Majesty 2 if you hadn't already guessed and is basically more of the same. Of course that would only be a bad thing if the original game was as bad as a woodsman wearing dodgy green tights but in this case it's a good thing. The game I mean, not the dodgy green tights.

It's a tongue firmly planted in cheek portrayal of a Real Time Strategy game not unlike Age of Empires but not as harsh on newcomers. You begin every quest with a castle and a handful of peasants. From here, various military training facilities can be built by the peasants, allowing you to build up a small fighting force. Your subjects all have varying abilities from archery to sword fighting and magic. Clerics are also a powerful caste that harm enemies whilst healing your troops.

Each building can be upgraded to allow for better defence and research of new weapons, potions and spells. Temples can be built for special powerful spells and even the resurrection of fallen heroes. The better your tactics the longer you can keep your fighters alive and the more they can level up, giving them great advantages in battle. At the end of each quest you can appoint your best heroes to the position of Lord and call on them in the future for major offenses (as long as you have built a Hall of Lords and can afford their fees).

Certain quests ask you to upgrade certain aspects of your town to facilitate a merger with another race or clan, be it Elf, Dwarf (who like to let people know that hammers are also for hitting) or a lone lunatic hunter who happens to be handy with this or that and can train your soldiers in that same skill. Add to this a very clichéd group of baddies (not necessarily a bad thing in this case) and an advisor who constantly gives you advice about what's going on in a very bad Sean Connery brogue and you have a light hearted, fun game that still manages to get the tactics and learning curve just right.

Beginning each quest is a race to build a good defensible position and from there work on a strategy to build up your town and its assets into a force of warriors, magicians and clerics . If you set up a perimeter of watchtowers as soon as you can spare the money from your treasury then it can make any in-town skirmishes all the much easier and less of a drain on your resources. Then slowly expand, attacking the places responsible for said skirmishes, like Bear and Wolf dens or haunted cemeteries, slowly expanding and opening up more of the map for you to take under your wing.

Resources are much simpler in M2: BoA than most other RTS games because all you really need are people to tax, marketplaces and trade posts. The people are taxed automatically and you build a marketplace in your town to draw trade which comes in the form of coin of the realm. Trade posts are built on special sites as you expand your territory, bringing yet more gold into your coffers. Even wandering adventurers find chests of gold littered about (there are obviously some very absent minded people out there) and loyally give it to the king.

Graphically the game certainly suits its purpose with bright colours and stylised visuals full of character and comedy and where nothing really seems out of place at any time. Even the menu system has been kept clean and simple, facilitating a nice unhindered access to all of the options you need in-game.

The sound is typical "fayre" with over the top period music ramped up with added cheesiness to go with the ambient and spoken sounds rife within Ardania. Some of the things heard can be useful too, like Rogues in trouble calling out "help a lady" or Dwarves bellowing "I can't do this all by myself" giving you a clue or two in regards to how a battle is going at the time.

Nothing seems overly difficult, at least not in the early stages. Even when you get beaten by a harsh adversary more than once, you can see where you went wrong and gradually hone your tactical skills until you sate your wrath with a victory. To those of you new to the world of RTS (obviously from another realm then) I would recommend Battles or Ardania wholeheartedly. Of course you need Majesty 2 to play it but it's a worthy purchase.

If you are reading this because you already own and like Majesty 2 then you will love Battles of Ardania. It's more of the same kooky goodness that shows a light hearted game can still have tactics and game play that works and a lifespan longer than a peasant in a field full of werewolves.