Lords of the Shattered Kingdom

Overview

Lords of the Shattered Kingdom is a massive multiplayer online strategy game developed by NeuralSoft. The player starts with a modest castle and a lord of the manor that can command the castle armies. From this point, the player ventures out of the castle to explore the surrounding world, find resources, defeat enemies and expand its domain. Sooner on later, based on player choices, other players are encountered and the player is forced to deal with them, either by making friends, or by fighting.

The main goal of the game is to control the best castles in the game, for as long as the player can, as the competition can be harsh.

Gameplay

The game contains 3 main aspects.

City management

The player can manage its city, or cities, from the city view interface.

Buildings can be constructed or upgraded, workers can be allocated and resources produced or traded.

Building construction or upgrades, as well as passive resource production happen in fixed time increments called seasons.

Recruiting soldiers, selling, buying or transferring resources happens instantly (in real time).

All armies are raised from the castle barracks. The process of arming a soldier involves building the necessary equipment in a castle blacksmith, or obtaining it by other means, and then providing this equipment to a recruit in the barracks. It is the nature and properties of the equipment that determine the properties of the resulting soldier.

Main map

The main map shows the world outside the player castle.

On the Main map, the player can move its armies, which are lead by one of the castle lords. Actions on this area of the game happen in real time.

The player can use the main map to explore the surroundings, to find and collect resources, which are then transported to a castle, defeat enemies and complete quests.

The game world is made up of many independent islands (or maps) connected by a network of portals. To progress, players have to locate these portals and open connections to other portals on other islands.

It is in this game mode that the strategy part of the game happens, where the player may, most of the times, choose what and when to engage in combat.

Battle mode

When the player decides to engage, or is engaged by a foe, the game switches to the battle mode.

Battles happen on a hexagonal grid, with each unit getting a turn to move depending on its speed.

Every group of soldiers under the player's command is represented by one character on the battlefield. That character has the combined attack power of all the soldiers in the group and, when hit, the damage to it is distributed to the units in the group. For the purpose of this, the units are arranged in stacks with the first unit taking as much damage as it can before being killed, then damage being distributed to the second unit in the group and so on, until the entire group is destroyed (and the character representation for it dies) or until the incoming damage is exhausted.

The goal of each player in this situation is to eliminate the opponent's characters before losing its own, by using a variety of clever tactics like overwhelming attacks, flanking attacks, spells or simply by sheer numbers.

This view is the main tactical aspect of the game.

Career paths

There are currently 3 main career paths, for each individual lord.

The paths are defined by the type of experience a lord gets, which in turn is decided by means it uses to dispose of its enemies. Also, it is worth mentioning that each player can have several lords, each on is own career path.

Magic

Magic spells damage enemy soldiers, and buffs enhance the fighting abilities of their own minions. Even if any lord can cast spells, lords that specialize in magic can master skills that enhance the use of these spells and the wizards from the commanded armies. They are not very useful on the battlefield and they rarely participate sword-in-hand in the battle. Armies under their command will appear to be small and fragile, but the spell scrolls in their bag can quickly change the tides of a battle.

Command

Commanding an army requires charisma and planning. Lords that specialize in command skills can enhance specific unit types (equipment types) passively, increasing efficiency. Additionally, the armies commanded by them tend to be large, with lots of troops as well as lots of soldiers in each troop. These lords can wield the most powerful armies in the game, but they also tend to suffer more losses then the other two types. Very good in the late game.

Heroic

Heroic lords work on enhancing their own abilities as well as the abilities of the soldiers under their command. They are fearless, resilient and deadly. They always actively participate in battles, leading their comrades. The skills they master enhance all soldiers, regardless of type, with improvements to life, armor, evasion and damage. Due to this, heroic lords are very efficient killing machines, usually suffering less losses then they incur, even if they end up losing the fight. Their elitist mentality however makes them stubborn generals, and they tend to command much smaller armies then their charismatic counterparts. Excellent path for new players and those that want to harass bigger enemies.

Persistent world

The world is a persistent universe that all players share. In order to protect new players, the starting island (or map) is an instance that is completely inaccessible to others. That way, the player can bide its time and choose when to venture deeper into the world.

As the player develops, other islands (or maps) which are common to all can be reached and visited by the use of portals.

Story behind the game

A kingdom, in the mythical past, was shattered by the death of its king. Numerous lords that used to live in harmony are now fighting to gain control of the capital city.

Starting from their remote fortresses, the lords use ancient magical devices to quickly move their armies from island to island to achieve their goal.

As they wage war, they force or sway others to swear allegiance to their cause, offering them protection and land, while demanding unquestioning loyalty.

Early access

The game is currently in Early Access on Steam, with many features still under development.