There's none of this, despite the rather similar logo to the 2004 film
Introduction
This is a strategy/resource management wargame similar to the Total War series, but with a bit less complexity. It has some dubious role-playing elements bolted on. Here is my historically accurate account of my time with it.
Setting
The game world is instantly recognisable even today, as it's a map of Britain. London, Cornwall, Wales, Norfolk and Mercia are there, but everywhere north is just a big spooky forest where time passes incredibly slowly. London is the heartland of those do-gooder Christians, while Wales is full of heathen louts and oafish bandits. Cornwall's where you start, Mercia keeps having a fight with itself and I didn't bother conquering Norfolk.
Everything went a bit wrong when you (Arthur) pulled the sword out of the stone - Merlin's fucked off somewhere, loads of magic stuff is seeping down from those naughty Scots and no-one accepts you as the rightful dirk-lifting King Of Everything, mostly because Excalibur seems to be broken. Time to kick some arse (and do a few quests).
Gameplay
You move armies with up to 15 troop squads around the map to conquer the other areas and to go to the quest locations. Limited travel distance, four "turns" a year (one of which being Winter when you can't move) - usual sort of thing.
Battles are pretty much like the Total War series, but I found myself using tactics a lot more instead of just outnumbering everyone 10-to-1. Most battlefields have control points, which you can take over (more than them of) to reduce the enemy's colour bar to zero and win, even without killing them all - so you can emerge victorious even when heavily outnumbered sometimes. They also have some quite devious choke points which makes some control points much harder to capture/defend than others. Winning gives you experience points you can spend on knight's governing/fighting skills and on upgrading troops. There's an auto-battle option which heavily favours the CPU.
The quests are purely text based (with maybe a battle in) where you choose from a set of answers. Your choices determine your alignment (good/bad, Christian/heathen) and the outcome usually leads to another quest or a new knight to come and sit at your triskaidecagonal table.
Only knights can lead troops, and they get a few spells and abilities - the availability of some being determined by your alignment. They can recruit basic troops in any town, but once you have a Stronghold, during the winter months you can get busy building extra training facilities, setting tax policies and researching various upgrades. You can grant your knights fiefdoms and wives to make them like you better.
Stuff that sucks
The difficulty is all over the place. One battle you can watch a vastly superior enemy army fail to bother trying capture your poorly defended control points only a few steps away, the next you face a full set of troops several levels higher than anything you have.
The same goes for the troop balance - archers particularly are overpowered - though there is a specific menu option to weaken just them.
The text-based quests are a bit disappointing, but better than just a cut-scene - they seem to exist mostly to determine your alignment, as your actions in the rest of the game scarcely do so.
Conclusion
Overall a good game, let down a little by the balance - I've beaten some tough fights by going away, thinking up different strategies and coming back, but sometimes you have to have a scrap with the neighbours just to build up the strength to take on a quest. Too much time is spent waiting for your armies to rebuild - especially as a few quests are time (turn) based.
Score :
6.5/10