Castle Kingdom Wars is a simple auto-battler game where the aim is to destroy an enemy Castle while simultaneously defending our own. This is achieved by creating various military units and sending them across "No Man's Land" until they meet opposing forces and a skirmish occurs, although consistent with the genre we have virtually no input in the way how our troops fight. They merely march onwards and hack away at any foes they encounter, while missile troops stand back and hurl projectiles into the melee.
At our disposal are 7 Medieval and 3 Fantasy based unit types, each with their own strengths and weakness against each other. These must be initially purchased with coin - collected during battles - and added to the army but with only 5 unit sots available we must choose which ones to add and ignore. This adds a little strategy as we try and second guess the troops an enemy will deploy. Do we flood the battlefield with inexpensive but weak soldiers like Peasants and Skeletons, go for a ranged offensive using Catapults, Archers and spell casting Mages, or indeed rely on the speedier Cavalry for victory?
Each unit can be upgraded 4 times to its maximum abilities. While this increases their attack and defence values, movement speed and recruitment costs remain unchanged. Their spawn rate and number of units allowed in the field can be upgraded on a different screen, which also adds strength to our home Castle. Loss of the Castle results in the battle ending so upgrading its health is usually a necessity.
The game has 40 levels to conquer but these are all identical and play exactly the same with no variation at all, except when newer units are present when they have been purchased and added to the army list. Even the background is the same every time and this results in a repetitive grind as we fight battles merely to collect the coins to upgrade our units. Coins are received no matter the result of the skirmish but obviously victories yield greater rewards.
There is an option to see how troops fight in a Battle Simulator. Here we just add units onto a flat, blank battlefield and start the battle to see how they fare. Although this is good for seeing how different combinations are supposed to fight, there are problems. For instance, I added Peasants against Cavalry and all they did was go into a Rugby scrum and moved about the map without hitting each other at all until I cancelled the simulation!
Although Online play is possible, the Multiplayer community is so far extinct and the only opponent I managed to play against was my Brother, who purchased the game on the same day I did. There are 3 Daily Rewards to collect but with 2 of these only for Online battles, players are going to feel frustrated when they have no opponents to face unless the situation changes in future. On the evidence I have seen so far this is unlikely.
I enjoyed the game while it lasted, but having fought my way to victory at level 40 and upgraded everything possible to the maximum, there is nothing else to achieve now and therefore no incentive to continue further. The game offers no re-playability value whatsoever. In fairness it was incredibly cheap to purchase, a matter of pence in fact, so the game was value for money.
Castle Kingdom Wars is desperately crying out for much, much more content. Steam Cards and Achievements would be a good start. Other refinements could include longer and more varied battlefields - with rivers, valleys and hills, for example - and definitely a greater number of units including Elephants, Charioteers and a whole host of Fantasy creatures such as Dragons! How about further upgrades for these units, too? Troops would benefit from an array of weapons, perhaps via a toggle system to choose during each encounter. Archers equipped with fire arrows (great against the Golems) and Peasants armed with warhammers - good for clubbing the Skeleton hordes - while the ability for Spearmen to actually throw their spears and then fight with swords like standard Infantry are just a few examples which could be implemented. Perhaps a random battle generator with varied troop types and terrain would help the longevity of the game, even if this option only becomes available after defeating the final level. Something along the lines of the ideas above would certainly add to the strategic feel of the game and the possibilities are endless.
As things stand though, Castle Kingdom Wars is good for a couple of hours until everything is exhausted, then no doubt players will leave it alone and perhaps only load the game periodically to see if further content has been added.
