AI

Standard AI, dumb as dirt. :) They run at you, they die. That's about it. I find an excellent strat that gives you some extra time in the single player games is to put fortifications in the enemy's line of advance, even if it's just a few walls. Their siege units will often stop and pound the completely useless and irrelevant wall into rubble. Not too damned smart. :) Of course, the size of an enemy wave coming at you can sometimes be large enough that it's like fighting the Chinese military. Doesn't matter how poorly trained there are, there's so damned many of them they get through regardless.

Map Editor

To keep things interesting, you can design and play your own single player, campaign and Siegethat maps! (More on Siegethat in a bit.) The editor is fairly simple to use, it works the same way as the in-game building, except you get one hell of a lot of stuff with which to lay your castles out. Definately one of the nicest map editors I've seen to date.

Multiplayer

Argh! No ingame browser for internet match making make Marauder go something thing. I LIKE in game browsers. I DO NOT like using Gamespy arcade. Sadly that seems to be the way that most games are starting to go these days. Oh well, it's easy to use and simple enough that the lowliest llama should be able to figure it out. You can also set up LAN games. (Excellent. Rubs hands.)

MP games play out much like the single player. Build your fortifications and your army, try to keep the enemy from doing the same. Kill him. The server host decides what each player starts out with resource and army wise, and also picks the map and time limit, as well as other rules. There are several different types of multiplayer games, including the Siegethis mode, King Of The Hill, and straight normal RTS play. Siegethis mode is interesting. Build your castle, then try to fend off your enemy for as long as possible.

Due to the large number of interesting multiplayer maps, and the ability to make new ones, the game should remain interesting for some time to come. Hopefully a comunity grows around the map making portion of the game, that's vital to the games longevity.

Manual

Excellent manual, includes a complete tech tree, and details on every aspect of gameplay you could think of. It also fits nicely into the DVD case the game came in, proving that you CAN have a good manual in one of those Euroboxed games.

Bugs

None found. No crashes, nothing wierd. It's quite disturbing to actually have a game run right out of the box. I'm sure there's some little critters running around in the code somewhere, but thus far none have been experianced. (Not that I'm complaining, oh great computer gods! Not at all.)

Conclusions

Welp, overall an excellent game. The learning curve is a little steeper than most RTSs, but as I mentioned that's not always a bad thing. (Look at Total Annihilation as a good exaxmple of a game with an extremely sharp learning curve, yet it's so very. very tasty once you do get over that hump.) If you're an RTS fan, or liked the original Castles games, you're in for a treat. The ability to make and play your own maps should keep me amused for a while.