Majestical Arse

Greetings and welcome to another Turbo_Noob report, I believe this would be my second but I have no education of any form. In fact, this report was written entirely by street urchins I have shackled in my basement. Rate this a 7+ or I swear I will beat the living crap out of them. Anyways, I have not been seen on the cyberweb for the past few weeks (edit: I left this report alone for a while so this is a bit outdated) because my computer had a stroke, leaving me to come home to the shock of finding him sprawled on the floor, jerking and writhing in unholy agony. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, a computer chop shop in Chicago, where he spent the better part of two weeks in recuperation, his body adapting to the host of new organs and tissue that rebuilt his frail and broken harddrive. But now he's back and more of a badass then ever, no more Windows ME or Kazaa to slow him down, commanding other PCs to bow to his iron fist or suffer his wrath. If my computer met yours in a dark alley, well let's say your's would be sitting awkwardly for a while.

Computer buttsex aside, this report is about a game nearly unheard of in the gamer community, Majesty. If any of this game appeals to you, march your ass over to here and play the demo, because we need more players, desperately. Ok, since most readers have most likely never heard of this game, I guess it's my job to introduce everyone.

The Overview: Majesty is probably unlike anything you've ever played before. It's half sim/half strategy, and one of the best mixes of the two ever made. Like most strategy games you play as a king incharge of placing buildings, casting spells, recruiting units, and a strategy that will insure your kingdom's survival. However, that is where the strategy side of this game stops and it's sim roots take over. You control none of your units(heroes), none of them. Your heroes act entirely on their own a.i, much like Dungeon Keeper, for everything they do. Heroes will go hunting, purchase items, run for their lives, and defend the realm on their own. You also will get a host of peasents, tax collectors, and guards that are also uncontrollable. With no micromanagement, your entire strategic portion of the game is based entirely on macro.

Heroes and Henchmen: The units of majesty are seperated into two factions, heroes and henchmen. Heroes are your main combat units that are recruited from guilds. Each guild can recruit up to four heroes, and each guild recruits it's own unique types of heroes such as warriors, wizards, rangers, and the like. Heroes will gain levels by fighting monsters which will allow them to fight harder monsters and buy better loot for themselves, much like a sim-mmorpg. Henchmen come in three flavors: tax collectors, guards, and peasents. Tax collectors travel about the town collecting gold from all your buildings, guards patrol the city near their designated guard towers to offer some basic defense against enemies, and peasents will travel about the town to repair and build your structures. Protecting your henchmen is essential to winning the game, especially the tax collectors, and so most players dot guard towers around the city to provide protection for when the heroes are out questing or doing other heroic things like robbing graves (Rogues).

Resources: The only resource in Majesty is gold, which trickles in so slowly that money-management is a crucial factor in determining whether or not you'll win the game. Your only source of gold is your tax collectors, whom travel about the city collecting gold that the various buildings have generated (Think of tax collectors as peons, and all your buildings doubling as mineral fields). Buildings collect gold in many ways, some generate it automatically like houses, some require heroes to buy things like blacksmiths, and all guilds have heroes deposit some of their money into the coffers every time they enter. It takes a while for tax collectors to work up enough money to make a trip back to the palace and deposit the loot, but you can always make more tax collectors right? Wrong, you get one tax collector per tier, and once he dies it takes a while for the palace to generate another one, plus you lose all the gold that collector was carrying when he dies. So you can just protect all your tax collectors? Wrong again, you can't control your units so you must rely on guard towers for in-city protection, and a little luck. One of the cheapest and most frustrating tactics in multiplayer is placing bounties on enemy tax collector's heads so your heroes try to hunt them down.

Lucky you, since I love Majesty so much I'm giving you a double dosage of chocolatey Majesty goodness. Now I've already given you the 411 on the basic concept of Majesty, but you're still green to the actual game. So I'm going to take it a little slowly this time, and don't worry, I'll be as gentle as a lamb. Like always, I'm going to make this a skirmish game.

For those of you with poor eyesight, these are the settings:

Player Forces: New Settlement (Expert) Settlement starts with a level one palace

Enemy Forces: Necrovale (Advanced) The undead walk the land under the command of several vampires. (Many weak to strong monsters present)

Wandering Monsters: Skeletons (Beginner) Skeletons will enter the region from the nearby wilderness.

Landscape: Mayhew It's a swamp

Starting Gold: 15000 Anything above this amount is for pussies.

Victory Conditions: Eliminate all foes Just kill all the enemy buildings to win.

As of right now I have a palace, a tax collector, and two peasents; all my henchmen are hiding inside the palace until a chore forces them to journey out of it. This beginning stage of the game is one of the determining factors in any skirmish or multiplayer game as to whether you are going to survive past half-time. Because this early in the game, it could only take one or two high-level monsters or an early goblin-raid to take you down to a position you will never be able to recover from. To survive, you need to make a plan and start executing it as fast as possible while praying to God a monster doesn't wander into your territory. It so happens I have one such plan:

Warriors Guilds: Warriors guilds recruit the stalwart Warriors for 450 gold a pop. They also feature a "Call to Arms" button that transports all members of the guild to the entrace, very useful for defense but requires a costly 500 gold to work.

Warriors: Warriors are basic melee heroes who can retain their usefulness throughout the entire game. Slightly resembling W3's footmen, they are the crutch for most of player's early-midgame strategy.

Vampires: Vampires are some pretty hardcore monsters, they travel in pairs and are not only excellent melee fighters but can cast a life drain spell that nearly doubles their combat abilty.

Skeletons and Zombies: Skeletons and Zombies are the grunts of an undead monster-force. Skeletons are a bit weaker then zombies but are nearly invincible to ranged attacks, while Zombies are your average easy-to-kill enemy.

I may have held off the first attack, but in Majesty your enemies don't need any sissy "balancing" or "rules". In fact, I can probably expect to have another vamp attack that will result in another corpse pile of lvl 1-3 warriors, oh well. In addition to the threat of a vampire raid, a house has been built in the spot between the two guilds I was planning on placing a marketplace, feck. Houses are raised up by themselves for no purpose other then to piss the player off and you can't get rid of them unless you put a bounty on their destruction, which will cost gold I don't want to spend. Feck again. Looks like no ring strategy for me.

Putting the Marketplace in the next safest area (under the second guild) I scrolled upwards to find a delightful suprise at the tip of my base, a vampire has come to drink tea and play with my Star Wars dolls action figures, and he brought a few of his skeleton friends too. But I'm a little more prepared this time, and under a gangbang of swords and "HUMPH!"'s, the pasty little vampire turns to dust. As for his cohorts, one of them got bored and wandered off, and a xylophone (or however the fuck you spell that) was made of the other.

A few seconds later a couple things happened, the Marketplace finished and I started researching Healing Potions/Market Day, and a new set of vampires came over to bitchslap more of my warriors with that damned life drain spell, god I HATE that fucking life drain. This time the casualties were so high that the game awarded me with a graveyard containing a list of all the heroes that have died under my rule (14 so far) You see, the creator's of Majesty's reasoning that if someone is doing poorly at the game, you should spawn an undestroyable building inside their base that spawns more enemies. Ingenius! Now I am left with all level 1-4 warriors, no gold because of all the costs to keep recruiting them, and I get to have more monsters attacking me thanks to the graveyard. So things aren't looking so bright, at least I still have healing potions right? Good thing too, because two more vampires waltzed right into my kingdom and started sucker punching my level 1s before they could get to the marketplace to buy any potions.

Marketplace: The first shop-building you'll create, this is the source of healing potions and other magical items for your heroes if they can survive long enough to buy them. It also generates a lot more gold then the other buildings.

Healing Potions: For some hundred coins, your heroes can purchase a five stack of healing potions. When low on life they will automatically take a swig of one of their potions which will restore most of their life.

Market Day: Market Day is a researchable ability for your Marketplace that allows it to generate a large sum of gold for a trade-off of not letting any heroes into it. Unless you have two markets this is really only useful for unlocking the ability to upgrade the marketplace to level 2.

Houses: Houses are randomly built around your base as you recruit more heroes to your cause. They generate very small amounts of gold and so they really only serve to clutter up your base and get in the way of spots you want to place your buildings.

Graveyards: Every 14 or so deaths, a graveyard is constructed in your base that contains a list of the heroes that helped to create it, and randomly spawns Skeletons and Zombies to attack your forces.

To completely embarass my forces again, the vamp-squad proceeded to take a page from the book of Diablo II's Necromancer by hiding behind a few zombies while casting spells. The strategy proved useful as my Warriors went straight for the zombies, shrugging off any hint of attacking a vampire until each and every one of those green-skinned bastards was dead... again. This took a few names from the hero roster, but after defeating the raid at least all my surviving heroes had enough cash to go buy some healing potions. But wait.. What's this?

Hey kids, you know what's not cool? Getting caught smoking pot. You know what else isn't cool? When vampires attack you and all your "Warriors" run home and cry in their pillows like prepubescent fat girls. I guess I made fun of one too many goths in my life, because pissing me off has obviously made it to the top of these fuckers' agendas. Seriously, what kind of bear has crawled up these guy's asses and laid it's eggs in their intestines? Jesus H. Christ. A few death tolls later, and the kingdom is once again safe for a few seconds, but I'm out of my original cache of cash, and I have to rely entirely on my tax collector's bringings to stay alive.

Now I could keep recruiting Warriors in hopes that some of them will survive long enough to protect the rest, or I could try to tech to Healers and risk not being able to afford reinforcements. I have a feeling that teching will be far too risky for this badass since the castle the vampires are coming from seems to be fairly close to my base. And so it's gogo action bronco for slapping the recruit button around a few times.

After a few days of my patented "Keep Making Guys!" strategy, the game seems to be in a stalemate. Every once in a while one of my high level warriors falls, but the cash flow is pretty steady for me to replace them. Yet I'm not sure I want to spend four hours inching across the map, so I'm deciding to save up to upgrade my palace to level two, then get me some sexual healing. Which may come in handy considering I now have two graveyards built around my kingdom.

Some time later after having tried to save up 3k gold, I found it impossible because of having to constantly recruit more Warriors. To remedy this I've built a Blacksmith on the edge of town. Maybe slightly better weapons and armor can turn the tide of the battle. I also built an Inn to generate some more income, only problem is I had to place it next to a graveyard which could disturb some of the guests.

The new Blacksmith and Inn worked great, and I'm beginning to power my way to 3k for tier 2. But what would really help is knowing where those fucking vampires are coming from, and how they are managing to breed so fast. Since Rangers are a NO when fighting undead, I'm forced to wait as some Warriors blindly romp around the map. Hopefully they'll run into something I can put a bounty on.

While some warriors were stumbling around for a castle or something to raid, I finally got the palace to Tier 2. Perfect time for a game update.

Game Update: Day 26

MVH(Most Valuable Hero): Sir Valian of Kanal's Creek, level 8 Warrior
Honorable Mention: Sir Calindor Headlopper, level 7 Warrior
Current Phase of Plan: Phase Two
Heroes Alive/Dead: 8/29

Mid-Game:

Blacksmith: The Blacksmith sells weapons and armor to heroes. You can upgrade it up to level three, with an upgrade for weapons and armor per level. Which means you can get a max of three upgrades for weapons/armor, much like starcraft except more costly.

Inn: Inns serve to generate more gold for collection, but also serve as a resting place for your heroes whether they're fleeing from monsters or just bored. Every visit deposits some of the hero's gold into the buildings' coffers.

Temple Racism In Majesty at tier 2 you must choose to allow one of three sides into your kingdom. Agrela/Dauros, Fergus/Krypta, or Krolm. You can only choose one team, and from there on you cannot recruit one of the other sides unless you destroy your existing temples.

Ye Olde Racism No this isn't banning black heroes from your public schools, this about racism between Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves. They don't like eachother, and you can only pick one side unless you destroy all their guilds, just like temples.

I've had more then my fair share of close calls, but I've survived until half-time, which usually means gg monsters. I built a Temple to Agrela ASAP, recruited 4 Healers, and teched it to lvl 3 for that fine assed ressurection spell. I also decided on Dwarves as my subrace, those sexy little bastards can pound my nail any day. Yet, with a whole army of all-full 2 Warrior's Guilds, a Dwarven Workshop, and a Temple of Agrela, it's not like a bunch of punk wanna-be goth vampires are gonna stand up to me. So with my vast amount off collected gold, I began making Explore Flags around the map, putting some delicious 1k+ gold bounties on each of them. As soon as the word spread out, everyone in the entire kingdom except the henchmen immediately dropped what they were doing and began sprinting in random directions, searching for the thousand dollar easter eggs. Within a matter of seconds, this is what the minimap looked like.

Temple of Agrela: Temples of Agrela recruit healers, but they also give you a spell for each upgrade (up to 3) you give their temple (you scratch their back they scratch yours) First level healing(200), second bless(100), and third ressurection(1500). The prices are in () <- these things.

Healers: Healers are gals that just like to hang around with the boys and do things... heal them. Their spells are heal, aura of peace, and meditation. I don't know when they get them, but I know heal makes people have more health, aura of peace makes monsters attack other people, and I'm not sure what meditation does but their always casting it.

Dwarven Workshop: Dwarven workshops can recruit 3 Dwarves per shop, and they also fire ballista bolts at nearby monsters.

Dwarves: Dwarves suck at first, but get better then Warriors as time goes on.



After the original scavenger hunt I found a couple of enemy buildings around the map. A bounty of around 1600 gold was placed on each, and the masses gathered 'round the buildings, swinging whatever instrument of pain they had to defile them, even the healers began stabbing at the stones with their knives to very little effect. Some lives were lost, but a generous use of the new ressurection spell proved useful if not completly unfair to the vampires. Also, during this time one of the Warriors finally made it to level 10, and as customary with my Majesty game, I awarded him a name worthy of his title, . As the buildings fell, monsters came out of each in hopes of making some kind of veangeance rush. Most of them were wussy little monsters that could barely scream "ASDF!" before they were devoured in a swarm of Warriors and Dwarves. Yet one lone Evil Shrine at the top of the map wasn't going down without a fight. In the Mark4 spirit, an Evil Oculus rose out of the blasted shrine and was rumored to prounounce yet one sentence,

"My man ain't you daddy's baby BIATCH!"

Heroes froze in their tracks, wide-eyed terror taking over their A.I's for a nanosecond before the entire army about-faced and ran. And as the old saying goes, "When being chased by a tiger you don't have to run faster then the tiger, you just have to run faster then the other guy". Replacing tiger with Evil Oculus, and other guy with Dwarves, the heroes followed that advice to the letter. GG DWARVES!

Closing in on the little bastard, the Evil Flying Octupus paralyzed him and proceeded to beet his scrawny ass L.A style. Feeling morally obliged to help him, a healed him up until he was unparalyzed and instead of trying to run again, decided he would die as he had lived, spanking MOBs with a +2 hammer. Another Dwarf, who had just finished off the zombie and had only now turned to realize an incredible David vs. Goliath battle has been going on for some time, decided to join the cause. Together with the aid of my spellcasting, they managed to beat it down. And realizing it was safe to come out of their guilds once again, the masses returned to keep hunting for the Explore/Bounty flags scattered around the landscape. And all was good.

The hero taskforce scoured the map, and like a horde of locusts to Brendan Fraiser, the tidal wave of Dwarves, Swordsmen, and Healers slammed into any opposition they found and totally ruined it's shit. The frenzy boiled and burned until a small secondary party had found the last structure, and razed it to the ground. A boom of cheers arose from the kingdom, and the vampires slowly withdrew from the borders with a hiss. Your Majesty, YOU ARE VICTORIOUS!!!1

Fecking hand got in the way

End Game Stats:

Yay! But wait... Didn't you say there would be a second game? Hellz yeah bitches, stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Majestical Arse.

Holy shit did you see that danger level? Holy shit... By the way I also managed to go the entire game without building a single guard tower, go me.

Special Thanks

Nobody, you guys suck except who'sgotlag who fixorz my report, you rock lag

This has been a Turbo_Noob production.