By Daniel Ball
I went in to Castle Fight, not exactly knowing what to expect, but really hoping it would be better than Lords Online.
So, I signed up and began my journey. Straight away I was asked to pick my faction: Christian crusaders or the noble Arabs. Being the nobleman I am, and wanting to really back the underdog, I chose the Arabs. I should say, at this point, that each of the two factions has no advantage over one another, so it’s basically a matter of which you prefer aesthetically and ideologically.
If you’re looking to jump straight into some ancient, brutal fighting, you might just be looking at the wrong game here. Sure, there’s fighting, but it comes later, once you’ve established your ‘castle’—your collection of buildings. These buildings are essential for acquiring resources, as well as gaining the technological advancements for different troops in your army. You choose a spot on a grid, choose the building you want, and it will come up on the side how long it has left before it will be built.
This is mainly where the use of the ‘coin’ system comes into play. ‘Coins’ are the currency in game that you can buy with real money online.
You can buy anything with these coins, from more wheat, brick or denarii (your main in game materials/currency) to buying a holiday—where you can leave the game and for 21 days you will not be attacked. You also have the option of switching to premium account, which, amongst a lot of other things, gets rid of the advertising and gives you more information throughout the game overall.
Speaking of the advertising, you might not want to suggest this game to your kids, as the first advertising I saw was a few scantily-clad women. Great for us older gamers though.
When you’ve finally got the required buildings and materials you can start training your army. You won’t be able to make a massive army straight away, but provided the people around your area on the world map are just as nooby as you, you’ll do fine. I campaigned (and won) against a town with only ten infantry men, who brought me back some nice spoils.
There are a fairly wide variety of units available, from infantrymen and archers to knights and cavalry.
You may not choose to invade a city with brute force, and instead opt to train the ‘special units’. Special units include units such as assassins, who can infiltrate enemy bases and sabotage buildings, or spies, who can gather information about your enemy, so you can decide the best way to attack, that is, if you still want to after seeing their information.
Castle Fight is a game that is best suited as an ‘on-the-side’ game, so to speak. Like, for instance, it’s great when you’re watching anime and you’re like me and can multi-task well. There is a lot of organisation involved in Castle Fight and with each action have a set time delay on it, you’d be fairly bored if you sat there with Castle Fight being the only window open on your computer.
Having said all that though, Castle Fight can become quite addictive, and I found myself constantly going back to it whilst doing other things, to train my army up or upgrade my buildings.
It’s a terrifically laid out game and great for time-wasting, requiring only a small amount of effort.
Don’t expect to lose yourself in it for hours on end at a time, but it’ll definitely grab your attention in small (but sure) segments.
