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Publisher
MacPlay | Genre
Strategy & War | Release Date
11/11/2000 | Status
Available |
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The ‘sim’ genre and the ‘RTS’ genre are well-represented on the Mac platform, as is the empire-building game, but Majesty has such an eclectic mix of features from each of these genres that it stands in a class of its own. Billed as “The Fantasy Kingdom Sim,” Majesty is all that and more, a sim with the fast pace and action of an RTS, but the structure and strategy of an empire-builder.Majesty places you as the king of a small group of followers. Usually your kingdom is little more than a fancy shack with a few peasants and a garrison of troops, and perhaps a temple to a deity if you’re lucky. While suffering a constant barrage of attacks from vermin, wandering monsters and organized enemies, you must build an army, develop magical and weapons ‘technologies’ and eventually accomplish your goal. Said goal is usually wiping your opponents off the map, but there are other scenarios available, from a hunt for a hidden object to a quest to raise a large amount of gold in a fixed amount of time. You’ve certainly noted the word Fantasy in the game’s subtitle, and there is fantasy here indeed – a collision of various myth, legends and fiction is represented in the mix of characters and enemies in the game. From the common foot solider armed with a pike to giant floating evil eyes, with dwarves, elves, and paladins galore, this game has it all. A lot of the creatures are quite obviously inspired in look and abilities by Dungeons and Dragons, but as TSR tends to enforce their intellectual property rights vigorously, enough has been changed to keep the lawyers at bay. Starting with a small stash of gold and a castle, you invest your money in physical structures. There are no resources to harvest, unless you count your own townspeople, whom you tax incessantly to raise revenue. Now, as to how a closed economy generates revenue, and where all that gold comes from, I’ll leave that up to someone with an economics degree. As your village grows in size, and you add features such as marketplaces and trading posts, your gold revenue increases exponentially, until you have enough cash on hand to erect high-level temples and upgrade your castle to greater strength.
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