King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame II Preview

With only eight days to go until the sequel's release, you may want to check out the new hands-on preview of King Arthur II that's up on D22Zone this morning. In it, the author compares the game to the Total War series before going on to praise the magic system, quest writing, and historical accuracy:
Each turn represents a season, and the campaign map alters to reflect that: the golden light of summer gives way to the torrential rain of autumn which in turn becomes the thick snows of winter. And when winter rolls around, all armies halt, make camp and organise a game of football in no-man's land, while the rest of the kingdom gets on with building, training and research in the relative peace. This lends a pleasing feeling of rhythm to the turn-based game, and reduces the number of things demanding your attention on any one turn.

Not that there's a huge amount of economy management to worry about; mostly, I was just concerned with keeping enough gold in the bank to replenish my army after each fight and occasionally buy new trinkets for my hero-general to use next time he was pushing enemy units' faces into the mud and laughing. Which is probably the right way aroung for a game of this sort of mythological focus. Put it this way: Sir Lancelot is more famous for using his lance a lot (innuendo acknowledged) than he is for his prudent agricultural development plan that increased national grain yields by 10%.

In keeping with that spirit of courage before currency, the principal way your heroes will impact the game-world is through the enthusiastically voiced text-adventure-style quests that crop up from time to time as little spotlit scrolls at various locations on your map.