GB Feature: Majesty 2 Preview

After spending some hands-on time with an early build of Paradox's Majesty sequel, we thought we'd tell you a little bit about the RTS/RPG crossbreed.
Heroes act autonomously; once created, they start wandering about, looking for adventure, and they decide when to attack and flee by themselves. Left to their own devices, they will never attack enemy buildings, nor effectively work together to defeat powerful foes. The essential gameplay elements of Majesty are the reward flags used to influence their behavior: if a powerful foe is approaching your town, set an attack flag on him and put a hefty reward on the flag, and soon half a dozen heroes will gang up on the monster in hopes of killing it and thus claiming the reward.

Majesty 2 features four types of rewards you can offer the heroes: explore, attack, protect, and fear. Explore and attack familiar from Majesty entices a hero to go to an (unexplored) area or attack a certain unit. Protect is used to protect helpless friendly units (like caravans), while fear flags create an area to ward off friendly heroes, if you wish to keep them away from somewhere (as they do tend to wander off). Different hero classes respond differently to the flags - rangers are more apt to explore, while warriors will be glad to attack.

Compared to the original Majesty, the hero AI seems to be fairly improved in complexity. Heroes will flee or refuse to engage in a fight if they deem the opponent too strong, while lower level heroes are more likely to pick up low reward quests than higher level ones.