You accomplish your opponents' demise by means both military and economic, and manage everything from what type of weapons your blacksmiths produce to whether your farmers should raise cows or wheat, or let the fields go fallow. The point of Lords of the Realm II is, of course, to conquer the other fiefdoms, counties or colonies that surround you (depending on which of the many maps you play, you can fight in 14th century Italy, 18th century Massachusetts, 19th century Africa or any of two dozen other unique scenarios). And if you're not the kind who likes to play general, you can let the computer simulate the battle and tell you how you did.

Very, very few games achieve the sort of balance that Lords II does, and seldom is a computer AI in a strategy game really up to the task, but on all accounts Lords II is totally engrossing and achieves a very impressive balance between strategy and action battles are real-time, but start out paused, allowing each player to survey the battlefield prior to the battle for strategic locations and terrain.

Despite the stiff competition offered by Westwood's Command & Conquer series and Blizzard's Warcraft line, Lords of the Realm II eclipses both and easily gets my nomination for strategy game of the year. The full version of this game is nothing short of awesome. Virtually everything is improved this time around: gameplay, graphics, siege and battle engines, audio and, well, everything.

That's not the case in Sierra's sharp update to 1994's medieval strategy award-winner Lords of the Realm. Strategy games tend to focus on either micromanagement or massive battles, and no matter which one the game tends to focus on, the other almost always suffers.

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