This was probably my favorite game of all games, when I got it back in 1997, I believe. The soundtrack, the characters, lore, troops, economy system, everything was great. With the exception of the IA, which was so lackluster, even by time standards somehow. The funky thing is: if you turn all the advanced options on AND do not use any exploits, this game can be really tough to beat!
I bought this game as a stand alone, the expansion, and then got it in set... all those CDs are either lost to time or, well I don't have a CD rom anyway lol. I tried playing on a emulator and found the AI had been ramped up and given some very strong starting bonuses that made them harder to beat!
I never knew about most of these. The free castle one is especially great. I'd love to add one of my own: Boiling oil makes a wonderful shield. Put your archers behind your oil cauldrons in sieges and you can trade shots with armies that outnumber you heavily. It takes FOREVER for archers to wear down those cauldrons.
Using exploit #1 creating armies under the 50 limit. Caravans have a fixed set of paces per turn if your county is large enough place troops to exceed their paces can trap the caravan at your town center so it never leaves. Another exploit is when combining armies of multiple counties the larger force retains its county of origin, this can be used to create larger armies that can then be disbanded. When doing so returns the military as citizens of their origin county doing this can ballon population sizes enabling the creation of armies larger then 1500 units given enough time ive amassed populations over 10k allowing the creation of insanely massive armies
I used to play this game and recall using a trick involving the boiling oil. When you pour the oil manually, you can click multiple places on the map to pour the same oil as many times as you want until the sprite disappears. Not sure if this was an exploit or intentional though.
When defending a castle, place oil on front of your archers. The archers are protected and although the oil loses health (don’t let it get to zero) it remains as potent as full health oil. This approach can defend a royal castle of 150 archers from 1500 attackers without any losses.
In the cd version, if unhappiness was very low, you could recruit an army if there were mercs, you could then add troops, but it would compensate with negative peasents, which would add population and happiness tonthe county, as well as paying maintenance to you
I enjoyed this video of one of my favorite games. I don't know i this is shown in some other video but i ll pitch in with one more trick i discovered when i was young. You can make one superarmy by gathering a good number of armies that you created (the more the better) into a single county then disband them. The county's population will increase by the same amount of troops that you disbanded. Don't end the turn and then go create a new army from that county. You ll then be able to create an army with much much more troops than the 1500 limit of the game for one army. That superarmy can win any confrontation or Castle siege especially on autocalc.
The problem with the enemy army wasting time is that you can get message ang while you will close it, the enemy army can get you. In this event you should slower your speed a little bit more to be ready for canceling all messages you get.
I'm not sure I understand the stone castle exploit. if you start every castle in order all the way up to royal castle, you end up with a royal castle under construction waiting for 1000 stone. of course you don't have to actually complete this castle and you can garrison the building site, but does the building site act like a stone castle if it's attacked or something?
It will be full castle, however we need to check does it affect taxes? If yes then it is exploit, If no then just game mechanics. It will took ages to gather resources and building royal castle
!st one seems very usable. the taxation thing is super broken yet never really gonna be needed cause you've already won at that point. 4th one is super cool, I stumbled upon that when I was a kid once or twice and couldnt figure out why I was getting the free upgrade. Do you recall if you get the extra troops or not? and the 5th one is very good, I used that a lot to stay alive until I could reinforce!
you forgot the best exploits... sell all cattle, then triple food and you can reduce the food manually so the food is like normal setting effect but only 1/3rd of the food actually needed to feed. you also fogot battle exlpoits... Running to the Flag for instance... Or Killing a whole army on the move only with mace men... Killing all archers in advance and then barricade to kill armies many times your size... for instance if there is a bridge you put two pike men at your side and to mace men on the side and archers behind you always attack 2 with four units and archers in the back... etc.
Can you share the software used to record this and add comments? I could possibly share strategies that defend or take various castles against the AI with virtually zero losses.
I am planning to make a LotR2 playthrough video this month. My computer graphics card comes with the ability to screen record, and I use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and do voice-overs. I'm interested in how you take a Stone or Royal castle with almost 0 losses though!
Anyone know the cheat code for 'Debug mode'? I once started a game with it enabled somehow, don't know what I pressed. Was never able to replicate, but it was interesting to see what the computers are doing on the impossible level. I was able to view other counties info - population, production, taxes, money, etc, just by clicking on it, neutral or comp player. Same interface as my own county, but obviously I could not change their production or actually open the town hall window. In diplomacy window, there were tables of other numbers that seemed to correspond to the computer players opinion of me - pissed or not, power level and a bunch of mystery values c1, c2 etc. I try not to cheat to keep the game fun, but if I get an unlucky start I will totally defend by running computer armies in a loop in their own counties, eating their food (set speed 0-1 if you are doing this for multiple armies). Another one is whittling down armies with just mercs - because they can retreat with 0 losses, so you can get army of 150 archers and keep retreating after taking a chunk of their units. Or macemen, run around their army early, kill off archers/crossbows, retreat, kill off peasants, retreat and so on.
they probably coded happiness as a byte to save space, -127 to 127. In computer arithmetic it overflows, 127 + 1 = -127 and -127 -1 = +127. 7 counties each adds -15 happiness, so you need enough to overflow. It's also possible for only one county with raising a large military, super diseased, no food and max tax, but that's kind of useless anyway since population will be 0
Lol I used to use exploit one to raise massive armies, then disband ALL my in the same county. This will beat the population cap and raise 10k on the army. Sometimes I would let those counties revolt with with like massive armies
Why even play this game if you're going to do these? One Man Army Exploit is dumb. Anyways, I still play this game without using exploits. Manor Lords stole a lot from this game. Hopefully, Manor Lords will finish their game.
This was probably my favorite game of all games, when I got it back in 1997, I believe. The soundtrack, the characters, lore, troops, economy system, everything was great. With the exception of the IA, which was so lackluster, even by time standards somehow. The funky thing is: if you turn all the advanced options on AND do not use any exploits, this game can be really tough to beat!
I bought this game as a stand alone, the expansion, and then got it in set... all those CDs are either lost to time or, well I don't have a CD rom anyway lol. I tried playing on a emulator and found the AI had been ramped up and given some very strong starting bonuses that made them harder to beat!
only if you dont fight your battles and let the computer calculate the battles
Still playing this game 23 after it came out. I love it!
Bro, if I had one game to play for the rest of my life? The music/gameplay!!!
Same here return often to this game
They should do a remastered version now.
I never knew about most of these. The free castle one is especially great. I'd love to add one of my own: Boiling oil makes a wonderful shield. Put your archers behind your oil cauldrons in sieges and you can trade shots with armies that outnumber you heavily. It takes FOREVER for archers to wear down those cauldrons.
Using exploit #1 creating armies under the 50 limit. Caravans have a fixed set of paces per turn if your county is large enough place troops to exceed their paces can trap the caravan at your town center so it never leaves.
Another exploit is when combining armies of multiple counties the larger force retains its county of origin, this can be used to create larger armies that can then be disbanded. When doing so returns the military as citizens of their origin county doing this can ballon population sizes enabling the creation of armies larger then 1500 units given enough time ive amassed populations over 10k allowing the creation of insanely massive armies
I was about to post this
we'll crrrrrrush 'em!
On The Double!!!
This is still one of my favourite games to kill time with. I still haven't played all the maps.
I used to play this game and recall using a trick involving the boiling oil. When you pour the oil manually, you can click multiple places on the map to pour the same oil as many times as you want until the sprite disappears. Not sure if this was an exploit or intentional though.
When defending a castle, place oil on front of your archers. The archers are protected and although the oil loses health (don’t let it get to zero) it remains as potent as full health oil. This approach can defend a royal castle of 150 archers from 1500 attackers without any losses.
When in a siege, if you destroy the stairs at the corners of the castle, the enemy units are trapped there. Works wonders!
In the cd version, if unhappiness was very low, you could recruit an army if there were mercs, you could then add troops, but it would compensate with negative peasents, which would add population and happiness tonthe county, as well as paying maintenance to you
I think my favourite is using large armies to consume all the food in a county.
That's not an exploit though, that's an intentional game mechanic!
I enjoyed this video of one of my favorite games. I don't know i this is shown in some other video but i ll pitch in with one more trick i discovered when i was young. You can make one superarmy by gathering a good number of armies that you created (the more the better) into a single county then disband them. The county's population will increase by the same amount of troops that you disbanded. Don't end the turn and then go create a new army from that county. You ll then be able to create an army with much much more troops than the 1500 limit of the game for one army. That superarmy can win any confrontation or Castle siege especially on autocalc.
The problem with the enemy army wasting time is that you can get message ang while you will close it, the enemy army can get you. In this event you should slower your speed a little bit more to be ready for canceling all messages you get.
You can use tip 5 to “lead” enemy armies to fight other enemies.
This was my favourite game. I have only used the fifth exploit really but I knew about the first one too. The tax rate / happiness one is crazy!
I'm not sure I understand the stone castle exploit. if you start every castle in order all the way up to royal castle, you end up with a royal castle under construction waiting for 1000 stone. of course you don't have to actually complete this castle and you can garrison the building site, but does the building site act like a stone castle if it's attacked or something?
It will be full castle, however we need to check does it affect taxes? If yes then it is exploit, If no then just game mechanics. It will took ages to gather resources and building royal castle
@@ElvisAlilu I just tested it. It definitely affects taxation.
@@UrVileWedgeThanks.
hm. Weird it did not affect for me. Will recheck again
I figured that castle bug as a kid, it was a fun exploit.
!st one seems very usable. the taxation thing is super broken yet never really gonna be needed cause you've already won at that point. 4th one is super cool, I stumbled upon that when I was a kid once or twice and couldnt figure out why I was getting the free upgrade. Do you recall if you get the extra troops or not? and the 5th one is very good, I used that a lot to stay alive until I could reinforce!
I love the stone castle exploit xD but the army walking away trick is cool...Also there is a food trick where you can basically eliminate food problem
explain, got some friends i want to mess with lol
@@levihicks7539 i think it is related to using wheat only and use slider to decrease consumption in double ration and lower.
you forgot the best exploits... sell all cattle, then triple food and you can reduce the food manually so the food is like normal setting effect but only 1/3rd of the food actually needed to feed. you also fogot battle exlpoits... Running to the Flag for instance... Or Killing a whole army on the move only with mace men... Killing all archers in advance and then barricade to kill armies many times your size... for instance if there is a bridge you put two pike men at your side and to mace men on the side and archers behind you always attack 2 with four units and archers in the back... etc.
Shame we can't play this online against opponents
I've seen some comments in video about playing against players, so I think they made it anywhere.
Very cool! I only knew about the 1-man army and waste the computer's time ones.
Its amazing, thx
Can you share the software used to record this and add comments? I could possibly share strategies that defend or take various castles against the AI with virtually zero losses.
I am planning to make a LotR2 playthrough video this month. My computer graphics card comes with the ability to screen record, and I use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and do voice-overs. I'm interested in how you take a Stone or Royal castle with almost 0 losses though!
I found the exploit with one archer, who can win with one garrison.
I beat this game tons of times
Did anyone get this game again on steam? I've been daydreaming about my old favourite game. Wish there was a mobile option
I’m using win xp 32 bit. Direct 3D error I used to play this but now I can’t. Any ideas
Anyone know the cheat code for 'Debug mode'? I once started a game with it enabled somehow, don't know what I pressed. Was never able to replicate, but it was interesting to see what the computers are doing on the impossible level.
I was able to view other counties info - population, production, taxes, money, etc, just by clicking on it, neutral or comp player. Same interface as my own county, but obviously I could not change their production or actually open the town hall window. In diplomacy window, there were tables of other numbers that seemed to correspond to the computer players opinion of me - pissed or not, power level and a bunch of mystery values c1, c2 etc.
I try not to cheat to keep the game fun, but if I get an unlucky start I will totally defend by running computer armies in a loop in their own counties, eating their food (set speed 0-1 if you are doing this for multiple armies). Another one is whittling down armies with just mercs - because they can retreat with 0 losses, so you can get army of 150 archers and keep retreating after taking a chunk of their units. Or macemen, run around their army early, kill off archers/crossbows, retreat, kill off peasants, retreat and so on.
This game deserves an update. 3 was such a disappointment
Why does this only work at 7 counties? Why not 3 or 4?
they probably coded happiness as a byte to save space, -127 to 127. In computer arithmetic it overflows, 127 + 1 = -127 and -127 -1 = +127. 7 counties each adds -15 happiness, so you need enough to overflow. It's also possible for only one county with raising a large military, super diseased, no food and max tax, but that's kind of useless anyway since population will be 0
Lol I used to use exploit one to raise massive armies, then disband ALL my in the same county. This will beat the population cap and raise 10k on the army.
Sometimes I would let those counties revolt with with like massive armies
Does this stuff still work and does it work on steam?
Yes sir. Its work
Dude, where did you get USA map from?
i think its from the siege pack
Lords of he Realm 4? Your people are starving my Lord…
Yeah, it's called Manor Lords.
What ig I got 8 countys instead of seven? Will it work?
Yes
Nice video
Why even play this game if you're going to do these? One Man Army Exploit is dumb. Anyways, I still play this game without using exploits. Manor Lords stole a lot from this game. Hopefully, Manor Lords will finish their game.
crazy how they missed them
I played this game as a child. It was so obnoxious, I could never figure out how to play it, I imagine other people had an easier time.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣