Lords of the Realm 3 is a Real-Time Strategy game released by Sierra in 2004. It is the sequel to Lords of the Realm 2, which was released in 1996. While the exact victory conditions vary between scenarios, the general goal is to capture territory and defeat enemy armies by means of medieval warfare.
The gameplay of Lords of the Realm 3 is a stark departure from its predecessor. The player's role is more historically accurate to that of an actual duke or king during wartime. Rather than hiring individual soldiers and micromanaging counties, the player assigns counties to individual knights and barons, who then provide the player with soldiers, mercenaries, and money. The game runs in real-time, even while tactical battles are in progress. The battles may be micromanaged or handled by the AI as the player deems appropriate.
Most of the playable scenarios are based on some moment in medieval history, often featuring prominent historical figures such as Brian Boru
or Edward the Black Prince. You may select any side in any scenario, which can change up the objectives (protect your royal family or exterminate theirs) and available unit types.
The game can be purchased from GOG.com.
This game provides examples of:
- Easy Logistics: There are very few resources to be concerned about. You have food (generated by serfs), gold (generated by burghers), and soldiers (generated by knights). As a duke or king, everything else is assumed to be handled by your feudal subordinates.
- Frontline General: Subordinate knights (effectively counts) participate in battle directly. Ordinarily, they lead from the back of their unit, making them unlikely to die before all of their soldiers do. You may order them to lead from the front, which boosts their unit's morale but risks the knight dying sooner. If the knight goes down, their unit is almost certain to rout.
- Gotta Kill Them All: The objective of some scenarios is to kill a certain list of knights, typically all of a royal family's men.
- Hero Must Survive: Effectively the counterpart to Gotta Kill Them All. The historical knights are typically quite strong, but certain scenarios end in defeat if you lose them.
- Karma Meter: Three meters — Chivalry, Christianity, and Honor. Good lords are expected to fight honorably, ransom captured knights, and place churches. Evil lords will fight with no quarter, use mercenary armies, and execute captured knights. It's usually best to fully embrace one direction or the other, as the most powerful subordinate knights join only the most good and most evil lords.
- Leave No Survivors: Against each rival lord, you may elect to fight honorably, fight with no quarter, or have a neutral stance. Fighting with no quarter will reduce your Karma Meter, inflict extra casualties on routing foes, and automatically execute captured knights without a prompt. However, it also provides a small boost to enemy morale, as they recognize they'll be ruthlessly chased down if they rout.
- Luck Stat: Knights who fall in battle are not always killed outright, but are held for either ransom or execution. The more powerful knights typically have a bonus to luck, which increases their odds to survive being felled.
- Made of Iron: Knights in battle are quite durable, and the higher level knights can take a ridiculous amount of punishment before going down.
- Morale Mechanic: Taking a cue from its contemporary Total War games, each unit in battle has a morale level that rises or lowers based on how the battle is going. It's a double-edged sword, as you don't want your soldiers routing, but you don't necessarily want your knights to fight until they risk death.
- Non-Entity General: Your player character has a name and face of your own design, but has no physical presence within each scenario. Indeed, some of the historical knights you command would be the ones giving orders, not taking them.
- No Points for Neutrality: Keeping your Karma Meter in the middle does nothing useful for you. It's much better to go full good or full evil as quickly as possible so that you get first dibs on the powerful good- or evil-aligned knights.
- Permadeath: Knights that are killed in a scenario stay dead and must be replaced. Some scenarios have an objective to kill certain knights, usually historical figures. If too many of a scenario's knights die or are otherwise unavailable, there is an infinite reserve of "lesser" knights with poor stats.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Your profile is represented by a constructed male or female face, with no impact on gameplay.
