Thirty Kingdoms

Game overview

Thirty Kingdoms by Bytro Labs is a free to play empire building strategy game for web browsers. As the ruler of your kingdom, the gameplay will have you look after your provinces by managing your resources, building new structures from well fleshed out tech trees, and players will need to expand by taking over hostile territories. To do that, players can build up an army of various units and send them away in real time to do battle, and the outcome is decided by multiple realistic factors such as army morale and terrain.

The most interesting thing about Thirty Kingdoms is its level of realism, and actions such as moving armies and building structures will take a long time to complete. Game progression will be slow which means that not everyone will enjoy it. However, the game does provide multiple socializing options that allows for diplomatic and cunning styles of play.

Thirty Kingdoms is a good immersive kingdom building game that offers hours of fun that lasts for prolonged periods of time. While the graphics are minimal and there are no in-game sounds, players who enjoy strategy games without the hassle of additional downloads or slow internet will definitely find something to like in Thirty Kingdoms.

➔ Main points:

• Long-term empire building that feels realistic
• Immersive and strategic gameplay
• Fantastic socializing options that helps diplomatic gameplay
• Good variety of buildings and army units to build
• Minimal requirements for a browser-based game

Full review

Claim Your Throne

Expanding your provinces early in the game is a good idea to build up an early game advantage

A game of Thirty Kingdoms starts as players are placed on a large map that resembles historical Europe, and features 29 other Houses, which are kingdoms belonging to other players and the AI, including your own. Each kingdom consists of 7 provinces (there are over 200 provinces on the map) which serves as settlements that can be upgraded and expanded.

After finishing the comprehensive beginner tutorial, players are then free to start building their kingdoms for the war ahead. The objective of the game is build the most powerful kingdom in the land, and to do this players will have expand territories by fighting over provinces belonging to other players or the AI barbarian faction. At the end of the game, the House who's kingdom has the most points and strongest army will be crowned the winner.

Reaping the Riches

To be successful in Thirty Kingdoms, players will have to manage their pool of resources well. There are six primary resources in the game - grain for keeping the population of the provinces growing and feeds the army, gold is used as the main currency to purchase anything new, and lumber, stone, iron and mythril are used for the construction of new structures and units.

Each of your provinces will supply the local settlement with one resource, and players can leverage this by building the appropriate harvesting structure to reap the rewards of the land. Resources are also replenished by the hour, so players must strategize how best to spend resources or endure a long dry spell if things go wrong. Of course there is also a server-wide market that all players in the game and buy, sell and trade resources with other players or the AI.

Keeping Pawns Happy

Needless to say, PVP among players will be the core gameplay if players want to expand their kingdoms. However, the success or failure of your army when sent to war in a hostile province will largely depend on an interesting feature of the game, which is morale.

Every local province and individual unit has a morale bar, and keeping a high morale ensures that a province is efficient in productivity while units are more efficient in combat. Therefore deciding on which battles to fight becomes crucially dependent on the level of morale within your armies.

Low morale is common when a province is under siege or have been plundered, and to replenish morale, players must win battles or wait for a few days. This is an interesting mechanic that allows even much smaller armies to take on larger ones if they have the high morale advantage. Another important strategy that must be mastered is knowing the terrain surrounding your provinces. Mountain terrain and harsh rocky plains will reduce both morale and health of player's units, therefore knowing the best routes to take towards an objective will be hugely beneficial.

Most times, the shorter route to a destination may be more hazardous than taking the long way around, and Thirty Kingdoms offers that dilemma to players, making for some really exciting and strategic gameplay.

Morale is an interesting mechanic that allows even much smaller armies to take on larger ones if they have the high morale advantage

Ales and Tales

The News feature is a great way to keep abreast of who's doing what in the game

Another great feature of Thirty Kingdoms is that the game has a dedicated 'News' section. On the news panel, players can keep track of what is happening within their chosen game, and the news will provide detailed reports of player activities, such as winning battles, constructing new buildings or forming diplomatic relations.

It's a great tool to anonymously scout your enemies's motives and plans, which could help you plan a defense for an incoming attack, or sabotage a province that they have been eyeing. But the greatest use of the news tool is that you can write and publish your own articles with images that will appear on the news screen for all players to see.

This means that you can start your own war propaganda for your Kingdom, and play mind games with your opponents which is great fun for banter and it may even put them off from attacking you, if you can bluff your way out of incoming attacks by publishing articles that say you have a mass army waiting in ambush.

Diplomacy and Cunning

Arguably what makes the game more fun is the social interactions players will have with other real players, and the game encourages this as the duration of the games usually last for months and months.

Thirty Kingdoms comes ready with a global chat box and a Diplomacy tab where players can start message threads and talk to one another. Making friends and starting partnerships between kingdoms is vitally important to survive - you can go solo, but don't hang your head when everyone else turns against you.

What's more, there's also the aspect of espionage to deal with, and players can build up a network of spies for hire that will dig out useful information about provinces and armies, to help you decide your next move. Both diplomacy and cunning espionage are options for players to progress in the game, and both are incredibly fun paths to take.

Making friends and starting partnerships between kingdoms is vitally important to survive

Conclusion

Often with modern browser-based strategy games, the focus tends to be on style rather than substance. Thirty Kingdoms is the exact opposite, offering players with a deep strategic kingdom building experience that's realistic at the expense of pretty graphics and in-game sounds.

However, the lack of aesthetics never hinders the game play, as players are offered a great sandbox experience that will allow them to rule their kingdoms however they chose - whether it's with an iron fist and all out PVP warfare, or a more subtle approach involving diplomacy and espionage.

The realistic but long game duration and progression towards victory may not be for everyone, but it's there to be enjoyed by strategy purists looking for a lengthy campaign with months and months of fun.