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Battle Realms is an Asian themed real-time strategy computer game developed Liquid Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, released in 2001 for Windows. It is a single-player and multiplayer game.

Battle Realms was extremely well-received by critics it was praised for its original and interesting storyline, as well as for its innovative and captivating battle system. It was also praised its well-detailed environments, and extremely impressive AIthat is almost unbeatable on certain levels.

Battle Realms multiplayer mode had a large community of fan in its time and some community still remains now on the Internet, because of its Living World option.

The setting and characters of the game are inspired and based on some Honk Kong s most spectacular martial arts films, and is also based on some episodes of the Japanese mythology.

You play as a hero, called Kenji, and you will have to develop a village of peasants into a clan of highly specialized warriors. You will have to help them to defend their villages against various enemies such as barbarians, evil wizards and deadly ninja.

Battle realms features very impressive battlefields scenes and 3D environments, as well as realistic weather effects and a unique battle gear system to develop the abilities of your warriors.

There are 4 clans available in the game and you have to decide with which you want to play. There are the Dragon Clan The Path of Righteousness (who prize honor above all else); the serpent Clan The Way of the Wicked (who are the descendant of the Dragon Clan but have now resorted to thievery and deceit); the Wolf clan The Spirit of Might (who prize freedom above all else); and the Lotus Clan The Essence of Darkness (they follow the Forbidden Path which focuses on death and decay).

The Zen Master are the heroes in this game and they are the leaders of the clans. Usually these heroes assume the role of lords, mercenaries, demi-gods and even monsters. Monks are enlisted for the Dragon and Wolf clans, while Ninjas are hired for the Serpent and Lotus Clans.

There are many Zen Masters available for each clan (about five and some bonus Zen master that you will have to unlock while playing).

In Battle Realms the peasants gather two resources: rice and water, and take care of horses. That can be used later in the battles.

Peasants are the only units that you can produce outright. Most of the buildings available within the game are training buildings for them.

But unlike in most Strategy games, all units in Battle Realms have a melee attack. However, missile units have drastically weaker melee attacks.

But, some units are adept at both missile and melee attacks. Units are very detailed and have distinct fighting animations. Units can dodge projectiles if they run fast enough, and projectiles have different speeds and fire at certain angles.

A unit s attack has a property - either cutting, piercing, blunt, explosive, magic, or fire. The property of a unit's missile attack may also differ from his melee attack. Each unit has resistances to particular properties and weaknesses to others.

Battle Realms reviews