MartiusR: As mentioned before - it's game based on very interesting universe of french comic Black Moon Chronicles. It's a universe presenting struggle between Empire ruled by emperor Hawthorne and "new challenger" - sect of Black Moon ordered by powerful Wizard Haazhel Thorn. Plus faithful ally of Empire - pious Knights of Justice, and traitorous Brotherhood of Light, led by Fratus Sinister. And above all those powers - Wismerhill, who can join any of those sides (as there are four campaigns + introduction campaign).
Game is generally focused on real time battles with quite numerous armies (needles to say, you're giving orders entire squads, not only single units). You've got here really nice mix of "classic" types, such as archers, or infantry, plus support of mages and priests, as well as some more unusual units (giants, dragons, even.. angels!). And of course heroes (Wismerhill is the most important, if he dies - you're losing the game).
You've got here a variety of missions - some of them are just skirmishes between armies, some of them are attacks on strongholds or protecting some vital places/persons... A lot of fun guaranteed!
Sadly, there were some bugs, which up to this moment weren't fixed. For example some units can "get stuck" during attacking (e.g. dragons) and in effect can be easily destroyed (if we won't resque them with other units). It's especially annoying with Wishemrhill - if he's engaged in melee fight, he can't just "go out" and we almost completely losing control of him (aside from using fireball). Plus some other things, like pathfinding (with rather mediocre collision detection it can be sometimes veery troublesome) and missing siege tower (it's present in "codex" with units, but it's not present in the game.
Basically, it's game which has a lot of lacks, which are sometimes hard to accept. But many people (as me) decided to somehow accept those, because there is a lot to like in BCM.
Asides from campaigns, there is skirmish mode (feel free to choose units for your and for your enemy), and a couple of single missions (with some short story and pre-defined heroes/armies). Sadly, there is no multiplayer, which is IMO one of the biggest lacks (aside from mentioned bugs).
I still would recommend this game, but it's worth to warn about those issues.
And some little offtop - if you're interested in BCM universe after playing in this game - there are some... well. . unnoficialy translated for english language first four (?) issues of BCM comic, somewhere in "dark corners" of internet.
Feel free to ask, if I've missed something. Many of us is still sad with the fact that there were no add-ons or sequel to this great game, or at least patches which would fix most of mentioned issues. But we still love this game.
Thank you for your detailed response. I am now on the third campaign, and it is very much as you have described. (With the exception that the emperor's name is Hagendorf.) I am having the same thoughts as you on the game. More and more problems keep coming up, but for some reason, I still want to keep playing, for now. It's a shame because the game does have a certain charm.
In addition to the problems you have mentioned, there are problems with poor map design. Often, depending on the map, you can't even see your units because they have blended in with the map. It's just a mess of colors. This can be a big problem in really big battles because units seem to just blur together. Making things even worse, when you put the cursor over units to try and identify them, and their status, it will give you no information or the wrong unit's information. There is also a lack of information regarding mission requirements. Sometimes I have the battle in hand and I am on my way to victory, just to find out there was some requirement that they didn't tell me about. Between them not telling you in game, and the manual giving you very little information, this can be frustrating.
I am just surprised that even in Europe, (the game seems virtually unknown in the US) there is virtually no information except to mention that it's based on a French comic. It makes me wonder just how badly this game bombed.
