I enjoyed Majesty 1 a lot, and I'm curious about the second installation of the series. Does the second game play very similarly to the first one? I've read about the ability to group heroes into parties (which then require higher rewards to attract, because they are more powerful).

What else has changed?

I can not say but I remember it getting panned back in they day for not being as good as majesty 1.

As far as i remember not that much. There is no freestyle play i think, also the building placement is a bit fiddly, because of the added things like terrain elevation. Also they added some stuff like parties of heroes, and a new type of flag(quest)

Anyway it plays pretty much the same.

I liked, but quickly grew tired of, Majesty back when, largely because of frustration of the heroes NEVER making themselves useful, no matter how much a bounty you put on things.

Majesty 2 (which I picked up and have been playing all night) played a lot of how I remember 1, but with a better UI/etc, and AI that actually will sometimes go for bounties that aren't immediately next to them. Set the bounty high enough and you'll actually have even rogues going after the fighting ones.

Building is fiddly, definitely -- but I remember that in the first, too. I'm about 6 missions in.

That is not true for Majesty 1. They go after bounties. It will take a while because you heroes have to finish their current engagement first, but they will come for it.

majesty 2 differs very much in playstyle to majesty 1.
the most obvious is that your heroes will aimlessly wander around town if you dont give them bounties. this is especially true for high level heroes. they will never attempt to just raid a lair or explore far away

temples can now only be built in preset areas, and they "upgrade" your core heroes (ranger, rogue, knight or cleric). this really limits the amount of different units you can have if there is only one holy ground to build a temple on

everything feels more condensed. generally every hero will respond to bounties, so instead of the usual 1-1 battles of majesty 1 between heroes and wandering monsters, in majesty 2 you will mostly see huge brawls between spawning monsters (which are now programmed to head directly into your kingdom) and 5-10 heroes depending on game length.

majesty 2 heroes have a TON more abilities and they all feel true to character, all the heroes also stay relevant till the endgame (so no more rogues dying to wild plants even at level 15+) especially with the party system

conclusion: it doesnt really feel like majesty, even with the forced advisor sean connery voice and calling the land ardania, but its still a pretty fun game thats worth playing

Wow!
GOG even has Majesty in their collection!

Anyway...

Years ago, I do remember seeing Majesty 2 at my local Gamestop but the screenshots on the packaging turned me completely away from the game as the original Majesty and it's expansion, The Northern Expansion was visually very charming. Majesty 2 look like a dated, 3-D version of the original. If I were to compare what kind of gameplay Majesty had, it was like a... medieval version of Rollercoaster Tycoon. That's what the original played like.

I had the same reaction when I saw the 3-D version of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3...

--- some games just don't translate well from 2-D to 3-D.

That's bullcrap. When a hero refuses to attack an enemy it's usually because it would be a suicide mission and he's doing you a service by not getting himself killed. It's *your* fault if your heroes aren't strong enough to face enemies you want to get killed. It's also your fault if your bounties are out of range of their guilds (which you can extend by placing inns).

A clear no.

I'm not saying that Majesty 2 is an terrible game, at least not from an RTS perspective.

However, chances are very high that someone who LOVED Majesty 1 will be disappointed with M2. If you buy a sequel, you are expecting it to improve the (pleasant) experience of the original. Change is allowed and needed to make a sequel worthwile, but if you take away the core which made the original great...then even slight technical improvements in regard to single features won't save a sequel. In case of Majesty, the main problem is that the idea of a more or less "relaxed sandbax simulation" of a fantasy kingdom (with multiple ways to get the difficulty you like) is replaced with generic, puzzle-like RTS actio with a steep learning curve you cannot avoid.

This GOG forum member 'gets it'.

:)

Majesty 2 is not a terrible game but it's vastly inferior to Majesty 1.
BTW I understand that very few of the people who made Majrety were involved with making Majesty 2 which might explain it.
Majesty was released in 2000 by Micriprose.and the franchise picked up by Paradox.

Sadly, no.
While it's not a *bad* game, it's definitely a very different game than Majest 1 was.

The biggest change has already been mentioned; heroes lack personality. Rather than the unique charasteristics and pro's and con's of the original heroes in MFKS2 are just husks. The rogue, the warrior, the paladin, the wizard. They are all the same except for their offensive powers.
It's even so that building 3 guilds (the max) of rogues is generally the best method to complete a quest, as you don't have to worry about them being cowards like in MFKS1, their ranged attack being useless against skeletons in MFKS1. Nope, they are cheap and easily accept flags. That's all there is to MFKS2 :/

Other things are no freeform, no continue playing after completing a quest. They basically reworked Majesty from a sim to a indirect-control RTS. Sure, it works better in PvP multiplayer than MFKS1, but ask yourself... how many MFKS players really cared about that? Sadly the whole focus on PvP MP ruined that which made MFKS1 the classic it was.

And yeah, it's fun playing the bad guys in Monster Kingdom, though the further along the DLC you go the more you start a lack of effort, as texts get riddled with engrish and typo's, and Monster Kingdom *WILL* crash a lot on you. I basically had to save+reload 150(!) times to complete the final mission since it would crash every 2-3 days. No exegeration...

I've marked what I thought was the best answer, though xgladar's answer was also really good (I had to debate between the two).

Thanks for your input, people.

not really good imo they kinda butchered what made majesty great. AI is alot worse, graphics imo despite being 3d a great deal step back (M1 graphics was very artistic) hero's dont really have shining personalities (voice actor's fault), difficulty curve is rather stupid. It goes on like this, it feels like one of those sequels that missed the point entirely instead became a 2nd rate copy of the original