Computer Graphics Memory Disk Space
Minimum 386SX25 VGA 4MB 4.0MB
Max/Rec. 486DX33 SVGA 4-6MB 5.0MB
Control: Mouse or Joystick, Both or two of any for two players
simultaneous.
Sound: Sound Blaster Supported and Recommended, Supports two Sound Cards.
Notes: Suggested SBPRO and ROLAND MPU-401, 5MB HD if you save frequently.
Reviewed release ver. on: 486DX2 66Mhz, 8MB RAM, SGPRO16 soundcard.
Reviewer recommends: 486DX 33Mhz, 6MB RAM, SBPRO soundcard.
The main objective in the one player vs. computer is to wipe out your enemies, but even the combat scenes are cute and lively. Sound effects are present throughout the game and add a friendly atmosphere. The gameplay is smooth although a little jerky in two player modes. A joystick or mouse is required for the best play, and two such devices are required for two players. Sound can be configured separately into two categories, one for MIDI compati-ble sound and the other for digitized sound effects.
In Serfcity, you control the Serfs in doing almost every-thing. You build buildings, make roads and mine minerals. Howev-er, you do not have to tell each individual Serf what to do, you simple create a job and let a Serf do it himself. Job positions are quickly filled as they get created, for example, making a guard house or garrison takes time, but a knight will occupy it as soon as it is completed. There are many different jobs and a related building has to be built before a position can be filled. The game is very logical; a food comes from bread or pigs, bread comes from the bakers, the baker needs the wheat of the wheat farm and the wheat farm needs a windmill to grind the wheat.
Enemies intelligence levels and resources can be challeng-ing, and while the latter is changeable, the enemy is still pretty ..uh.. dense. The computer is ruthless. It does not appear to have a strategy but instead expands it's territory as big as possible and takes over as much as your land as possible. This can be easily stopped by attacking his guard posts and building garrisons. Gold makes a very good incentive for knights and will boost their morale. However, gold is only available from gold mines in the hills so be sure to find a hill with gold nearby before you build your palace and settle. Roads are created to form a network between buildings, but this is where a bad point lies. Roads can only be connected between flags. They cannot be joined to existing roads unless there is a flag there! This makes road building very awkward, often going parallel to an existing road until a building is encountered.
There are also many buildings. So many that a novice player will find it impossible to identify all and their purposes with-out the manual. Buildings range from the common guard houses to the windmill, blacksmith's and your own palace. Most buildings take a while to complete, but this also depends on the number of buildings still to be finished and your workforce. Also, your choice of buildings must be good and you should not clutter your land by building on every open space. Castle space, or space for big buildings, should be used sparingly lest you build a gold mine and find you have no space for a goldsmith.
The Serfs are plentyful and will keep reproducing as time goes on. You will have to create more soldiers as time goes on and attack your enemy's guard houses until you work your way to the palace for your final victory. Another fault lies in this, the game does not tell you when your mission is complete, but you have to go to the main menu to check. This involves saving, A tedious process as you have to click on a button just to change the save game's name. But, these are only the bad points, many good points lie within the game. You would expect, with so many features, buildings and people (almost 30 on screen with up to 7 buildings) that the game would run slowly but to my surprise, there were no memory or speed problems. Ever serf was happily animating away without stopping, and it wasn't just the same move over and over either. The woodcutter would go out, chop down a tree, chop it into smaller pieces and drag it back all while the stonebreaker broke a large stone and moved it piece by piece to his own hut. Mean while, across the border was the enemy's wood-cutter, doing the same with two knights fighting. This and sound all together usually meant trouble for the owner of a slow com-puter but the game still goes on at a steady pace.
The game is entirely unplayable without the manual. You will not know what building is what and what to do next if you do not have the manual to start off with. The manual is well documented with pictures of all the buildings but has left out some other things like the signs of the minerals. However, it tells you just enough to allow game play, the rest is up to you. The game itself needs a 386 or above with extended memory recommended and MS-DOS 5.0 or above to operate. Sound Blaster and 100% compatible sound cards are supported but not necessary. The game can use two sound cards at once, one for MIDI standard music and the other for sound effects. It can also use one card for both sound and music so don't bother digging out that old Roland.
On the whole, I find this game very enjoyable and lively with wonderful music and sound effects. There are a few bad points but they do not make the game completely unplayable, just a little uncomfortable to play. I would recommend this game to freaks of the Sim- series as another add-on but not as a replace-ment for any.