Hands On With The Guild 3
The Guild 3 takes place in the late middle ages, between the middle ages and the renaissance during the era of the free citizens. At first, I thought Guild 3 was going to be similar to an economy sim like the Anno or Port Royale series, but it’s very different.
Guild 3 you play a character instead of building your own city. Your goal is to build a dynasty. You can get married and have children. Produce torches, sell them, get XP and money. Start climbing the social ladder and hope to one day become mayor of the city and eventually sovereign of the entire country. The best way to describe it is that you are a part of the world, you don’t manage the world.
The Guild 3 is a mix of the best features of the first two games in the Guild series. One of the key aspects is that the developers has really worked with fans to create a game that will be loved by their dedicated fan base. While this may sound like it’s designed for a small niche group, Guild 3 is definitely accessible for seasoned gamers.
To build your dynasty, you need to take care of your character or at least have a family. Characters can die of old age, be poisoned, get killed, and even get executed for committing crimes. By mixing roleplaying aspects with life and economy simulation, Guild 3 creates a wonderfully rich experience.
In the previous Guild games, you were pretty much forced to go specific ways to increase your wealth. Guild 3 gives the user the freedom to focus on what they’d like to work on. If you want to build your economy while not focusing on a family you can. After a long hard day of work, you may want to stop by the tavern, play dice, and have a beer. If there’s someone that you don’t like and you feel like bombing their home, have a blast!
There are a ton of professions that you can choose from. You can be a blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, medical, alchemist, apothecary and so on. One awesome feature is that the alchemist is more of an evil guy who creates poisons while the apothecary creates helpful things like potions.
Once you reach the level of mayor, you can start to control parts of the city. In one part of the city there may be a thieves guild. You can choose to ignore this part of the city and receive a lot of money from the thieves guild, but the citizens of the city will be upset with you and possibly revolt. You can also decide to remove someone from the council and bring in your own family members.
Guild 3 has complete simulation of weather and season effects. At any point of the year, there can be plagues, but it will most often occur in the winter. Winter also means that the farmers have no crops, so some of them may die of starvation. There are also storms that can occur that will affect your town. If lightening strikes your building, then your house will be on fire. If there is a home next to yours, then that home can also catch on fire.
The developers have made sure that the game has been thoroughly researched. The cities are more realistic than in other games. The citizens make the world feel really alive. At any point you will see people who could be drunk, starting revolutions, talking, and hanging out.
Guild 3 is easily one of the most in-depth games I’ve ever seen and I seriously can’t wait for it get released. Guild 3 will release this year with 12 scenario maps that are concentrated in central and northern Europe.