One of my favorite games when I was in college was The Guild II. It is a very interesting and deep tycoon game. Recently, another entry in the series received a demo on Steam. The Guild: Europa 1410 is a very promising game for fans of the series.
The demo doesn’t have too much content in it, and there is a time limit. What is in the game is quite fun. It reminds me of playing the second game and all of the DLC that goes along with it.
So far, I’m enjoying this game. I’m hopeful that it will get better. I do have several issues with the game, so it isn’t all great.
What is The Guild series?
The Guild is a series of Tycoon games where you play as a family of characters. There are several win conditions in the game, but it all boils down to beating the other families. These games have a lot of options for you to play.
You start off by selecting an occupation for your character. There are normally quite a few options, and you can train your children in different occupations. This lets you build different buildings and make more businesses.
You can also enter local politics. This lets you change the city’s laws in your favor. If you have enough characters (family members or hired thugs), then you can start killing off your rivals. You can kill just about anyone in the game.
These games can get very immersive, and there are a lot of things you can do. You can simply amass wealth, take over a town or country’s politics, or kill off all your rivals. This is one of those games that you can get totally lost in.
What is in The Guild: Europa 1410?
The demo has quite a bit in it, but it is still a bare bones experience when compared to the other games in the series. There are only a few professions available, limited scenarios, and there is a time limit. Much of the rest of the game is still playable.
There are four possible “victory” conditions, and a free play mode. Here are the victory conditions:
- Wealth – Get a set amount of money to win
- Office – To attain a specific political office
- Title – Obtain a title, such as Citizen, Full Citizen, and so on
- Renown – This is an odd one, but it can be fun to try for
While there is a free play mode, the game also has a time limit of 17 turns. This kind of renders the others meaningless in the demo because you don’t have enough time to achieve them. Once the full game is released, then these will matter more.
There are currently three professions to pick from:
- Smith – Blacksmiths normally have a few options for the player to follow. Much of it has to do with making weapons of tools
- Alchemist
- Innkeeper – This one is a little more dependent on other professions, such as farmers.
There are quite a few others in the previous games. These include farmers, miners, and thieves.
I’m not a big fan of the game’s user interface. Things are a little small, and it can be confusing to navigate all the menus. These games can also get very confusing as your family grows, and the way things are set up will make it a bit rough to manage everything.
There are several other minor issues that I have with the game. None of them are significant enough for me to say this isn’t going to be good. Right now, there is enough here for me to be excited about the game.
Wrap Up
This is one of the many games that snuck up on me. I had no idea it was being worked on, and when I saw it, I got excited. After playing the demo, I’m really interested in seeing what else they do with the game.
Playing this game made me want to revisit a few of the others in the series. My entry point for the series was the second game, so I tend to compare the others to it. At some point, I am going to do a retrospective on these games, much like I’ve done for other series.
I’m looking forward to the full release of this game. It has a lot of what I like from the other games in the series, and the developers didn’t try anything crazy. I do like that they stuck with the same gameplay loop, because that didn’t need to be tweaked.
If you liked this post, check out some of the others. Such as Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era or Jay and Silent Bob.