Fool's Court

You are the king of a small kingdom, and everybody wants something.

They line up before your throne all day to beg, bargain and complain. A lord sends you a live bear as a token of his friendship. A man has counted the beards in your realm and would like to tax them. Someone else only came to tell you he saw a butterfly on his way over.

You answer them, and the kingdom moves. Factions warm to you or turn on you, the treasury fills or empties, and people you wronged last week walk back in with a new request.

The nights are yours

When court ends you go up to your solar and decide how to spend the evening.

• Host a tourney. Seven bouts in the lists. Give a knight your favor, put your own gold on him with the steward, and let your winnings ride if you dare. Lances break and riders hit the ground.

• Throw a feast. Choose the fare, pick the guests and plan the seating. Put two rivals side by side and see how long they last. Count your own cups too, because a king can pass out at his own table.

• Go to the war room. Read your letters, send gifts, trade grain and men, demand tribute, or muster an army and march on a neighbor.

• Open the treasury chest. Your purse pays for your fun and nobody has to know where the money came from. Someone may find out anyway.

Raise a town and earn your title

Look out of the window and your town is down there, full of people going about their day. Order the Tilt Yard and you can hold tourneys. Build the Great Hall and you can hold feasts. There are 41 buildings to raise along ten lines, from a granary and a market square to a menagerie, a cathedral and a citadel.

Renown and the right buildings take you from Petty King to King, Great King, High King and Emperor. War can knock your buildings down, and a corner you let the builders cut can bring one down by itself.

Five neighbors on a new map

Every reign draws its own map with five realms around you. They write to you, trade with you and hold grudges. Beat one in the field and it pays. Beat it twice and it surrenders, and you can make it a vassal or take its land. They can come for you just the same.

A court that remembers

Your bishop, your marshal, your chancellor and the rest of the court are the same people for your whole reign. Friends make their part of the kingdom easier to run and take money off the buildings they care about. Enemies can stop those buildings from going up at all. Courtiers also have opinions of each other, which matters a great deal once you seat them at dinner.

Keeping the crown

There is no day limit. Your reign lasts until debt, revolt, a coup, famine or a neighbor's army ends it, and some stories at court can end it too. The chronicle then lays out your whole reign, good and bad.

Features

• More than 300 fully voiced petitions and story scenes, with 26 storylines to follow

• Tourneys with favors, stakes and winnings you can let ride

• Feasts with seating plans and 30 incidents that can go wrong at the table

• 41 buildings, some of which open up new parts of the game

• Wars fought clash by clash on a map made new for each reign

• Food and soldiers to keep in stock along with your gold

• A court of named people who remember what you did

• A new whim from the king every day, if you feel like indulging him

• 41 achievements

• Three difficulties, from Prosperity to Ruin

• Full controller support