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Perfect execution of a fantastic medieval simulation!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed the first in this series, but this one just takes it all to a whole new level. It should be noted that I only played this after 1.2 patch came out that addressed all of the bugs everyone complained about. So I feel there is no point in harping on ancient history - the game is fixed - and it is fabulous.

The possibilities in this game are near endless, you can do virtually anything you want, when you want it. Think Sims + Oblivion + Settlers all rolled into one game, in perfect harmony.

Replayability is huge, with plenty of maps, a lot of professions and classes. Nothing is scripted, everything happens like it would in the real world. The learning curve in this game is fairly large, and many people new to the series will require 2-3 manual reads and the tutorials done at least twice. But you are rewarded with a fantastic game, realistic gameplay, and a world you'll come to love.

Easy Fix

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: January 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Don't let other reviews fool you. This is a damn good game, good for wasting countless hours. I'm in Iraq so theres not a whole lot to be done during down time, and most games get real old, real fast. The Guild 2 has helped me through it all, and has run a few weeks of this deployment. It is however a little buggy, but most of which got fixed in the most recent patch. The internet is horrible over here, but the patch version 1.2 only took a few minutes to download, and after that I was good to go. Easy. Don't let people saying this game has has a lot of bugs skew your decision. Once you patch it you'll be pleased.

This is better than the first Guild,

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I thought the first Guild game was great, Guild 2 is similar, but, it adds many things the first one didn't have. One major thing, you can actually see your character, you see your family, friends, you can actually walk up to them, where as in the first one, you could only read about the actions. Other than political meetings and employees.


In Guild 2, you can zoom in much better, and actually hear them speaking.
even deciding from speaking options. Makes you wonder if they didn't hold back from the first Guild game, so, there could be a Guild 2, so what, I like this game.

This is not for the action gamer, there is action, but, not every 30 seconds. You may go without, what you consider action, for minutes, maybe longer. It's almost like "The Sim's" in 1400...a little.

The manual is fair, but, it doesn't have all the answers.

Depending on the kind of Computer you have, if your computer is older than 3 years old, without being tweaked, it could lag some. Amounts of Ram helps, having at least 1GB of Ram. It may lag a bit, in something smaller. But, lowering the graphics does help a bit, adjusting things like grass, trees etc. Stuff you're not going to pay that much attention to, so, put most of the quailty in the characters.

When all is said, and its working, it has hours, days, and yes, even months of fun.

Update-
After about a month of playing it a bit more, there is a couple of bugs,even with the patch. Another problem I have with this game,and other
3-D games, is when the characters can walk through buildings,other
people and much more. Its not realistic looking.

Also, when brothers, or whoever, are romancing the same girl, right in front of them, there is no reaction, they stand there. For such a huge ram eater like this, there should be some emotion from the characters.

Its still a very fun game, flaws and all, but, if and when they make an expansion, there is lots of things they can add. That will make this the best game out there of its kind.

This one is almost a great game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have read the other reviews here and I feel compelled to contribute a bit. This game has allot going for it. If your system can handle it the graphics are very good. The voice acting is excellent. There is indeed a great deal to keep you occupied with mastering the different career paths but the learning curve is a bit steeper then many have implied. The manual that ships with the game and the tutorial will get you started but you will be figuring out much of the game by trial and error.
This one is harder then usual to review. On the positive side this is a new and unique game. Essentially it's an economic simulation but it also incorporates politics and a bit of diplomacy as well as sim life and even a bit of combat. On the negative side the game is probably unplayable at the minimum system requirements listed on the box. I assume this because it is nearly unplayable with a system that exceeds those requirements but doesn't meet what they call the recommended requirements. I may revisit this review after I install a new graphics card but for the moment with 128MB card the lag is terrible. I still give this game high marks for originality, eye candy, good voice acting and pleasant music, and a great deal of re-playability. I take a bit back because your system needs to be a monster to enjoy the games full potential and the learning curve is pretty steep with a manual that is pretty thin.

Do whatever you want, if you can figure out how

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying this game was one of the funnest I've ever played, partly because of the enormous depth, replayability, and variety in the game itself, and also because, as another reviewer stated, it combines aspects from the Sims, eldar scrolls games, and the settlers. This keen observation is very true, as in the course of any given game you will be courting lovers, cementing relationships, insulting people, and having babies (The Sims),you will also be stealing, upgrading weapons, and commanding a character to do wahtever it wants (Eldar Scrolls), all the while, you can manage a business, or multiple ones, a farm, mines, buy a home, get in politics, spy on people, charge someone of a crime, its almost as if you are one of the inhabitents living in The Settlers. It seems like the producers went far to make it an open ended game in which the player can do almost anything they want. In addition to the possibilities in playing, the game has the graphics to back it up. It looks quite real, the faces are not all similar(older people even have wrinkles, but don't fret, your character will get them as well when they age),and you can even see inside your businesses, homes, and public buildings which, surprisingly,add rooms as you upgrade them. The buildings are also impressive, not because there is a whole lot but instead because you can upgrade them constantly. The game is also in real time, so you must manage activities and hire more employees to get things done in time, but the game isn't always so hectic, because you can have the computer automanage a business to your specifications. Personally, the game is excatly what I was looking for, and just about everything I could have wanted.
Now for the bad stuff: Despite the game's enormous opportunities and replayability, it is very difficult to learn. This is the downside of its openendedness, that you don't know how to do most of the stuff. Many things are not in the manual and must simply be picked up as you go. THe rogue campaign was especially difficult for me to inderstand. The tutorials provide some basic backing to understanding, but most most of the tutorial is common sense stuff, like "to attack a person, click the attack button on them", or "to move the screen, move the mouse to the edge of the screen". The manual is quite useless and it will be talking about how to do something, and then say that you can do something else, without explaining what the other thing is or how to do it. This is a major turnoff to most people, who might give up on the game when they can't get it, or some who don't know they can do some stuff, so they think the game is simple with few options and they get bored quickly. Overall, it will take patience. Another complaint is that the game has just enough diologue to make you wanting more. For instance, plaintiffs in court trials do speak, but they say the same things, and whether or not it helps their case only depends on their rhetoric skill. Other diologue problems make it less realistic, for instance, a female complimented my male character on his "good hair", whilst my male character complimented her for being "well-built". It seemed like the roles were reversed. Moreover relationship issues come into play at a certain point. You need babies to keep your line going, but marriage hardly ties 2 people together and the only real interaction they recieve is during the "courting" time, which incidintally was extremely tiresome because you have to keep leaving your job/political obligations to see her, and since you may only reuse your intertaction buttons after several hours, their is very few times you may actually see her. This becomes less of a problem in advanced cities where taverns and other places allow to court without using interaction buttons. Nevertheless, relationship issues leads to stupid things like a courting period lasting 16 years. My biggest and most important complaint however, is the game glitches. Occasionally it will take a long time to load something simple, like a description of bread, but this can be worked around, the only problem affected gameplay is crashes on my computer. My computer is upgraded and can play Medieval 2 Total War with relative ease without doing too much, but on THe GUild 2, the computer will systematically crash, and I have the patch installed. The crashes only started a week after I had started playing, and they increased in number until now I can't even play it. I'm still waiting to hear from the support team. This problem is likely isolated, and only on my computer, but it helps reveal some game problems that many people might have, especially considering I meet all the requirements.
Overall the fun outwieghs the bad sides, and most of my complaints were over expressed because they were the only real things I saw that I didn't like.

Buggy, Chuggy, and a pain to install

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 15
Date: November 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Anyone who has been on their forums will already know it's buggy. What you might not expect, is that it's still almost unplayably buggy even after the patch (and yes I installed the right one). For instance, in part 5 of the tutorial you are supposed to talk to 2 guys, now for the first guy, this is no problem. However for the 2nd guy, you can't talk to him. The game simply won't let you. I've done everything I could to get my guy to talk to him, and it simply wouldn't. And since I can't advance in the tutorial without talking to him, I can't learn any of the other parts of the game.

Ignoring that problem, the game is extreemally chuggy. My PC well exceeds the reccomended requirements, and I have chuginess about as much as possible (without it becoming considered lagg). Now this doesn't effect game play too much (unlike if it had been in an action game) but it's still extreemally annoying.

If any of you have a decent DVD Drive or x64, be sure to set aside about 2 hours to get the game up and running. There is copy protection, which does a very bad job (not Starforce though), and will constantly think you have a copy of the game instead of the original CD, regardless if you have the original or not. I personally had to un and re install several times, try different directories, different ways to get around the protection, and a few other things before I was finally able to simply RUN the game.

And besides all of this, the controlls are something you'll never get used to. The camera is controlled by the right button, the person moves on a "click here" method, loading and unloading requires you click, drag, click, drag, click, click, click, click, wait, and then repeat to finish the process. Really they're just very poorly done. I've never played an RPG with these controlls.

Now, beyond this, the game might be very good, I don't really know, because of the bugs I never got to learn. Now, if they decide to relese another patch that actually FIXES the game (which I can't imagine they wouldn't do considering how buggy this game is) I will re-review the game. But as for now, I'm leaving the rating at 2 stars.

original and innovative concept, but impractical gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this game for about 3 weeks now, and have spent the better two trying to figure out how to play it as the tutorial covers naught but the basics. I enjoy the game immensely as you can go from a lowly serf to a powerful titleholder using whatever method you choose. I also enjoy the variety of talents you can choose for your character, the depth and uniqueness of each profession. You can be a crafstman, a patron, a scholar, and a rogue.

As a craftsman you get to be carpenter, a blacksmith, a tailor, and open your own shops making armor and specially carved items. You can also mines and wood-cutters huts to provide raw materials such as iron, silver, good, pine and oak for your businesses, then sell the surplus. As a patron, you open bakeries and inns, pubs and taverns making meat pies, serving your guests the brews and the freshest artisan breads. You can also open farms to provide raw materials. As a scholar, you have the unique privilege of owning a church, writing religious articles and creating magic or blessed items. You can open up alchemist shops, whizzing up magic potions, create cursed items for your competitors at the sacrificial altar, or you can open magician shops and create enchanted mechanical items. As a rogue, you can rob your competitors carts and steal their goods with a robber camp, or you can set up a thieves guild and kidnap noble family members demanding lofty ransoms for their safe return. Best thing to use a rogue for is finding the dirt on your competitors so you can find evidence of their crimes. You can also hire mercenaries to do this dirty work for you. I haven't explored much of the rogue profession, but it comes with many options.

Each of the shops may be entered and you can watch how the shop progresses and how the workers interact with you. You can pay your workers a bonus or you can use the "goad workers" function to get them to work faster (I don't like to use that feature, it feels mean) but if you have high rhetoric it works really well.

In addition, regardless of your profession you can be a politician, bribing and brown-nosing your way to being even the mayor of your fine medieval european city. Titles grant you privileges as you rise in rank and status.

Your character faces competition from other families. As a result, you can use any number of things you have against them. Prosecute them in court with evidence your rogues collect on them, threaten to charge them in court, and even blackmail them (rogues are good for this).

Ok, so that was the good part. Now for the bad part.

Gameplay has a number of issues, starting with the most irritating one which is that, in the Guild 2, you can only control 3 of your family members at a time. In addition, once you remove one family member from your control, you never get to add them back to the control tab again. It seems really pointless, afterall it is a dynasty you are trying to build, right? For the first and second generation or so, this isn't too much of a problem. When it gets complicated is once you hit that third and fourth generation and you're children grow up before your last generation has accomplished enough. It also creates problems for your spouses, who I find rarely get any development as they almost always start out with 0 points. Another related issue is you cannot have a family member other than the owner work in a business. So if you have two patrons of the same experience level in your control tab, you can only have one of them working in a patron business. The best you can do is have your child apprentice at one of your businesses, but they don't do anything productive and you pay the same price to apprentice them to your own business as you do to others (which is silly).

Secondly, the personal relations feature is very limited. Often you are left with bribery, compliments, and beguiling. You can throw a lavish party at your own place (which leaves little favor), but you can't buy people a round of drinks at the tavern or pub. You rarely get to marry into wealthy families, even if they are your friends. It is incredibly hard to make friends, then you don't even get to keep them unless you spend the rest of the game kissing up to people. If you have a high charisma rating, it makes little difference unless the person already likes you. Your favor decreases with time, even if you haven't done anything wrong to that person. Giving gifts is also a feature that rarely ever works to your favor (unless you have the patch, which improves that issue a little bit). Throw some perfume on, go to church, that only goes so far. More features need to be added so you can win favor with people.

Thirdly the game is really buggy and slow. The graphics are excellent, but the game can slow down and annoy you. Sometimes it takes a lot of clicks before it recognizes a command. They should have a short-cut menu so you can execute some of the same commands using a keyboard. I highly recommend getting the patch for this, even if you think you've bought the latest version as I did. It resolves a lot of issues, including the ability to auto-manage the farms, mines, and woodcutters huts so you can distribute your raw materials across your businesses and the market.

Even so, the patch won't fix the ability to control more than 3 characters at a time, or grant you the ability to add them back later. By far, that has got to be the biggest fluke of the game. All in all it can still be enjoyable due to the depth and originality, but the software designers need to do more to make gameplay more practical and efficient.

Very fun but....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a proud owner of The Guild II and I feel the need to discuss it with the world. To begin, it is an RPG set in the middle ages after the crusades. You can choose lots of little details like your hometown, mission, and even your family crest. But first, here are some basics... First, you begin as a middle classman (or woman) in 1400 on the map of your choice. There are 4 main classes; Rogue, Scholar, Patron, and Craftsman. Craftsmen can do things such as mining, blacksmithing, lumberjacking, and other related activites. Scholars can brew potions, be a priest, and are best apt for politics. Patrons are in charge of the food supply, meaning they can be farmers, innkeepers, or bakers. Rogues finally live by crime and other nefarious activites such as highwaying, pickpocketing, burglary, even kidnapping. In the game, there isn't a campaign but some very fun missions and even a sandbox mode. You can go into politics, found a family, even destroy your competitors through clever court trials, duels, or by simply tasking your henchmen to kill them. Okay, now for the bad part. Though the game is recommended on normal detail, it usually doesn't run very fast or very reliably on a standard grade XP. I turned the general quality to low and the model quality to normal and it worked more reliably. However, on normal I experienced some problems that included the range of gameplay, loading, certain actions (such as sending your children to school) and other things.
All in all, a very fun game, but it needs a version 1.3 patch.

So close

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: January 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am sad to say that this game was ALMOST awesome! It is a lot of fun for a few weeks but there are just too many things they did not do right to make this a long term game. If they had just done one or two things better then this would be one of those titles I would not be able to put down. Maybe The Guild III will get it right.

Historical building

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love building games that are historical and give you other options about doing things that are political, etc. It isn't the most informative tutorial nor does the manual explain enough but you learn by trial and error fairly easily and that is how I play it. Not an exciting game for those who love to fight and love action games. It's more for the slow paced game lover who likes to build and loves historical references.

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