It is a turn-based strategy video game for the Nintendo DS video game console by Majesco Entertainment. The game series is one of the most inventive real-time turn-based strategy games. The game follows a progressive timeline that allows the players to work from the primitive ages, throughout the appearance of gunpowder and siege technology, into the final era of feudal warfare. The game aims to go from generation to another. The game let players direct any historical civilizations: Britons, Saracens, Mongols and Japanese. The players can recruit exceptional mercenaries from other cultures, such as Viking berserkers Persian war elephants, or rifle-wielding Turkish janissaries. Each faction has a single-player campaign that contains five or six missions. The game does a fantastic job of combining the movement and storylines centres on the trials history's greatest military heroes: Yoshitsune Minamoto, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Richard the Lionheart, and Saladin. The missions are interesting, diverse and challenging. The players have to take tough decisions, as the game tempts with optional objectives and occasional twists.
The campaigns can last for more than 20 hours, and still, there is a multiplayer mode and skirmish match left to explore. Multiplayer allows the players to play with a friend if they have the copies of the game. Skirmish matches include up to four computer-controlled or human players, and there's a varied selection of maps to choose.
After the player finishes the campaign mission, they earn points and with which the players can unlock new maps or some new units. Players can move all their teams, build structures, engage in battles, and conduct research. To create a diverse military force is essential for victory. With extra resources and research, the player can age up and go to the next level of history, giving access to new technology, buildings and troops.
This game has various changes from its predecessors. In the DS version, the top screen shows the terrain and unit information and the battles while the bottom shows the map. The controls are reliable as to move from A to B, the player has to touch the unit and move to the square where they wish. Some provisions as the military can only attack but cannot build, and villagers do the opposite. Each turn remains for one day, and in each day, players can move each unit and ask them to attack/build. The players can build buildings only on the right terrain, such as a wheat field to make a mill or find gold to build a mine. The attack strategy is a bit like rock, paper, and scissors: cavalry units surpass infantry, infantry excels against spearmen and spearmen do better than cavalry.
The range of units is remarkable, with over 65 present in the game. There are also leaders of the current campaign, such as Genghis Khan or Joan of Arc. These units are essential to the players' progress. The game's depth of strategy is extraordinary.
You can play this game with the use of NDS emulators. One of the widely used and decent NDS emulators is NDS boy. With the use of an emulator, you can play this NDS game on Android. The emulator consists of basic features like the load and saves states and customizable controls and ROM compatibility. Another NDS emulator, if you are looking for Windows and Mac is DeSmuMe. It is open-source software with lots of customization options that allows you to change the controller and graphic settings to your preference.