Building on the success of the first Castle Wars game, which I wrote about before, Castle Wars 2 improves on every facet of the original game, and introduces a new mode of play as well.

Basic Game Premise

You gather your resources, build up your defensive wall to protect your castle, and survive long enough to either get your castle to 100 height, or smash your opponent’s castle to 0. (Fans of Magic: the Gathering will recognize some similarities in gameplay along the way).

Just as in the first game, you begin with three different types of resources:

• Bricks (obtained through Builders)
• Crystals (obtained through Mages)
• Weapons (obtained through Recruits)

The more Builders, Mages, and/or Recruits you have, the more of those resources you get per turn. (For instance, if you had 4 Builders and 2 Soldiers, you’d get 4 Brick resources every turn, but only 2 Weapons resources every turn.)

The key to surviving in the game is to use your resources efficiently, and try not to depend too much on any one type of resource.

This is the opening screen, with all its options.

Game Modes and Options

Players of the original game will be familiar with the “Practice” gameplay mode–that’s pretty much all that the first Castle Wars was.

In both “Campaign” and “Practice” modes, this is how your screen will look. Your castle is on the left, with your information about resources and castle height at top left; your enemy is on the right.

Symbols:

• Shovel: Builders
• Brick: Brick resource
• Helmet: Recruits
• Axe: Weapons resource
• Pointed hat with stars: Mages
• Sparkling crystal: Crystal resources

About the Action Panel

New for Castle Wars 2, the Action Panel helps with tasks during your turn. By default, you can click a lit-up card to use it; you can also click “Discard” and select up to 3 cards to ditch from your hand. Lastly, you can click “Card Info”, then click a card to see what it does in more detail.

Campaign Mode

The “Campaign” mode is a new, story-mode style of play, in which you choose a “tribe” to play as (either “Easy,” “Medium,” or “Hard”), and battle against other castles around you, trying to take over every territory on the map. But once you’ve taken over every territory, there is still one challenge remaining–I won’t spoil it for you! 🙂

Practice Mode

In Practice Mode, you can choose a number of options that aren’t available to you in Campaign Mode. You can choose whose turn comes first, what “tribe” you and your computerized opponent are playing, and even select your own customized deck (if you’ve built one using the Deck Manager, explained below). You can even select what the background looks like and what background music is playing!

Deck Manager

The Deck Manager allows you to build and save your own customized versions of the default deck. Scroll down using the brown scrollbar on the right side to see all the card options; use the up and down arrows underneath each card to choose the quantity of that card in your deck.

Your custom deck must have at least 75 cards, and you’ll want to build in at least 3 of each Builder, Recruit, and Mage cards, but other than that, the sky’s the limit in terms of innovation. When you’re done, click “Save” at the bottom, and give your new deck a name. (To test it out, enter Practice Mode and click the Player 1 tab. Beside “Deck: Default,” click the word “Change,” and a list including your new custom deck will come up.)

Multi-Player

You must create an account with GamerSafe to play multi-player Castle Wars 2. I’ve never tried it–if you’ve tried it, tell me about it in the comments section!

Play the game: Castle Wars 2