Tzar: The Burden of the Crown

Back in 1999, an event occurred that shook Europe. One small, but very proud company Infinite Loop that lives in Sofia, the capital of glorious Bulgaria, released some strategic game Tzar: The Burden of the Crown (the game "Tsar: The Crown's Burden" in Russia and in general the CIS was published only in 2001 by "1C" called "Fire and Sword").

By itself, the game today can hardly surprise the player with something special, but at the time of release it struck with fresh ideas, original approach and other positive aspects. Actually, the game is a strategy in the Middle Ages with some admixture of fantasy. In a battle game, three factions converge: Asians, Arabs and Europeans, each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses. One of the greatest advantages is the fact that the tactician to achieve victory is Nemer. At your disposal are armies that, with successful combat operations, gain experience and become stronger, and after learning technology that allows them to gain an unlimited amount of experience, they can become Heroes. Guilds are another innovation in the game. The guilds are terribly expensive, but useful buildings that make available technologies that allow you to throw away your opponent in any aspect of the local war: you were asked to build guilds of warriors, magicians, priests, merchants; There are also special buildings that can be built after the creation of the appropriate guild of one of the four above types. Since guilds are expensive, the construction of one of them will seriously advance tactics along a particular line. That is, it is often necessary to choose what to suppress the enemy with - brute force, technological superiority, mass (in the case of choosing trade as the main tactic and having the opportunity to buy a cloud of warriors), however, on easy levels, of course, you can succeed in acquiring almost not all guilds and destroy opponents almost effortlessly.

Of course, the main focus of the game is on the troops. In the battle (I'm not talking about small skirmishes because of pieces of resources) take part from 50 to 200 soldiers on each side. On the screen there is a real war, a mess, where lovingly drawn and animated armies of noble swordsmen, wise samurai and fierce Arab satraps (along with archers, catapults, ballista - ways to kill and destroy a whole cloud) knock down, obeying the will of their arrogant monarchs, whom we players, with you and we will represent. Each faction has its own characteristics - the Asiatic chariot is weak in attack and defense, but very fast, the Arabs are famous for their aggressiveness, and the Europeans for the best archers and armored, like a tank, knights, to which, before reaching, you need to lower the cloud of resources - but this worth it.

Some words also want to say about the voice acting. The sound is great. All movements, events, whether it is picking a peasant with a shovel in the garden or a duel on a spear between horsemen - all this makes the world more alive and brighter. There is also a feature that pleases me personally. For some time now we have become accustomed to the fact that heroes or troops die in the game in silence, sighing softly or saying a script phrase in parting. In the "King" is all true. Who said that when a person is pierced with a sword, he quietly breathes? Here all the troops, dying, just tear their vocal cords with a cry of pain! During the battle, the op is distributed throughout the field, and involuntarily sneak goosebumps. Yes, this is a real medieval war.

The music of the game is beyond praise. It would be enough for a couple of operas or musical performances. High passages rush up, and the blood is lightened by an alarm when the pipes scream, sometimes the music is a kind of melodic arrangement of ancient folk songs, and then it becomes very comfortable and you feel that this game was made by “ours”, the Slavs. Of course, I'm talking about tracks that are present on the CD itself (and on the CD rip, of course, also), and not about the perverted midi tracks that we were originally offered in the game. I personally advise you to listen to the rip music program from audio CDs and listen to all the music of the game just like that or in the background, playing the game - it's worth it, believe me.

Not without a plot. I finally left it for a reason - we are told about the gloomy history of the restoration of the state, and the whole campaign is not left with the question "What the hell am I doing here?". However, in the Russian version, "With Fire and Sword", the campaign has become just a work of art. I don’t know how 1C managed to translate and add its own, but the campaign of this game from a Russian publisher is filled with a healthy sense of humor and an interesting plot on which the original developers didn’t have enough time or imagination.

So, Tzar is a five-minute legend and a hit that was suppressed by a better-funded Age Of Empires II, which, due to its advantages, without any doubt, didn’t let most people know what it is - the real burden of the crown...