Majesty: The Northern Expansion

The Good
Like its predecessor, this add-on takes the hands-off approach with your characters. It breathes new life into the RTS genre. It's always fun watching your characters go out and kill the big boss all without any input from you. Of course they're just as likely to run away screaming as soon as they see the enemy, but it's still a lot of fun to play. Also you actually start to care about your heroes due to the fact that once they get to high levels they're hard to replace. The character's are also funny. The voice-overs are hilarious the first few times you hear them.
The scenario's are fun and a lot more challenging. They bring a lot of new enemies and buildings that you have to get used to. Some of the new building are very useful too. Hmm what else? there's a scenario creator to make your own scenario included, so if your not happy with the included one's, make your own. The game is a whole lot of fun and i recommend it highly.

The Bad
The new scenarios are almost too hard. The graphics aren't quite up to the level of games such as AoE II, but they do the job. Gameplay can start to become repetitive after a while. Not having control over your heroes can kill you sometimes, especially when your in a lot of trouble and they won't help the situation.

The Bottom Line
One of the most original and fun RTS games on the market.

The Good
Majesty's expansion offers new maps (adding two thirds of the maps in the vanilla version), higher difficulty and several new buildings.

The new maps try their best to address the problem of the vanilla content, namely that every map was no more than an elaborate puzzle and the moment you figure out the strategy to it, the map might as well be over since you won't encounter any real difficulties. The new maps have several stages and even when you figure out how to withstand the initial assault, you might discover that the second wave requires a different strategy entirely. A good example of it is the Scions of Chaos map. You'll get attacked by three high level heroes - a Priestess, a Cultist and a Warrior of Discord with almost no gold or heroes to defend yourself. Not only are the attacking heroes tough (and you're out of resources), but each attack is accompanied by additional monster attack. While you can easily repel the first one or two heroes, if you haven't planned from the very first second you might discover that you don't have the funds to take on the third hero. The best part? You finally have several distinct strategies to finishing most maps, instead of figuring out the one and only one path to victory.

So why did I call this a "multiplayer edition"? Because of the new buildings. Chief among them is the Embassy which can (for a hefty price) call random heroes and heroines to your kingdom - even ones that normally cannot be recruited because of the temple or racial path that you choose. While that's a handy option, the real purpose of the embassy is to share the game map with your allies so that you could coordinate your offensive better. The Outpost is another good addition. It basically acts like a secondary palace, but with less hitpoints and that cannot be upgrades. Not that you need to upgrade it - it's personnel is equivalent of a 2nd level palace which makes it a wonderful addition to your main base (by increasing tax collector and repair coverage), or as a far away expansion, ideal to launch a surprise attack on your opponent. Finally, the Sorcerer's Abode is designed specifically to counter the problematic AI of your units, as well as a better assault tactic. The spells Change of Heart (which make a berserking unit flee, or a fleeing unit to attack) will give you a somewhat better battle coordination. The Gate spell allows units to travel instantly to a certain location (presumably one with a large bounty flag). The earthquake spell is designed specifically to damage enemy buildings in a wide radius, which will complement any attack against another player.

The expansion offers also a few new enemies, but they are little different from previous ones (for example, Yettis are more powerful versions of Earth Elementals), but it does have a few new challenges. Both the goblins and ratmen have new powerful units which work beautifully with their regular swarm tactics, and their lairs will spawn more often. Another interesting addition are the Greater Gorgons that can petrify your units and summon medusas at will.

All in all the expansion increases replayability by enhancing both the multiplayer and the solo experience.

The Bad
Obviously the elephant in the room is that the AI is still broken and your followers will never do what you tell them when you tell them. Sorcerer spells can alleviate this, but only to a small degree because all of those spells have cooldown period and won't be of much help in large battles. Not only that, but the Sorcerer is a late-game building which requires you to upgrade your palace and construct a Magic Bazaar - the most useless building in the game! I'm serious, the Bazaar is the only building that can actively hurt its owner. It offers magic potions (if you research them) that add powerful short term effect to anyone who drinks them. Unfortunately the moronic AI of Majesty's heroes and heroines forces them to drink the potions immediately, making the potion expire before battle and wasting money that they could have used on better weapons or armor. It's amusing that a building that is supposed to circumvent the problematic AI requires a building that is the quintessence of everything that's wrong with the AI.

Now let's talk about the new maps. Are they harder? Yes. Are they interesting? Most of them are. Did the designers go overboard in the difficulty department? Oh hell, yes! One map, Legendary Heroes, is so hard that it is impossible to finish without being clairvoyant or a cheater. The premise is that you need to destroy six lairs in 30 days, when each guild or temple can support only one recruit and every destroyed lair will trigger an earthquake centered on your palace and summon a hoard of minotaur, trolls or other monsters both where the lair have been and inside your base. Oh, and the lairs constantly spawn dragons and elementals. Fun, isn't it? This is the kind of map that even the walkthroughs say needs several attempts even with a perfect strategy since if the lairs spawn too far from your palace you won't be able to destroy them in time. In case you're interested, the solution (together with some luck and a solid plan) is save, scout the entire map, reload and direct your efforts against the places that you've discovered previously. Which is just a mild way of cheating and it should not be necessary to finish the game. And the best part? That map is required to get to the two final master-level maps of the expansion, both of which are easier to finish!

The Bottom Line
A good expansion with good additions to both the single and multiplayer modes. While the main problems with the game remain unfixed, the expansion offers enough innovations for those that enjoyed, or thought that it wasn't hard enough or good enough for multiplayer.

Still not a classic, the expansion turns Majesty into a much more solid game.