Video Games
‘Medieval Dynasty’ is Survival/Building Adventure at its Best
I’m super excited to bring you a full-length review on this game because I’ve already played it for 370 hours and I love it. I have restarted for this play-through though, of course.
Medieval Dynasty is an open world survival crafting and building game with elements of exploration and a story to follow along with. While it is most definitely a survival game, it is also very management oriented.
In this game, you play as a young man named Racimir who has left a war-torn home and come looking for his long-lost uncle in a beautiful valley.
You start with nothing and must befriend the local villagers by helping them with their requests all while building up your own quaint little village.
Eventually, you will find a wife and have an heir that can take over for you in your old age. You will also find people along your journey to join your village and help it grow, who will even have children of their own.
Your time in this game is based around seasons. Each season is three game days long. Every spring you will have to pay taxes, so you must make enough money from gathering and crafting throughout the year. The bigger your village grows, the more taxes you will pay.
My goal for this playthrough was to finally build all of the buildings available and to play as the heir, but I definitely underestimated how long this would take me. To give you an idea, each game day goes from 7 am to 7 pm which is about 12 minutes long, because each hour is a minute long from what I’ve gathered. If you go to bed right at 7 pm at the end of each day, then your three day season will end up being 36 minutes long.
However, when you open your inventory or any storage box, the time pauses. I love the management aspect of this game, so I am always in the management tab which increases my game time. Plus, getting to bed right at 7 pm proved to be difficult and I ended up sleeping closer to 8–9 pm most nights or even 10 pm on some busy days.
If you were really good at getting to bed on time and spent minimal time in your inventory/management tabs so that your days only took about 15 minutes real time, you could potentially get through one in-game year in about 3 hours, if I did my math right. Round up to 15 minutes per day, 45 minutes per season, which adds up to 3 hours per year.
I’m not sure how old you have to become to play as the heir. You start off as Racimir at 18 years of age if my memory serves me correctly. Theoretically you could be waiting 18 in-game years, or 54 real time hours, to play as your heir. In my previous play-throughs, my heir has only made it to about age 8 before I moved onto a different game. In my current play through, my heir is 3 years old, and I’ve already played 53 hours to get to the point that I’m at now. I plan to keep playing as much as I can in between other games, maybe try to do a season a day, and I will update this post if I ever finally meet my game goals.
Don’t get me wrong, this is one of my favorite parts of Medieval Dynasty. I absolutely love the long aspect of this game, but with such a huge amount of game choices available to us today it is tough to not move on to new games. Maybe my partner and I just have game ADHD. We usually blast through games pretty quick.
Now that you’ve had a brief introduction and you are fully aware of the time aspect involved, keep reading to find out what my three favorite aspects of the game are, what I like about the game, gameplay tips, and what I think could be improved.
3 OF MY FAVORITE ASPECTS:
~Infinite Progression:
In this game, you start as Racimir, but once you have an heir, you will one day take over as that heir and play as him. I have never actually made it that far, but I love the fact that you are essentially creating a long-lasting dynasty.
~Skill Tree:
The skill tree is quite large with a lot of different buff options and each skill can max out at level 10. I have never maxed out all of Racimir’s skill trees to level 10, but from what I understand, children receive a combination of skill levels from the parents, so eventually one of your heirs will have maxed out every skill tree if you play that long. This applies to the workers you bring to your village and their children as well.
~Automation:
In the beginning, you must do everything on your own to include logging, gathering, hunting, farming, crafting, etc., but as you build up your village and hire people to live and work in it, you will eventually lessen your own workload and be able to focus on what you like doing most and the one thing you will always have to do, which is building.
6 THINGS I REALLY LIKE:
❤ Inventory Management:
The inventory management system is aesthetically pleasing while also providing a great overview that is simple to look through and has plenty of filtering options.
❤ Graphics:
The scenery in this game is beautiful. The graphics are detailed and enjoyable to look at for long periods of time.
❤ Sprint and Crouch:
You can toggle sprint and crouch, which I really love when I’m playing for long periods of time. No more holding the shift or C key.
❤ Settlement Progression:
You start as just a lonely traveler, but eventually after some hard work and friendly dealings, you can progress your tiny hermitage into a giant city.
❤ Visual Representation of Time Spent:
This game really gives you a lot for how much time you put in and there’s no getting around the time spent either. If you want a giant city, you must plan and build for it, but at the end of the journey it looks so grand. You can really take pride in ownership with this game.
❤ Animal Locations:
While exploring the map, locations of animals will be discovered and you will be able to go back and check them by using the map filter. If you need to kill boars for a quest you will know exactly where to find them once you have explored that area at least once. This is a newer addition to the game, and I have to say it makes such a big difference for quality-of-life purposes. Before, I would have to try to remember locations of certain animals, wander around looking for them, or look the information up online.
25 TIPS FOR GAMEPLAY:
❤ Your Village Location:
I recommend building your village as close to another village as possible. This makes it easier to buy and sell items since you won’t have to travel as far. I have always built next to Gostovia, where the main storyline starts, but you can build pretty much anywhere within a certain distance of pre-existing villages.
❤ Stone Houses:
When you place your houses, you will build the foundation first and then the framing. After that you can build the walls, but before you start the walls, be sure to edit each of them so that they are stone walls instead of wattle walls. Stone walls are upgraded with limestone later on, which you won’t use for anything else. This will allow you to save your sticks and clay/straw that would have been used to upgrade a stick wall. Also, I personally think the stone looks the best.
❤ Editing Houses:
Really important! If you add logs to the walls you are building in a house and then decide to change the wall type, you will lose those logs that you had just added. So, be sure to first edit your walls to change them to stone, if that’s what you decide to go with. You can also choose wooden tile roofs instead of thatch later on when you have the ability to make planks, which will also need to be changed before you start so you don’t lose materials.
❤ Upgrading Stone Houses:
Upgrade stone houses with limestone as quickly as you can. This will help your villagers use less wood during every season, but it is especially helpful in the winter when wood usage increases drastically. You can have your workers gather limestone in the Extraction Shed.
❤ Finding Stones:
Check by the river or under heavy pine forests to have an easier chance of finding stones on the ground in the beginning. Later on, when you get to the mine, you will have more stones than you will know what to do with. There is also a skill buff that you can get under the survival skill tree which allows you to use inspector mode to highlight and see stones more easily.
❤ Hiring Villagers:
Try to find villagers with level 3 in the skill you need, especially when hiring for the woodshed, because the higher their skill level the more they will gather.
❤ Villager Skill Levels:
Villagers will slowly increase their own skill levels in whatever job you have placed them in. When they level up, they will gather more of whatever they are doing for their job. So, remember that you can go into the buildings management tab and adjust how much of each thing they are gathering. For example, a level 3 hunter might gather 30 meat per day, but a level 10 hunter might gather 100 meat per day. These rates will depend on if you have the hunter gathering leather, fur, and feathers as well of course as opposed to only gathering meat.
❤ Villager Housing:
Start with the Simple Small Houses first so you don’t have to use as many materials compared to the Simple House. Your villagers will be limited to one child until you move them into the Simple House which can accommodate a family of four instead of just three. When placing villagers in houses, place one man and one woman in each house for them to start a family. Also note, that when the woman has a child, she will take two years off to care for the baby so you will have one less worker during that time.
❤ Villager Care:
Your hired villagers will need three things — food, water, and wood. Normally, they will get these three things from the food storage and the resource storage, but if you want to hire someone before you have the storages built then you can put food, water, and wood straight into their home storage box. Hire a couple of woodshed workers first so you don’t have to get as many logs on your own for building.
❤ Firewood:
In the Management Tab, there is a villager setting tab that you can use to set what your villagers use or don’t use as far as food, water, and wood go. I would recommend setting the wood use to only firewood. You can have your woodshed workers craft firewood, or you can also craft it yourself from your own inventory. It is far more efficient for them to use firewood rather than logs or planks or even sticks, although at least sticks are super easy to gather quickly if you need to.
❤ Orchards:
Don’t slack on getting at least a few orchard trees planted. They are great because you don’t have to water or replant them, and they will continually produce fruit after they are mature enough to do so.
❤ Wife:
Start talking to a wife potential as soon as possible with the Romance option, because it will take some time to get her affection levels high enough for her to marry you. About 15% per day can be added to her affection level if you choose the right conversation options and you must reach 100% affection to ask her to marry you.
❤ Wife Continual Affection Level:
You will need to check on your wife occasionally and give her a gift every so often if her affection level is low. There is a gift vendor that comes to the pre-existing villages regularly that you can buy gifts from and even sell extra goods to as well.
❤ Healing:
Gather Broadleaf Plantain and always carry some with you for a little bit of quick health until you can start making better healing potions.
❤ Berries:
Gathering berries in summer is useful, because they will give you and your workers food and water, which can help you out if you don’t have a well and a water carrier yet.
❤ Food Spoilage:
Food does spoil in this game, but it is at a very manageable rate. Cooking something into a new dish will revive semi-turned food back to 100% Condition. I usually cook things at 75% Condition to revive them and get more mileage out of the food. For example: cooking 75% Condition Cabbage and 75% Condition Meat will give you 100% Condition Potage that you can then sell, eat, or feed to villagers. With that said, don’t go to sleep over the season change with food in your own inventory. This will decrease it to 50% Condition, even if it was previously at 100% Condition.
❤ Backpack and Pouch Upgrade:
Try to get the highest tier of backpack as soon as you can. It will help immensely with management around your village by allowing you to carry more. To do this, you must go to a seamstress in another town and buy the backpack and pouch upgrades. You can craft them, but it takes quite a while to get to that skill level, so I recommend buying these items right off the bat.
❤ Coins:
Try to have at least 1000 coins in your inventory when you go to sleep for the season change because sometimes special events happen. I won’t tell you any more of the details but trust me it’s worth it to have the money for them.
❤ Loot Sites:
Keep an eye out for places around the map that you can loot. It could be an overturned wheelbarrow, a shovel sticking out of the ground, an abandoned campsite, or a couple of barrels lying on their side. You might find coins, food, seeds, or even a higher tier tool.
❤ Bandits:
There are bandits in the game, but it doesn’t seem like there are too many. You can outrun them, but I ended up killing them and they give you some pretty worthwhile loot, so I would recommend killing them if you come across their campsites.
❤ Mining Resource Depot:
Do yourself a huge favor and take the time to build a Resource Storage Shed right next to the mine. The great thing about the resource storage is that all of its inventory is connected. So, building an extra one at a far off mine will give you access to the one back at your village. This way, you can walk out of the mine with a full load and drop it off directly into your resource storage. I think there are around three mines on the map, but I always go to the northern mine above Baranica and Branica. There aren’t any bears there and it has a good flat spot to build the resource storage.
❤ Fat Walking:
We’ve all been there, especially if you’re an in-game hoarder like me, so here’s a tip for getting places a bit quicker with a super full inventory… walk sideways. Use W and D or W and A together, so I guess it’s kind of like forward sideways. I find that it makes a big difference, especially in the mine where you will have to carry heavy loads of stones, salt, and ore.
❤ Bathing:
You will get dirty in this game. You can either build a wash basin or just swim across the river to wash the dirt off. In the beginning, when you are short on time, it’s easier to just swim across the river but it’s not like using the wash basin takes that long. It’s up to you, really.
❤ Spear Gathering:
Holding a spear out while gathering sticks and rocks on the ground appears to speed up the gathering animation.
❤ Hunting:
For your own ease in hunting, get the tracker skill buff in the hunting skill tree so that you can use inspector mode to see wild animals more easily. It is the second row up and has a little paw print on it.
Photos below and keep reading after that for what I think should be added to the game as potential improvements.
11 POTENTIAL GAME IMPROVEMENTS:
❤ Font Size:
Personally, I wouldn’t mind being able to adjust font size for both the dialogue and the quest tracker on the right of your HUD.
❤ Flattening the Ground:
I would practically die of excitement if the devs put out a patch allowing us to flatten the ground we wanted to build on. I loved that aspect in Valheim.
❤ Venomous Critters:
How cool and exciting would it be if you had to watch out for snakes or spiders, or maybe even venomous frogs/toads although I’m not sure if the last option would fit into the valley biome. Currently, there is a poison meter in the game, but it is basically forgotten. You never have to worry about being poisoned unless you accidentally eat spoiled food or a poisonous mushroom.
❤ Logging:
I think that maybe trees should hurt if they fall on your head. Just a thought.
❤ Horse Cart:
Adding a horse cart could be a neat addition. I’m not sure how useful it would be to most players since you can already carry quite a lot just with riding your horse, but it would look cool!
❤ Out of Tools Notification:
It would be nice if there was a little ding or some type of stronger notification for when your villagers run out of tools and can’t continue working.
❤ Herb Garden:
This would be such a neat addition. The Herbalist Hut could take care of the herb garden or maybe even mushroom beds and berry bushes too.
❤ Tree Farm:
Maybe this is overkill since there are already so many trees, but it would be fun to be able to replant them where you wanted them, even just for decor purposes.
❤ Housing Materials:
Being able to change the entire house from wattle to stone in one click would be great, along with the roof from thatch to wooden tiles, instead of having to go wall by wall. Also, I wish you wouldn’t lose materials when you change the wall type or at least if you didn’t lose the logs you added to it.
❤ Animal Trap Notification:
I really wanted to use traps to increase my hunting skill level because they are actually pretty good for that, but I just kept forgetting to check them. Maybe a nice little ping when they were triggered would help with that.
❤ End Game:
OK, this is a big one. My partner and I were talking about what would make Medieval Dynasty even better. We thought it would be cool if you could eventually become the king. It would give you a huge end goal to work towards which could really improve gameplay. Another fun option to go along with this would be to add villagers for hire with a warrior skill that could go out on instance-based missions for you and maybe even bring back loot, or potentially help you become king with a fighting/king level meter or something. You could eventually have an army and you could be the one setting and collecting taxes! Food for thought.
This concludes my review of Medieval Dynasty. As previously stated, I will update this post as/if I progress in this game to meet the goals I originally set, so stay tuned. You can always follow me on Instagram @gamingwith.vellyndra for regular content and photos of what I’m currently playing. I hope you enjoyed this review. Here are a few extra photos to browse through!
