Ah, the legend of King Arthur. A thrilling tale of bravery, treachery, romance, and mysticism.
But there's not much sign of any of that in Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North. Instead we have a slow-burning, somewhat repetitive freemium resource-management game with an interesting social element.
But is it enough to rally your interest?
Camelot wasn't built in a dayYou know the drill by now. You build a kingdom up gradually, starting with the cottages for your workers to live in and moving on to sawmills and mines for the gathering of resources. Then you use these resources to build defences, embassies, and other impressive monuments to power.
Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North doesn't really do any of this better than all the other games of this kind. In fact, with the annoying need to toggle between three different views and a confusing, counter-intuitive menu system that tells you what you need to do but not always how, it's a little worse in many respects.
We also can't remember a freemium world-builder in which you can't build or upgrade more than one building at a time.
Still, there's a growing pull as you spend more time with the game and start formulating your own plans for domination.
Relentless expansionThere's just so much to do. Initially that takes the form of an endless to-do list rather than a playground.
You need to complete tasks so that you can keep the resources and funds flowing in, accumulate experience points, and unlock more building types.
As with many of these games, there's little joy in the actual process of upgrading and expanding your kingdom. It's a bit of a slog.
However, it becomes gradually more engrossing as your number of options increases.
Round table discussionKingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North's major saving grace is its social element, and the ability to affect the games of other players.
You're given a seven-day grace period of protection, so you can get some kind of defence in order by recruiting soldiers. It's probably just as well that you're made to wait, as it's easy to have your loot plundered and progress stalled by an invading player.
You can also join alliances to help protect you, which is a neat idea. This allows you to request aid from your fellow alliance members in times of need, and to chat away to your heart's content via the ever-present text chat box.
If this kind of constant social interaction appeals to you, and you don't mind putting the time and effort in to advance your kingdom to a decent point, there's a great deal of joy to be had from Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North.
For many casual players, though, it may just be a bit too much like hard work.