The Guild 2 [PC]

Ever thought life in 1400 AD was easy? The Guild 2 will change your mind, as you watch its hard-working characters building syndicates from nothing (legal or otherwise) while improving their skills, fending off crooks, arranging marriages, bribing their way to political power, and presumably their all-time favorite, "making babies." (No, you don't get to watch that bit.) The Guild 2 teems with depth, but it tries to do too much, diluting a competent economic sim with too many unnecessary additions.

The Guild 2 isn't easy to categorize: it combines a complex management game with character development, political intrigue and family-building elements more familiar to players of RPGs or even perennial classic The Sims. Starting out, you're on your own, with just a smallish purse of gold with which to found your dynasty - but before long you're managing multiple buildings, each with supply needs and staff to wrangle, holding down a marriage, running for political office, assassinating rivals or destroying their structures, and generally working hard enough to send you to an early grave.

Your first task is to build a production building appropriate to your character class; this might be a farm, a forge or a church. Once it's ready, it needs staff hired and supplies bought: this involves running a cart to the marketplace, buying raw materials, running the cart back, telling your workers which item to produce, then running the product back to the marketplace to sell. At first, without the money for multiple carts or big stockpiles of materials you'll have to do this often.

Sure, you can automate some of these processes, but it's inevitably most efficient to keep a close eye on the process of your facilities - either way, you'll have your hands full. That's without considering the occasional bout of jury service, having your character dragged off to be tortured, or having to drop everything to defend a building against an attacker. And that's just the stuff you have to do. The Guild also expects you to court potential partners, run for political office, produce heirs to your empire, and attack your competing dynasties through methods both overt and covert.

When you consider The Guild has four separate professions, each with its own buildings and production types, and that with multiple dynasty members you can pursue more than one of these, you'll start to understand this is not one of those management games where you can set up your empire and relax as the cash flows in. The Guild 2 keeps you busy, and even though you can slow the pace at your pleasure, there's still a tremendous amount to track.