RISING KINGDOMS

Set in the beautiful fantasy world of Equiada, home to magical creatures, mighty leaders, and powerful wizards, Rising Kingdoms, offers players the unique combination of both strategy and adventure modes.

In strategy mode the player is able to choose from 3 major races: Humans, Foresters and Darklings, and use them to capture, enslave and develop five independent nations ? Shades, Nomads, Dragons, Trolls, and Elves. Combined with the player?s main race these allies provide a valuable asset when fighting other kingdoms and powers.

In adventure mode the player controls a group of Champions and a small squad of troops uncovering dark secrets and surprising twists as the adventure unfolds.

The story spans over several generations portraying powerful ancient artifacts, the rise and fall of mighty leaders and glorious kingdoms, and the birth of new mystical creatures and races.

Three Races:

1. Humans:

With the skill and knowledge to create sturdy buildings and advanced weapons and devices the Human civilisation flourishes, constantly colonizing more and more territories in Equiada. Protected by weapons of steel and their faith in the gods they continue to perceive themselves sole fit to rule the world, doing everything in their power to destroy all other races in existence. The only thing preventing them from achieving this ultimate goal is that because of the constant struggles for power the Human race remains divided in dozens of small kingdoms and domains fighting each other.

Resource Gathering
Humans use Gold Mines to gather gold, using peasants to transport the precious metal from the mine to their Town Hall or Trade Post. In order for the Gold Mine to be created, however, there must be a gold deposit on which it could be built. Gems, on the other hand, are collected by the peasants directly from the gem deposit.

Human Healers
Human armies restore their health on the battlefield and in their towns in the same way ? by using their healing unit, the Monk. The Monks can even learn the Life Steal spell, allowing them to damage their enemies by transferring life energy from them to nearby infantry allied troops.

Building Repair
Unlike all other races on Equiada, only humans have the necessary scientific and architectural skills necessary to repair buildings. Thanks to this a peasant could be hired at any time to restore a structure that has been damaged during an attack.

2. Foresters:

Created of plant, beast and magic, the children of the forest wasted no time in establishing themselves as one of the three dominant races of Equiada. Lacking crafts and any type of technology, the Foresters rely on nature for everything, using magic to twist plants into structures, create traps to foil their enemies or call sturdy creatures to crush their foes.

Resource Gathering
Foresters use Gold Plants to extract gold from deposits, making it available for the workers to carry to the Town Hall. To gather gems, on the other hand, the Foresters require that a Magic Well be built near the gem deposit. When they are sent to collect gems will automatically store them in the magic well.

Floral Regeneration
Bearing a link with nature, Forester structures have the ability to regenerate with time - as long as the building is not completely dead it would restore its health on its own. However, there doesn't exist any other way a building could restore its health.

Moon Hunters
Living in the deep woods, some of the beasts in the Forester Alliance have mastered themselves as skillful hunters. Some of them have attained such skill in hunting that they have received the most special of weapons - the Moon Blades, allowing them to hit multiple enemies from a distance. These fearsome hunters have proven themselves to be as good on the battlefield as they are during the hunt.

3. Darklings:

Created by darkness and magma, the Darklings are one of the elder races of Equiada. Given the skill to shape stone at will, they raise massive buildings of black rock anywhere on the earth's surface. Unlike the other races, the Darklings have remained unchanged since their creation. Even now their theocratic society still follows the teachings the old gods. Recent changes in Equiada, however, combined with the other races? thirst for power and domination, have forced the Darklings to once again make their presence in the incoming conflict. A war is about to begin?

Resource Gathering
Darklings gather their resources directly from mineral deposits using Purifiers for gold, and Crystal Spires for gems. Once these immense structures are in place, a constant flow of resources starts flying straight to your Town Hall.

Soulwatchers
Darklings do not require buildings to inhabit; instead they need something to act as their link to the world so that they can maintain their current shape. This link takes the form of a Soulwatcher - a flying creature that cannot fight, but because of its powers can reveal invisible foes.

Health Regeneration
Using the powers given by the old gods and the link with the land of Equiada all Darkling units and Champions are able to recover from even the most serious wounds with time.

System Requirements:

• Windows 98/Me/2000/xp
• 800 MHz Intel CPU (2.0 GHz recommended)
• 256 MB RAM
• 32 MB Video Card
• 850 Mb of uncompressed disk space
• 4x speed CD-ROM drive
• Internet connection (recommended)