Field of Glory II: Medieval - Swords and Scimitars

I've spent enough hours with the Field of Glory II: Medieval engine to know exactly what a DLC needs to do to earn its place in the library: it has to shift your tactical vocabulary, not just pad the roster. Swords and Scimitars mostly delivers on that front, though with one important caveat that matters if you're buying for mechanical novelty versus historical breadth. The content volume is genuinely hard to argue with. Twenty new nations span from Bulgaria and Egypt all the way east to the Indian subcontinent, bringing 35 new units, 41 additional army lists, and 8 historical scenarios covering engagements like Manzikert 1071, Arsuf 1191, and La Forbie 1244. Quick Battle mode climbs to 150 total matchups, all playable from either side, and the sandbox campaign absorbs all the new lists so your custom matchup options are substantially widened. For the numbers-minded: that brings the total Medieval army list count to 146, with historical ally contingents pushing the theoretical matchup count into the hundreds of thousands. You will not exhaust this content quickly. The four new campaigns are where the DLC earns its strongest marks. The Alexios Komnenos and Manuel Komnenos arcs give Byzantine players a genuinely different positional challenge from anything in the base game, while Saladin's campaign forces a complete rethink of unit roles. The Muslim armies here rely on heavily armoured cavalry archers and lightly armoured lancers as their core, which plays nothing like a Western European heavy infantry line. That shift in tactical identity is the most interesting thing Swords and Scimitars does. Crossbows matter differently, flanking pressure reads differently, and the pacing of your turns changes when your best units want to skirmish rather than grind. Templar and Hospitaller knights, Turcopoles, Turcoman cavalry, Varangian axemen, and Indian horse archers all add visual and functional variety to the unit pool. The honest downside, flagged clearly by the community, is that Swords and Scimitars does not introduce new combat mechanics. It is content expansion, not systems expansion. If you came to the base game hoping for new rule interactions, this DLC will not scratch that itch the way later additions to the series do. The Indian subcontinent nations also feel underdeveloped relative to the geographic ambition of including them: they show up, they have distinctive rosters, but the campaign and scenario coverage around them is thin compared to the Crusades material that dominates the runtime. For a wargame audience that cares about historical depth, that omission stings a little. For newcomers evaluating whether to enter the series at this DLC: don't. Swords and Scimitars requires the base game and assumes familiarity with the FOG2M turn structure, cohesion system, and unit classification logic. Get comfortable with the base game first, then treat this as the obvious next purchase if the 1040-1270 AD period interests you at all. The multiplayer component, including online PvP and Remote Play Together, means the expanded army lists also add longevity for competitive players who want matchup variety that the base game alone cannot provide. At 77 percent positive across nearly a thousand Steam reviews and a 75 Metacritic score, the consensus is consistent: competent, content-rich, not transformative.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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