The object is to destroy all the camps and peasants of all the player's rival kingdoms under a strict time limit. Alliances can be formed near the beginning of the game to help the player. However, the alliance is only effective until the enemy alliance is defeated. Then the former allies declare war on each other. Victory through a cunning alliance is impossible because game rules dictate that there can only be one winner at the end of the game; that is why the two former allies need to go to war in order to claim the victory. Peasants have to do engineering tasks as well as military tasks. For example, bridges, monster-filled caves, and fences can be created or destroyed for the purposes of strategy. With each successful victory, peasants become soldiers and eventually knights.
Players can play in either campaign (which consists of helping a king eradicate a rebel force) or battle mode (where the player has to take on three rival kingdoms simultaneously while expanding his nation). This simplistic diplomacy system can never be used in a match after 5 minutes in the game, making it useful only for delaying war with a neighboring kingdom. Human units as well as orcs and demons are used for peasants, soldiers, and knights. Also, a leader can be either a warrior, a magician, or a shaman.
The player even has a leader avatar that must liberate hanged men from the gallows to be his assistant, collect treasure chests from the countryside in order to gain a mass influx of gold, and to force nearby cities to pay taxes. This turns the city's banners into the player's colors and at a random time, a taxman appears and goes to the player's castle to give him gold pieces to help with the war effort. Taxes must be controlled or else the coffers will go bankrupt and the player loses the game. Even the three computer controlled opponents must control their tax rate. There is a medieval environment to the game in all levels of the game.
Source: Wikipedia, "Lord Monarch", available under the CC-BY-SA License.