This is an all right game, though it can be rather easy if you abuse a certain feature (the food marketplace). Essentially, it boils down to being a ruler attempting to take control of an island kingdom. You have your regular soldiers which every battle come in four types evenly distributed (well, three types but four groups--two groups of infantry, one cavalry and one archers). Then you have your fifth unit for each battle, if you have one available (it's an almost guaranteed loss if you don't and they do).
This is an all right game, though it can be rather easy if you abuse a certain feature (the food marketplace). Essentially, it boils down to being a ruler attempting to take control of an island kingdom. You have your regular soldiers which every battle come in four types evenly distributed (well, three types but four groups--two groups of infantry, one cavalry and one archers). Then you have your fifth unit for each battle, if you have one available (it's an almost guaranteed loss if you don't and they do). This can be your nation's wizard (some are more powerful than others, and you can use each wizard only once every three months/turns, and can use it in any combat you want if its available),
a captured enemy wizard (you capture the wizard's gem and force him to work for you when you conquer an enemy completely), or a mercenary/monster unit if you have one in that province. For mercenaries, they're generally weaker than wizards, though not a lot, and always weaker than the 'dragon' of the main enemy kingdom. Plus they take upkeep. However, they can be used more often (though their wounds after a fight take time to heal), so they're almost a necessity because your wizard is generally best left for defense (so he can defend a province that doesn't have a monster available in it).
The economy is somewhat straightforward, with a harvest each year. If you're just starting to play it's important to remember to give food to each province in order to increase its loyalty--without a high loyalty a province doesn't really have a harvest at all. There's an exploit where you can buy/sell food at different times of the year in order to essentially quadruple your income, but the game gets extraordinarily easy if you take advantage of this, so don't.
Most of the fun, really, comes from conquering the smaller kingdoms (six in all) in order to get all the other five wizards. Each wizard works a little differently in combat so it's interesting to capture them all. By the time you're ready to take down the main enemy, the dragon-gem holding central kingdom, it's pretty much easy going anyway and not all that much fun. All in all, Gemfire's a decent game and good entertainment for a few hours, but not nearly as involved as something like Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV.
