King Arthur: Knight's Tale - X-HOMM from Neocore

My man! King Arthur Approves!

firstknight

Well I caved and bought this. Will hopefully get a chance to start it tonight!

I don’t know who that is, I think you mean this guy:
excalibur_1981_plano_critico

“Fucking Guy!”


Oscar Wilde as Lancelot from Lancelot and Guinevere 1961

I ever tell how as I kid would go into Camelot music stores in local area malls looking for the Excalibur soundtrack, would ask employees if they knew who composed it and where I could find it?

Had no idea it was early Oingo Boingo stuff.

Really confused right now

I believe that is Nigel Terry

What difficulty level have you played on? Because so far it all feels a bit samey/easy/busyworky. I like the game, but liked it a lot more yesterday when it was new. 6(?) hours in I miss something… new? More challenge? I don’t know. It’s too much of the same right now. I’m mostly level 4.

I believe I was playing on Normal or whatever the equivalent is. I never increase the difficulty level on my first playthrough of any game, as I don’t have the time or patience for that. ;-)

My main knights are all around Level 10/11 I think (I haven’t played since November), and I’m halfway through the second act out of the four. Through much of the first act I do remember it was mostly similar battles where I could just use Mordred, Kay, Balin and the Lady Dindraine or whatever her name is to slaughter stuff with 3 tanks and a support archer. But further in you really start to appreciate the abilities added to the group by the Arcanist, Sage and Vanguard characters. I now roll with a Champion, Defender, Marksman and Vanguard by default, and I’ll replace the Vanguard with an Arcanist or Sage if I’m going up against a lot of magic-based opponents.

According to my post upthread, I played on hard most of the time through Act 2. There were a small number of missions I had trouble with and I needed to put it back on normal for the final mission in act 2. I think in act 3 I had trouble finding a difficulty level that wasn’t too easy or too hard, and some of the fights were becoming a bit of a slog, at least on hard. I didn’t finish the game. But, when I was enjoying it I thought it was really good.

I set it on Hard to begin with, figuring that I’d adjust it later if needed, but wound up just leaving it there all the way through the game (rolled credits a couple days ago, though I’m still playing the endgame). There were some stretches that I was cruising and considered bumping up to Very Hard, but every time, something tricky would come around and keep me on my toes, so I left it alone. I found that I was puzzling over my turns, carefully checking enemy attack ranges and abilities, and trying to come up with effective combinations, which is what I want out of a tactics game.

The difficulty is inherently somewhat inconsistent, and even more so because there can be a huge gulf in the effectiveness of your characters based on their build, equipment, and opposition. One thing that helps them fudge the difficulty a bit is the threat of Vitality damage and injuries – even in encounters where I was in no danger of losing a character, I still wanted to pay attention and try to play carefully and get a clean win.

I found the trickiest times to be the beginning of each new act, as you’re dealing with new enemy types and haven’t had a chance to accumulate gear matching the new stuff yet. The biggest spike so far has been the post-game, and I seriously considered dropping the difficulty down on a couple of occasions, but so far have managed to squeak through using different tactics.

Actually, I went with Rightful Old-faith, and late in the game I did get missions that involved killing the knights that are recruitable for Christian (Galahad + White Knight) and Tyrant (Black Knight + Red Knight) playthroughs. So I would assume that there’s a corresponding mission to kill Lancelot if you go Tyrant.

That’s my problem so far. I can only play it in short bursts and every time I quit I am not sure of coming back. Like now when Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate is down to ~22€ at GreenManGaming. But maybe switching to ‘hard’ would spice things up.

Playing on Hard worked great for me. This been my primary game for the last month and a half, and I’m only now (halfway through the postgame) just starting to feel the first wisps of burnout on it.

What building upgrades do you recommend early on? I am trying very hard, but poor Balin keeps getting badly hurt. How do you use him? Early on, he doesn’t have a lot of durability, and I find it hard to keep him out of harm’s way. Should I buy and potions and use them as soon as I risk getting injuries?

More hero slots is an early priority so you don’t have to turn people away, and can afford to rotate who you bring on missions while people are healing (this lets you use the free healing, saving gold for other stuff). An extra slot for the training ground is nice to prevent heroes from sitting idle. The one at the merchant that gives everyone a point of armor adds up to mitigate significant amounts of damage over time. And the cathedral one that makes potions use no AP is really handy too.

I didn’t use Balin because I sided with his brother, but it looks like his skills are similar to Tegyr, who has been one of my MVPs.

Ideally you don’t care about his durability because the enemy never gets a chance to target him. Try to always end your turn with him hidden. Basic playstyle is to move around the periphery of the main battle.

Every turn you try to take out one target with surprise + backstab (either something that came in to fight your other melee guys or an isolated archer or spellcaster). Ideally you kill it and then just hide where you are, but if you need to back off before hiding, then it’s better to do that than stay exposed (anything that gives you movement AP is great for this reason). If you can position in such a way that an enemy will try and walk through him while hidden, he gets a free attack. This can be helpful, but have to be careful not to do it in a situation where other enemies will swarm once he reveals.

Admittedly, this approach is somewhat harder to pull off in the early game, as opposed to later when you’ll have more AP and movement AP, and Hide gets a lot better with all of its masteries unlocked, but he should still be a solid contributor.

Jump is really handy to get out of trouble if he accidentally gets surrounded, or to bypass the front lines and pick off archers.

And Bear Trap doesn’t directly tie in to his main role, but it’s extremely efficient and useful, especially on the first turn of a fight, so good to pick up when you have the spare points. The mastery that removes 2AP from whoever triggers it will save you a ton of damage as enemies walk up to attack but then can’t afford it.

And yes, use potions as soon as someone is low on hp and likely to take vitality damage on the enemy’s turn. They’re a lot cheaper than paying for fast healing at the hospice / cathedral.

Whoa , do wants!

I thought that was DLC but it’s a new game in the same vein as Knight’s Tale? Maybe this is more me.

Wishlisted! I loved King Arthur : Knights Tale and this is pretty much exactly the same thing only set after the events of Knights Tale and with a different story path to follow. Sounds like you start out as the bad guy (it says you will fight the knights of Sir Mordred’s round table) but can choose your path of either conquest or redemption.

I’m in! Though, as always, I will wait for a sale of some sort as the Bargain Code of Honor demands.

Same! I loved the last game, so happy to have more in that vein. I had also thought this was DLC rather than standalone, but expect to enjoy it either way.