Hey all-
Did an advanced search and found nothing (which is hard to believe, I must be doing something wrong with the search function). What of ‘Knights of Honor’ do you like? It seems to be well regarded by the critics and looks to be my kind of game (I want to play Crusader Kings, but its hard to get into).
And where to buy? Steam or Gamersgate? How do you play it offline with Steam (I’m not always connected to the web on my Vista laptop).
Jorune
I think it’s on sale somewhere this week. I bought it when it first came out and really enjoyed it. It was like a simpler version of Europa Universalis. I enjoyed starting as the Duke of Normandy; conquering Wessex, Mercia, etc; and then founding England.
Damn - now I’m going to have to reinstall it.
I liked it but for the tactical combat. It’s really not very elegant. If you’ve played Total War games you’ll see a familiar sight of a battlefield with familiar units. What you won’t see is any kind of cohesion or logic to much of the maneuvering. It’s just a big old bum rush. Knights of Honor also lacks any feudal angle. It’s pure conquest but you don’t have to think about any lesser nobles, or feudal obligations, in your realm except for a handful of NPC “knights” who serve you in various ways and they’re always loyal (unless they’re spies).
What Knights of Honor does well is to employ strategic AIs that seem to act like people. They do have personalities and tend to behave in ways that are comprehensible but not entirely predictable.
KoN also does a good job modelling the function of castles - perhaps moreso than any other game. You do understand why they’re important but also the calculated risk one might take in bypassing them. Differentiating between castles and cities, and how they function, is another good move.
I forgot about about the tactical combat - I always auto-resolved.
Your King (and heirs) in addition to nobles in the court could be Merchants; Spy; City Governers; & Marshal’s. There were only nine character slots available (in total) and only Marshals could lead armies, so if you have 8 Merchants then you could only have 1 Marshal (and therefore only one attacking army).
I used to love the spies - you could send them to someone else’s court and hope to be hired as an advisor (of any type). They could even become King of that country if the previous King died without an heir.
Merchants brought in good money and Marshals were essential, so I didn’t bother with the other advisors.
I would summarize it as a real time version of Civilization.
The master plot: get a spy to become the Pope. Excommunicate whoever you don’t like. Preach a crusade upon them. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
I loved KoH, it’s like a scaled down version of Total War; akin to eating a well prepared burger instead of a nine course meal.
The sound track is great.
KoH can be bought for cheap in Germany this month. It’s the 2nd full version on the GameStar 2 DVD Edition.
It’s not pretty, and it’s not epic in scope, but it does what it does very well. If you like civ or the strategic side of the Total War series, you’ll like this.
I think I reviewed it at one point. It’s not great, but if you like the genre it’s worth a try.
And this is what sold me on it. I love the stategic map portion of the Total War series, but could never get into the tactical version. I love the medieval genre, I love the art style they are using, love Civ IV, I bought it. gamersgate. Huzzah!!
Jorune
ps. Thanks everyone.
It’s on Steam now and slightly cheaper than on GG.
Does the auto-resolve for combat work reasonably well? I looked into this back in the day and also more recently in connection with the city builder thread but the tactical combat put me off (it looked like a hard to control mess on the tactical level). But if the game is enjoyable as a strategy game using tactical auto-resolve, I’ll give this a second look.
I’ve installed and played this twice.
The first time, I fought the real-time battles, and stopped playing because I disliked the way that the strategic activity kept on running whilst I was in a battle. I believe this was supposed to represent the choice you were making as king/ruler to engage personally in battle, whilst leaving your kingdom to fend for itself. The choice is fine, but the duration of time that would pass to complete one battle seemed silly to me. I believe that a later patch introduced the option of stopping strategic activity whilst fighting a real-time battle.
The second time, I just did not bother with the real-time battles, and found the trading, raiding, diplomacy, building aspects quite enjoyable.
I always auto resolve battles in KoN as it is more fitting in the grand strategic scope of the game. I supply the troops, let my generals take care of the rest.
This game is all about the managing of your court, the upgrading of your lands and the diplomacy with your neighbors, their neighbors and their neighbors. It happened often enough that I neglected to check who was who’s buddy and I ended up with a third of the map declaring war on me. And if that ever happens. Prepare for spies.
There are a lot of choices to make and nothing is too easy. Only the effect Piety is broken imho because it much to easy to obtain. This is why I usually play as Jerusalem. Catholic faith but only Islamic provinces all around.
Either way, I would recommend this as a good strategy game that focusses on strategy and not devolves in tactical micro nonsense. A shame that Black Sea’s latest game (Worldshift) throws all of that out of the window and becomes like DoW2. This appears to be the hot thing atm but it bores the crap out of me personally.
Erm, Worldshift was released last May. Maybe DoW2 becomes like it? :/
I haven’t played Knights of Honor in years. Not since shortly after I reviewed it, I think.
Maybe I’ll go back to it to see if I still like it.
Troy
I was in the beta briefly and haven’t looked at it since. So I had no idea that it was released already.
Still, I’m not liking this trend at all. Especially not the part where they keep referring to these games as being strategy.
Stumbled across a fairly recent(!) blog entry by Brian Mardiney - he may be a Qt3er - discussing how cool the spy/espionage system is in Knights of Honor and how it contributes to a much more dynamic setting. Good read. I think I may boot this game up again until CK II hits.
http://objectivistgamer.com/?p=672
The aspect that I really get a kick out of, though, is when spies are used against me. It started happening a few hours into my first game. Out of nowhere, through some failed gamble, my merchant got caught doing something naughty for France’s king. Turns out this man, whom I’ve loved as a brother since almost the beginning of the game, was and had always been, a spy for a rival nation. It wasn’t just the annoyance of losing a good merchant. It was a real feeling of being betrayed since you stare at those faces most of the game, and you eventually get very familiar with them, especially your generals. But the other effect it has on you is to make you immediately suspicious of all of your men. After all, if good old Percival was a traitor, anyone could be! It becomes a game of balancing your kingdom needs against the prospect of being betrayed yet again, and perhaps next time, in a crippling manner.
One such crippling event happened for me in my second game. I had Morocco cornered in West Africa, my armies closing in. Then, literally within seconds of each other, three enemy spies made their move. The first two were from Morocco itself. My general of half the game turned my armies against me while at the same time, my king was assassinated with no heirs to continue the bloodline. My highest ranking merchant took the throne (with horrible stats, to boot), and my cities started rebelling (the divine monarch eating a dagger tends to make people antsy). My country was devastated and Morocco took the advantage and drove me out of Africa entirely, while I desperately attended to stomping out rebellion in all my cities. And then, finally, the last shoe dropped. Hungary, still sore from my last war with them, using a spy masquerading as my only priest, convinced the people of my capital city to defect. Suddenly, Athens was swearing fealty to Hungary.
I finally played Knights of Honor a month ago and loved it. What it really did well, for me, was prep me for Europa Universalis. Troy Goodfellow said as much on his blog, and I concur. KoH is a great step from Civ IV to a paradox EU3 type game.
Jorune