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Gettin' medieval

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 72 / 72
Date: June 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A few weeks ago on a rainy Sunday, I downloaded the "Knights of Honor" demo out of curiosity. After playing the demo for about 15 hours, despite the fact that most of its features were disabled, I KNEW I liked this game.

"Knights of Honor" is a strategy game similar to a game in the "Total War" series. It also has elements of "Heroes of Might and Magic", "Warlords III", and "Master of Orion II" in it, along with a unique dynasty feature.

Many so-called "hardcore" gamers (who really care more about graphics instead of gameplay) may be put off by its use of 2D, rather than 3D, graphics. If you can get beyond that and enjoy the actual gameplay, you'll find a very fun strategy game.

Your goal is to become Ultimate Emperor of Europe: either by conquering all of the 100 or so regions of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, or by being voted Ultimate Emperor. You can win by fighting lots of battles, or by making lots of friends diplomatically.

The diplomatic model is simplistic, and would be useless if there were just a few enemy powers. However, since there are dozens of powers, there are lots of entanglements, which makes the diplomatic game surprisingly fun. You might declare war on Sicily, which brings in the Fatimids, but then the Dalmatians decide to attack the Fatimids along with Dacians and Novgorod. You also have to keep an eye on the four different religious factions (Christianity, Islam, Orthodox, and pagan), and you can use religion to manipulate various factions.

You can fight auto-fight battles (a feature sorely missing from many other strategy games) or you can fight them yourself. When you choose to be involved, you see your army and the enemy's on a battlefield. Both sides can call in nearby reinforcements. While battles are not on the scale of a "Total War" game, the scale is reasonably appropriate for the time period. The AI is competent enough, and I find mid-to-late-game battles a decent challenge (although I found an AI exploit that guarantees a bloodless victory against any town that has walls but no ballistae...).

Like HOMM or Warlords 3, KoH has special characters called Knights (of Honor, hehe). The marshals, who command your armies, can learn different skills that enhance their abilities, such as Dread (reduce enemy morale), Healer (reduce casualties after battle), or Sword Mastery (increase rates of units' experience gains). You can also create Knights as Clerics, Merchants, Landlords, Builders, or Spies.

Clerics are useful because they help increase your religious and scholarly resources when they govern a province. They can also convert populations to your religion, and if they become highly experienced, they can become a Pope and call Crusades against other religions or excommunicate leaders from the Church.

Merchants can raise lots of money through your trade agreements with other countries. They can also govern a province and increase income from it.

I haven't really used Landlords or Builders that much (though I've already logged 50+ hours into the game), but I'm sure they have good uses.

Spies are really cool: if one of your spies can get hired by a rival power, you can do lots of things, depending on his profession. For example, as a Marshal, he can cause the army to rebel. If he becomes a Cleric, he can cause a religious revolt or convince the population to secede. It's even possible, with great luck, to get the Spy installed as a puppet king or a Pope!

One unique feature of KoH is the royal dynasty. You can play as long as you have a living king. Your king can use diplomacy to find a wife and you can have heirs. You can use male heirs as Knights or keep them safe in the castle. You can marry your female heirs off to other countries, and they can help your Spies perform espionage on that country. Marriages also affect royal inheritance, so it's possible to make claims on other countries' territories (and vice versa).

If your playing style leans toward building, you'll like how you can build dozens of different types of buildings. You have to be careful of what resources your territories have, and you may trade with others to get them or capture them through battle.

Overall, all of these different elements combine to make an excellent game. Though I gave it a 5-star rating for fun, I knocked off one star from the overall rating because of its 2D graphics, because the multiplayer only lets you play the tactical battles (you can't play the strategic game in multiplayer), and because there are certain problems with the UI and the AI (I'm sure they'll be fixed later in patches).

not a bad game,but can't compare to rome total war

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 18
Date: July 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

well the latest one in atari is just about average.its strategy alright.its too much intricate strategy.what to build in what town,depending on the factors affecting the happiness of your population.your king may die without any warnings and then u will have to deal with rebellions coz ppl are unhappy about the new king coming to power.another one is that this game is too darn slow.it takes ages for a army to go across to the other town.that doesn't help coz ur enemies declare war on u in a jiffy and their troops start mraching into urs,while u havr to hurriedly order ur knights to reach there,by the time they would reach the city has been seiged,u can only 9 knights and that means u at maximum have 9 batallions of army.u cannot make alliances very easily because if u do then u will have to honour ur allaince whenever that nation goes to war,and if u don't then the people are unhappy again with kingdom power and then u have to also deal with rebellions.u have to build various buildings to acquire trade sources so that u can trade with other kindoms.all in all i never got the point of this game,though i did become the ruler of europe,but i just had to fight a few countries and conquer their territories and i was declared the emperor.lastly if u have patience then u can buy this one,if not no way,what would happen to u if u r playing in the hard level.

Addictive, Engaging, Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Knights of Honor is unlike any other real-time strategy game in today's market. For starters, unlike almost every game out there KoH is not a fully 3-D game which in my opinion lends a sort of old school look to the game. Personally I think it looks better than most strategy games out there. The level of detail involved in the game also helps to immerse you into the medieval mood of the game. This would have to be the most realistic simulation of what it was like to be a European ruler circa 1200, you must deal with everything from crusades to spys to keeping a budget for the expenses of your kingdom. Unfortunately the one thing that could have been a lot better is the actual tactical battles. The controls are very clumsy and I felt like I barely had any control of my army. Instead of risking the fact that I will probably screw it up I usually just let my generals fight it out. Other than that there is so much else in the game that it is really inconsequential. Overall Knights of Honor is a great game and I would recomend for anyone who enjoys historical strategy simulations.

What is Thy Will, M'lord?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 26
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well it seems up to me to set the record here... There aren't many reviews as of this typing and the game is getting scarce (might be discontinued - stores aren't getting new copies?)... So what's the boggle folks?

Three important points to cover in this review, here they go:

1. Performance? This game, as far as I've experienced, as no bugs. It runs flawlessly, doesn't stutter or pause at all, and the graphics and sound quality are astounding. If you like 3D then Poo-Poo on you: the 2D graphics in this game outshine many 3D games on the market. The major problems that many PC-gamers have that they don't realize are among the following: virus scanning software running in the background, unnecessary background programs in memory, outdated drivers (video, sound, motherboard, etc), or just plain shoddy equipment (the cheapest and best advertised isn't the best quality!)... For the sake of guidance make sure you PC matches or exceeds the minimum requirements: the game developers did a good job of estimating what kind of hardware is needed to run the game smoothly...

2. Gameplay? Moooohahah! Total War - Total what? Knights of Honor (KoH) is on a level that cannot be compared with the current offering of strategy titles - perhaps that is why it hasn't exploded on the scene... KoH is much slower paced than other games (possibly even more time-consuming than Civilization - or at least equal)... But that is its strength: if you don't like to micromanage and don't have the patience to wait several minutes for something, anything, to happen then don't bother with KoH... The user interface, help menus, and in-game events are easy to follow and manipulate. The options for guiding your nation surpass any game I've played recently (again with maybe the exception of the latest Civlization offering)... If you like Civilization and Medieval simulations then KoH has consumed anything available today - play the demo and see for yourself...

3. Enjoyment? Joy doesn't even qualify as a proper description of this game... Again if you like the Medieval eras and you like Civilization, Rise of Nations, and so forth then Joy isn't relevant - you will be obsessed with KoH. The game spans some 3 or 4 centuries with accurate historical politics, nations, and events to boot. The setup of managing your nation is unique and very easy to follow: much of it has to do with quality not quantity (i.e. there are more descriptions and categories then there are numbers and equations)... Replayability is unfathomable: not only do you have the campaign of conquering Europe, but the game includes a 'skirmish' battle mode for just shedding blood...

As an example I'm playing as a Scottish Earl starting in 1000 AD and I'm on my 4th generation of rulers (yes your rulers have heirs and you must guide and protect them to the throne)... I've endured a squabble amongst my knights for the throne, spies overthrowing local governments, and one of my generals has led a crusade against the infidels... And I'm still going: I've only just conquered all of England and some of France... Get the picture?

This game is a gem: get it while you can...

Cup of tea?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Being a seasoned strategy gamer I like detail and depth. KoH has this in abundance. There are lots of choices to make and small touches like becoming the high lord of Ireland once you control the entire island really add to the experience.

If great detail and depth are your thing in a strategy game, then I'd tell you it's a 4/4.

For those that like thier tea a bit more lighter... The graphics are a bit dated and the interface isn't going to amaze or improve your experience. You'll likely have a lot of false starts and the random rulers you generate at the start will likely see you starting over till you get something reasonably good. The games are LONG. Not long, but LONG. Expect to have to pick the game up and continue the same scenario after 20+ hours. At least until you are adept enough to play continuously at full speed... but don't count on it.

So, the light tea people tend to make up the greater majority of gamers so I gave this a 3/4. Be sure it's a topic you like and then KoH will probably be a cup of tea you'll be sipping for a long while.

Outstanding game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: October 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Of the many strategy games populating the game shelf out there, this is by far the best. It's fun, exciting, and interesting. It's intricate in a good way, not endlessly complicated. One would not use "clickfest" to describe this game, although once the game gets going, it can be quite involved. The graphics are plenty adequate, and I've experienced not a single glitch or crash. Bravo!

Strategy in the Middle Ages...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's been awhile since we've seen any decent Strategy games come out that aren't overly complicated or so simple you just fall asleep in your chair.

At first I was turned off a bit when it said Real Time Strategy, because I find that an oxymoron where if I can click my mouse fast I have a good strategy? The only thing about this game that makes it an RTS is that time doesn't stop progressing in the world unless you hit the Pause key.

It's a fairly complex game to learn, but the in-game tutorial was very well done and explains everything you need to know to play. The strategy aspects of the game are very well done. The world is dynamic and because of all the different countries you are dealing with there is always something happening. It is by far the best political/diplomatic model I have seen in a strategy game yet. Alliances are very tricky and if you aren't careful you can start a domino effect that could literally put all the major powers in a massive war and totally change the face of Europe.

In order to accomplish anything in the game you need Knights. You have nine Knight slots which comprise your court. You cannot have anymore than this. Depending on the makeup of these knights determines your strategy. Beating the game as Ireland my endgame court consisted of seven marshals, one cleric and one spy so I went the road of conquest. Each Knight can be assigned different jobs basically. Make a Knight a marshal and he can lead armies (you can't have armies without a marshal leading them and only 9 units and 4 seige units per marshal), make a spy and he can protect your kingdom or infiltrate others and so on and so on.

Town development was well done imo, as you have a limited amount of slots for your city and depending on what natural resources are available depends on what type of city it will be. Will you build a lot of fortifications to make it tougher to conquest? or is it deep in your empire and you can forego all the fortifications to build infrastructure and trade?

The only part I did not like/enjoy was the battles when you take command personally. It's very clumsy and I found it frustrating to interact with. The camera is zoomed in way too close so letting my marshals fight the battles was the way to go. If you are expecting Rome:Total War type battles you will be disappointed as it's not on that level of gameplay.

Bottomline, It is a great game. I've had a lot of fun playing it and I just let my marshals fight all the battles and it's a great strategy game. If you don't like Real Time Strategy games don't let the name fool you...you won't be pressed for time to make decisions and the game time flows nicely.

Very addictive game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Pros: Convincing medieval atmosphere. Good challenge: hard but not impossible, makes you eager to win at all cost.

Cons: Fixed armies size, no matter what. Armies can't be merged or combined.

Bottom Line: If you like medieval history and strategy games, in a rather intellectual challenge more than a "click" frenzy, download the demo and give it a try.

First of all; this is a really very addictive game. I have been playing the Demo through the whole weekend (plus the week after), and can't stop, I even didn't lead most of battles, because it wasn't the part of the game I was interested the most.

As always I face a new game, can't resist comparing against others games I know, and try to find probable common concepts. This game reminded me of another three or four, at least.

Regarding the historical and geographical scenario, is almost identical to "Medieval: Total War": Europe, North of Africa and Middle East from year 1000 to 1400.

The concepts of armies and garrisons, with a fixed max number of units, the scale of the gaming map, the cities development management, with a limited number of spots to build and some other few features, remind me of "Legion" (and the most recent inception: "Chariots of War"). The concept of an army gathered around a General (or Marshal), was used too in the past decade by another excellent strategy game at the time; "Seven Kingdoms". In this game, spies played a decisive role as well, and there was also some diplomacy involved, because there were means, other than war, of getting adhesion from foreign cities to your kingdom.

Finally, there is something in the general atmosphere, may be the music or the armies with its banners marching across the territory, I can't be sure, that brought good old "Lord of the Realms II" to my mind.

However, KOH is also different and better than all above, in my opinion. It's not turn-based, is real-time in the good way, events keep happening unless you PAUSE the game (you can set the speed of the time passing), but there is not need, in general, of frantic clicking.

One free advice here: you can speed up the game, to 8 times the "normal" speed. This can be a good recommendation at the beginning of your quest when constructing the basic buildings, as long as your country enjoys a peaceful period. There is not a lot of work to do, while you wait for the buildings to be finished, and you don't have still armies in campaign nor a lot of diplomacy to do, because no country wants nothing to do with yours, they even insult you (which is funny) if you dare to propose them a trade agreement.

But, once you have basic structures erected and at least one army ready to take the field, be careful with the speeding, because if war stalls and your speed is set at 8, you won't have the time of even to think about the basic maneuvers of marching, attacking and defending the key spots, left aside the diplomacy, appointing new marshals, recruiting new armies, restocking the worn ones, etc.

The game has really three geographical scales where you do the play, not only two as MTW: the general (world) map, where you conduct diplomacy and can learn the big geopolitical picture at every moment; the country and cities map, where you play most of the time, managing resources, commanding armies, developing cities, placing your knights at task; and the local map, which is the specific scenario where you lead your army at battle. All the three scales are 2D.

The general map is simpler than the MTW's one, and the local battle scenario looks smaller and simpler too than the MTW's one. Armies are smaller as well, around 300 men, which is historically accurate for an earlier time in Europe, around year 500, after Roman Empire fall. For the time of the game, after year 1000, a few thousand of men, as in MTW (including reinforcements) are more probable in a battlefield, left aside the Mongols, whose armies, around year 1200, accounted for tens of thousand of men.

It's the country map what makes the game so lovely to play, that's my feeling. It does not matter, really, that it's 2D, that's completely irrelevant. Why? Simple, the country map is not just a good drawing, with some digitalized and animated objects moving across. I think is really Great painting art. It's like an old and good, vivid and detailed landscape painting, brought to life in the computer screen, with a lot of lovely little live characters, moving around. The cities change of shape along with its development evolving in the time is a real pleasure to see.

Diplomacy, as another reviewer pointed, is simple and easy to manage. Never did so much of diplomacy in any other game. I have won entire campaigns of MTW with zero diplomatic moves from my part and waging war against everybody else. However, in KOH diplomacy is a must, at least in the basics of making trade agreements with some of your neighbors. It's easy to use, and very fun as well, sometimes the answers you'll receive to your offers are really hilarious. Even this funny feature is useful, because the tone of the answer sheds some light in how the other kingdom sees yours.

A few disappointments. First of all, I missed the "Legion" feature of putting close in the map two armies, and being able of exchange units between them. Main undesirable consequence of this lacking is that when your king dies, the army under his command evaporates. You can work around to certain point, using as buffers the six slots for garrison units in each city, but this stops you of fully develop the city garrison, if you prefer to leave some empty spots as buffers.

Also, it looks like the authors forgot the fact that armies cost always, not only at the moment of the setup. Apparently, only when you hire a unit, you are charged on gold and food. In "Legion" (and MTW too) armies are expensive to keep all the time, except when they win a battle and grab the spoils of the enemy. In the economical report, only military ordinary costs you can see are Marshals' wages. Perhaps these include the costs for the whole army under their command, even though they (Marshals) always cost the same, regardless of how big are their armies, except for when a Marshal is improved with a new skill. In this case, his wage rises, as expected in reality, better soldiers are more expensive than average ones. But it would be realistic as well that when the better the commander, the larger the armies that he can hire and deploy, allowing a few additional units slots for highly skilled Marshals.

Secondly, there are only nine spots for knights in your court. From them you have to assign commanders, merchants, spies, etc. Even enemy Marshals taken prisoners by yours are placed here, lowering even more the already scarce number of available spots (on the contrary, your Marshals taken prisoners, still keep occupying their spot in court). What happens if you manage to master a bigger kingdom, having more than nine provinces, meaning more than nine cities? For I have read from other reviewers, this is a regular feature in the game, not only the demo.

Couldn't be reasonable expect that whenever you conquer a new province, your royal court is enlarged with, let's say, two new slots for knights? This would make the game not only more playable, but more realistic as well. The more provinces a medieval realm comprehended, the more nobles and lords its court had.

Lastly, even though this should be a demo designed (lacking of) feature, does not matter how many princes your king raised, at the beginning of the third generation, when the grandson of the first ruler takes charge, the game finishes when you are enjoying the most.

Because of this, is impossible to win while playing the demo, simply you don't have enough generational time with only two kings lifetime. However, there are some relative measures of success; when the game finishes are calculated rankings of Most Respected Kingdom, Wealthiest Kingdom, Strongest Military Kingdom, etc. and you can analyze how your performance was based on the positions on the rankings.

One last thing, so far, after a while playing the demo either as "Duke of Bohemia" or "King of Scotland", given that they are rather small countries, you find yourself with a lot of time to look at the global map. Many times I have wondered about the dramatic changes in the political geography the game AI generates: you can see "Croatia" as a very large kingdom, threatening the southern border of Bohemia, even armies of a "Duke of Epirus" (small Greek region) reaching and rampaging Central Europe, etc. Perhaps I'm wrong, but sometimes this seems to me a little too much fantasy.

Retro fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: December 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

very cool game. I remember hearing about months ago and I finally bought it on amazon since i never saw it in stores.

2-D isn't even worth mentioning because the game is so good. Let me preface that by saying... If you like games like Colonization, Fragile Allegiance, Warlords 2, and Stronghold you will really like this game.

It's a blast if you like slow-paced thinking games. At times the action is a little overwhelming since it takes place in real time, but if you think far enough ahead you should have no problems.

It runs good on my slow cpu, I think the graphics are fine, keep in mind this game is the super clone of all the previous games I mentioned. The knights feature is way cool, and the Royal family dynasty is really neat. I got mad when in order to wed my prince so he could have a well founded dynasty I was required to give up land and so forth. I am not sure if the diplomacy is very believeable, but I must say that for the first time in a long time the cpu will actually honor it's alliances in single player and send armies to help you, and get mad at you if you refuse to help them.

I was supposed to be studying for a final and I got sucked into 8 solid hours like it was nothing. Be aware, in order to stay properly focused on winning you will zone out. I do not reccoment this game to anyone who has a clingy wife or sig. other.

I say buy it and treat yourself to some gaming right out of the Christmas past. Very cool esp. if you dug the whole Sid meier Colnonization. It's very familaiar but so much bigger and better.

Great concepts, but not well polished

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've read the reviews here and I think they do a good job of stating why this game was an overlooked raw gem. As they have all pointed out- it has some great concepts and some fairly in-depth gameplay.

However, I think someone should mention that the AI is extremely weak and thus the unmodded game is not much of a challenge. The biggest problem with KoH is that the AI cannot handle many of the game's concepts. For instance, the AI is incapable of building up an economic infrastructure and therefore cannot put quality armies in the field. Further, the AI cannot gain ANY of the "kingdom advantages"- which give powerful bonuses and allows the first player to gain them all a victory. Also, the AI does not know how to handle the concept of "kingdom power" which is a numbered scale on which the higher the number the more profitable and stable the realm will be. The number goes down depending on a nation's relations with others- being dishonorable makes the number go down. The AI, due to its unpredictable diplomatic behavior, always ends up with very low kingdom power. This results in mass rebellions and the complete inability of the AI to create powerful kingdoms with which to challenge the player.

Also, many of the game's concepts are not well balanced. The game offers a variety of different knight specialities, but some of them are completely useless (landlords and builders) and merchants are incredibly overpowered allowing the player to quickly be swimming in cash which results in taking away the decision making about what to build or buy. The "kingdom advantages" is a brilliant idea- allowing players to win without conquering everything and encourages a more measured diplomatic approach to the game. However, some of the "kingdom advantages" are ridiculously overpowered and the fact the AI can NEVER access them makes it feel like a cheat rather than a legitimate strategy.

KoH is a neat game, but not a well-polished one. The concepts are there, but either only partly developed or badly balanced. What has kept this game on my harddrive are the mods- player created modifications- which have beefed up the challenge considerely over the unmodded version. However, mod makers do not have access to the AI code and thus there is a limit to what they can accomplish. As for Black Sea Studios patching it? KoH was a dud on the sales front so Black Sea Studios threw in the towel on patching it. I can understand that- one doesn't reinforce failure.

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