Knights of Honor

[airboy]

I bought Knights of Honor on a Steam sale for about $2.50.

It is a medieval conquest game.  You can play as one of 60 or so countries in three different eras.  But you only control 9 knights who are immortal if they don't get killed in combat. These knights are your moving pieces.  In reality, you have to take one of the starting knights and make them a spy and keep them home on counter-espionage.  You also need at least one cleric.  Early in the game you also need a merchant or two for income.  This leaves you with 4-5 pieces that can move troops.  As you expand, this becomes increasingly difficult to handle was all of the rebellions pop up.

I started on intermediate and got my clock cleaned.  Then I started downloading and reading guides.  Even on intermediate the other nations get 125% of gold income.  Rebellions occur seemingly every time your king dies, every time you get involved in a war, and are seemingly nonstop when you conquer provinces that are different from your base starting religion.

I've taken Poland and after 15 hours of play have managed to get to the 3rd strongest nation in Europe.  But it is two steps forward and one step back on a constant basis.  And this "accomplishment" was after studying two different strategy guides for two days after work.

This is a good game - but maddeningly hard.

[jomni]

This single player?


Edit: Ah sorry.  I have mistaken it for a Mount and Blade type game.

[Gusington]

I have had my arse handed to me many times by Knights of Honor. I have never won a game IIRC and to be honest I don't know if there are ways to win...I don't remember.

[Raied]

It has a difficult start, but the snowballing is very evident in this game, once you hit certain milestone no one will be a threat to you anymore. Regardless, it was an amazing game, and hit a sweet spot between Total war and paradox games.

[AchillesLastStand]

This is an awesome game and one of my old favorites. I still have the original box, pullout, manual etc. If the battles were a bit more fleshed out I would give it a 9.5/10 The campaign blows away anything TW has put out since then.

[Raied]

This is an awesome game and one of my old favorites. I still have the original box, pullout, manual etc. If the battles were a bit more fleshed out I would give it a 9.5/10 The campaign blows away anything TW has put out since then.

Agree with you, if I have to choose between TW or KoH, it will be undoubtedly KoH is much much better game than any TW to date (campaign design wise).

[Lowenstaat]

A game with the breadth of medieval Europe as your sandbox and surprising depth.

Just some tips. You can pause the game with the PAUSE/BREAK key to plan strategy, analyse the political and religious maps, and give orders to your armies and cities. Its best to only appoint relatives (princes) as spy masters to prevent hiring another realm's spy to that position. If you're a small kingdom you can still prosecute an effective strategy of raiding your enemy's farms and villages, but then retreating back to the safety of your own cities when your enemy fields a larger Army. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to use that tactic, but then to stop my army on one side of a river hoping an enemy army continues to pursue. You can play with the option of pausing time on the strategic map when engaged in a tactical battle, but it seems the AI will still reinforce even though you cannot. To counter that, just deselect that option to allow for reinforcement even when you've engaged in a tactical battle.  Use two knights to lead two armies to attack and defend while reinforcing each other. If you have the economy, use a third knight's army to act as a blocking or interception force to protect the other two, especially if the third marshal has the battlefield fortification skill. If you start as a small province and conquer or inherit a larger domain that includes a historical kingdom you can found that kingdom. For example, a few weeks ago I started as Leinster, then, after conquering Munster and Ulster, I founded Ireland. You can do the same in Scotland, England, Spain, Portugal, and probably some other kingdoms. Appoint your king and/or princes to be merchants or hire a merchant to start trading to earn money at the beginning. Also, try to increase your Kingdom Power to earn more gold, keep your people happy, and keep the respect of other monarchs. I could go on and on, but there are some decent guides out there that cover more.

Do consider patching to 1.05 to add even more nuance to the AI and your game play.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1083701
http://www.gamershell.com/news_35805.html
http://www.moddb.com/games/knights-of-honor/downloads/knights-of-honor-v105-patch

I was so impressed with this game after playing it when it debuted years ago I sent the developer Black Sea Studios a note encouraging them to adapt the engine to other time periods. Sadly, I think that was the last game they made. There are also some mods for the game, but I've never tried them.

[AchillesLastStand]

This is an awesome game and one of my old favorites. I still have the original box, pullout, manual etc. If the battles were a bit more fleshed out I would give it a 9.5/10 The campaign blows away anything TW has put out since then.

Agree with you, if I have to choose between TW or KoH, it will be undoubtedly KoH is much much better game than any TW to date (campaign design wise).

It needed a sequel long ago.........

[Anguille]

An old favorite of mine...played many many hours though it's been a while.

I'd recommend to go for the Kingdoms Advantages otherwise it's very long to conquer the entire map.

After Knights of Honor, they made Worldshift, an intersting real-time strategy game before becoming Black Sea Crytek.

Unfortunately, they had even started some work on Knights of Honor 2 before becoming part of Crytek and this will never be released.  :-[


PS: didn't realise the steam version wasn't patched...strange.

[jomni]

Haven't played this actually.  Do you think the graphics are still good enough on modern computers?

[Trooperc7]

IMHO, the graphics still hold up well, at least as well as the AGEOD games.

[bbmike]

^+1. jomni, I think you would like this game.

[jomni]

^+1. jomni, I think you would like this game.

Yeah.  I'm very intrigued by the mechanics.

[Nefaro]

^+1. jomni, I think you would like this game.

I thought it was good.  Not quite amazing, but good.  These days, I'd rather just fire up some of the more recent TWs.


Anyone picking it up should do themselves a favor.  Track down the mod that removes all the Intro screens.  I remember they were long and annoying as hell on my old digital version.

[bbmike]

^Helpful site for that.