Knights of Honour

[Dale]

So does anyone have an "honest" and "real" review of Knights of Honour?

What's it really like?

How does it play?

Any comments welcome, thanks.

Dale

[General Ludd]

It's fun, but more "beer and pretzel" than paradox games. Gets old after not too long.

[hexagonian]

I loaded up the demo late last night, but I really did not do much other than go through 1/2 of the tutorial.

Looks interesting - although the last thing I need is to get involved in another game. (I'm starting to have the attention span of a 3 year old kid with ADD regarding computer games - I just cannot get myself to stick with one for a long period of time anymore)

[Dinner]

I truthfully haven't heard anything bad or good about it.

[Dale]

I had a play with the demo last night. Went through the tutorial completely then tried a few games as Scotland in the Europe campaign.

Here's my initial comments on the game from the demo:
- The game suffers tremendously from not having speed options. The entire game travels at the one monotonous speed. So if you're waiting to collect 2000 gold then you just have to sit there twiddling your thumbs getting bored for 10-15 minutes.
- If the demo is anything to go by, then it's VERY easy to make bucket-loads of money. After creating 5 merchants (I also had two builder governors and two marshals) and creating money trade routes to France, Germany, England, Almohads (sp?) and Sweden I was getting +130 from trade for a total income of +178. This made me very quickly the rishest nation in the world and the highest trade value nation. After that it was a simple case of buying England's favour and speed buying buildings.
- I got bored of that game after a while and decided to invade England (who wierdly was allied with France????? Whoever saw that in 1000AD?). Anyways, they were military 2 and I wasn't on the scale. I had two armies with swords, archers and two cavalry each. I was able to conquer all of England except Kent and the continental provinces easily, without any major reinforcements! All I saw were English peasant armies. The AI even let me destroy all the rural areas and left his army in the city. *shrug*

Sorry, but based on the demo I don't think I'll be getting it unless someone can say what the real game is like.

Dale

[Spiffor]

I had played the game for a bit, before I ever tried EU2. I felt it was fun, but that it got old very quickly. In particular, since the # of leaders is capped (and fairly low at that), it was frustrating at times.

The tactical battles were fun, but I found they brought nothing new in comparison to Medieval or even Shogun total war, and a few quirks on the controls got on my nerves.

Besides, the strategy didn't look all that complex to me (which is the marking of EU2, and above all Victoria). So it really felt like a real-time Medieval total war, with less spectacular battles. A honest game, but definitely not the best kid on the block.

[JCG]

It's interesting enough, since in some ways it's somewhat more fun than Crusader Kings due to its extra elements (including those that are similar to Medieval Total War's, for what it matters)...it's different, yes, though since Knights of Honor is not a Paradox-developed game but rather a Paradox-distributed one, that's not really much of a surprise.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dale
Here's my initial comments on the game from the demo:
- The game suffers tremendously from not having speed options. The entire game travels at the one monotonous speed. So if you're waiting to collect 2000 gold then you just have to sit there twiddling your thumbs getting bored for 10-15 minutes.

The "+" and "-" keys control the speed from 0.5x up to 8.0x - I discovered this by accident because the game was crawling along and I instinctively hit the "+" key having played SH3 for a few weeks.

[Dale]

Stuie:

Thx for the tip mate!

Anyways, I've changed my mind on KOH after playing a few more games. I was able to get pretty in-depth with it on the political side, and even lead a crusade against Tunis.

So I think I might get the game, but after the initial price drop.

Dale.

[odioalsoco]

That is about right...
I think it is actually CTRL + or CTRL -, but not totally sure.
The game is great, you just did not played long enough, 5 merchants and surviving? interesting, because when your kingdom gets bigger you REALLY need to defend yourself, and get rid of the spys, and the freacking cruzades, and....
well, you get the point.. it is a great game.

[milenotis]

I've played the demo a bit. Whilst I really wanted to like it, I have to say it left me a bit disappointed. My impression, based soley on the demo, is that it is too simple. The real time battles were overly easy once I realised that I only needed to take the army captain out. I much prefer crusader kings over this game. Although the next incarnation or the whole game might be much better.

Cheers,

[Stuie]

Hmmm... at this point I'm torn between getting this or HOI2. Decisions, decisions.

I'm not a big EU fan, but there seems something more compelling about HOI2. Then again, I like the way KoH plays in the demo.

Hmmm...

[milenotis]

I hear you...I see hoi2 on the shelf at the local megastore chain and am really tempted...the air combat portion of hoi drove me crazy so my fingers are crossed that it has been improved....Hoi2 seems the much deeper of the two games with much more unique replayability.

Originally posted by Stuie
Hmmm... at this point I'm torn between getting this or HOI2. Decisions, decisions.

I'm not a big EU fan, but there seems something more compelling about HOI2. Then again, I like the way KoH plays in the demo.

Hmmm...

[SirOsis]

I never played HOI but the air and naval missions have been redone as I understand it. You basically deploy them to a region with a mission for a period of time usu a month. They will return to base when damaged usu 50% str or org or they complete the mission. Not much micromanagement.

There are some complaints that you cannot direct air power to a specific province but I think the way it works now is good and doesn't require much micro. You can focus on your land forces.

[milenotis]

Thanks for the info...the air combat was too much micro for me...I might have to check hoi2 out.

Cheers,