In Knights of Honor II please avoid the known bugs and errors from the original game

[Vlad Dracul]

I played the first Knights of Honor quite a lot (I think I did around 50 campaigns) and I really liked it, it quickly became one of my favorite games ever, so you can only imagine my joy when I heard that my southern neighbors (I live in România) will finally make a sequel I dreamed about for years and years in a row.

But I want to bring to developers attention some of the bad parts of the original game and I really hope they'll be so kind to create the new Knights of Honor without those annoying flaws.

First, I never want to see that "Original Marshal is a spy" bug.
Yes, there is a bug like this and a very dangerous one, a deadly one that can ruin your whole campaign. My spies discovered that the Marshal that is given to you at the very beginning of the game is actually a foreign spy. Puttin' aside the sheer lack of logic (when did he infiltrated, when I was loading the game? How can I infiltrate my own spies in other Royal Courts before the game even start? 😄 ) of this bug, can't tell you enough how destructive this could be.
Happened to me 3 times, so it wasn't just one isolated accident.

Second, be so kind and use the correct flags and symbols for factions (I don't want to see a golden lion as the crest for Wales, but their well-known red dragon) and location of the settlements (Suceava is actually far north in Moldova, not near the Black Sea).
Also, the Teutonic Knights should have german names, not polish ones.

Third, the second (or third) son/daughter coming of age before the first born. Or the third coming of age before the second. It's hilarious, but please fix it, that joke was enough.

Another thing, different prices for replenishing a military unit.
It's not logical that if you miss one men or 20 from a unit, the cost of replenishing that unit to be the same. If you lack less men the cost should be lower, if you lack more men the cost should be higher.

In the end, I'd allow myself to give some suggestions:

It could also be very useful to have the option to tell your vassals to stop fighting each other, it's extremely annoying when those idiots do it and you can't do anything about it.
A "Make peace with Kingdom X!"-option would work wonders in those situations.

If you continue this system with a certain number of skills for Marshals, it would be great to increase it from 6 to 8. There are some very useful skills that you have to give up on because you can pick only 6 of them.

Also, the slots in the Royal Court to be increased from 9 to 15 or something. The need for more Knights is voracious in the late stages of the game.

One last thing, I'd be forever grateful to you if you'd include my native Transylvania as a playable kingdom (like the other medieval romanian provinces that were available, Wallachia and Moldova), the feeling of playin' "at home" is... indescribable...

Edited October 12, 2020 by Vlad Dracul

[Lighthope]

I'd rather they spend the resources on getting the new game ready.

12 hours ago, Vlad Dracul said:

First, I never want to see that "Original Marshal is a spy" bug.
Yes, there is a bug like this and a very dangerous one, a deadly one that can ruin your whole campaign. My spies discovered that the Marshal that is given to you at the very beginning of the game is actually a foreign spy. Puttin' aside the sheer lack of logic (when did he infiltrated, when I was loading the game?

I don't see this as a bug. Annoying, but not a bug.  The world existed before you took the throne.

12 hours ago, Vlad Dracul said:

It could also be very useful to have the option to tell your vassals to stop fighting each other,

Yeah, that should have been a thing.  Vassals were vastly underused in KoH1.

12 hours ago, Vlad Dracul said:

If you continue this system with a certain number of skills for Marshals, it would be great to increase it from 6 to 8. There are some very useful skills that you have to give up on because you can pick only 6 of them.

Forces you to make a choice.

12 hours ago, Vlad Dracul said:

Also, the slots in the Royal Court to be increased from 9 to 15 or something. The need for more Knights is voracious in the late stages of the game.

Oh gad no.  Having to decide where to place your limited resources is part of the strategy.

[Vlad Dracul]

9 hours ago, Lighthope said:

I'd rather they spend the resources on getting the new game ready.

 

I was after a long sleepless night when I wrote that, so I made the mistake of not writin' clear (although it was obvious after reading my text) that I was referring to this new game, not the original one.

So, the idea was to kindly ask them not to repeat those certain mistakes.

9 hours ago, Lighthope said:

I don't see this as a bug. Annoying, but not a bug.  The world existed before you took the throne.

If that was true, how come you NEVER have one of your own spies infiltrated elsewhere...?! It's obviously a bug.

 

I confess I have no idea how to multiquote correctly, so I'll just use " " to reply to the rest.

"Forces you to make a choice. "

In HoMM III there were 8 skills a hero could have and that was a great game, an inspirational game for both Knights of Honor and M2TW. I think that only 6 is kinda limited, really. Not the end of the world, I can win the game just fine as it is, but I must confess I could really use the Dread skill on my "Siege Experts" Marshals (Strategist-Manoeuvre-Healer-Engineering-Ballistics-Archery Mastery). Just imagine havin' Dread combined with Ballistics plus Endurance on that particular guy...

 

"Oh gad no.  Having to decide where to place your limited resources is part of the strategy. "

Again, waaay too limited, especially for the late game stages, particularly if you decide to conquer the whole world, all 168 provinces

I play with 6 Marshals (or 7 if I'm pagan) and they're simply not enough. Not enough, I'm tellin' ya, they're not enough, it cripples your strategy for no logical reason. Definitely need more slots in the Royal Court. Or the Marshals not to use any of those slots, so you can recruit up to 10, if you can afford.

I dig your point of view though and I'm not implying it should be an unlimited number of Marshal-skills or Royal Court slots, but if you're a capable player and manage to create a large empire, those limitations become frustrating after a while.

 

L.E.: Or they should just do it like in M2TW where armies could roam the map without the lead of a General. Ofc, if your Faction Leader had low authority, those armies led only by a captain were likely to become rebel, so... wasn't exactly a walk in the park, you needed to work on a viable strategy for such things to be effective and not to turn against you.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Vlad Dracul

[CroatianKnight]

I like most of your ideas! Especially vassal one! On the topic of that I would like to see an opinion to create a vassal state if one feels like their kingdom is just too big to control and they just don't feel like ruling a kingdom where half of the provinces are of different culture and rebel constantly. 

[Lighthope]

On 7/4/2021 at 12:36 PM, CroatianKnight said:

On the topic of that I would like to see an opinion to create a vassal state if one feels like their kingdom is just too big to control and they just don't feel like ruling a kingdom where half of the provinces are of different culture and rebel constantly.

Different cultures and rebellions are part of the challenge.  If someone doesn't want to deal with that, then don't expand your kingdom so fast.  Conquer a province, make sure its rebellion number is low, and then proceed to the next.

I do agree that vassalage was not used very well in KoH1.  Crusader Kings 3 has a good vassal system.  If we want to have a vassal system, there needs to be a goodly penalty for spinning off a part of your kingdom.  Not just for convenience sake.

I know you can't control a vassal province.  So you can't recruit, control income, etc.  But that seems only a minor inconvenience as, by the time your kingdom is so big you need to spin off provinces, you don't really need to control them.  You have enough income/resources.

No, if we are going to do this, there needs to be an appropriate penalty.

[CroatianKnight]

7 hours ago, Lighthope said:

Different cultures and rebellions are part of the challenge.  If someone doesn't want to deal with that, then don't expand your kingdom so fast.  Conquer a province, make sure its rebellion number is low, and then proceed to the next.

I do agree that vassalage was not used very well in KoH1.  Crusader Kings 3 has a good vassal system.  If we want to have a vassal system, there needs to be a goodly penalty for spinning off a part of your kingdom.  Not just for convenience sake.

I know you can't control a vassal province.  So you can't recruit, control income, etc.  But that seems only a minor inconvenience as, by the time your kingdom is so big you need to spin off provinces, you don't really need to control them.  You have enough income/resources.

No, if we are going to do this, there needs to be an appropriate penalty.

Well I see you point, but it would be nice if one is able to bring back former allies on the map if they were conquered by an enemy.