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William Blake

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3 hours ago, Ivory Knight said:

I think the recruitment time very quickly fixes that problem

 

3 hours ago, Ivory Knight said:

training time be long enough to prevent marshal spamming from towns to reinforce engagements

 

Recruitment time may fix some issues but also might create annoying situations just because units attached to a marshal. Imagine you  send the marshal to a town to recruit and click on the recruit buttons. The marshal would be stuck to stay physically in the town until the process is complete.

Someone can say that's realistic - the marshal is in the castle and trains people

Other people may say it's annoying because it might become exploitable as well. You see that the AI or Other player is recruiting and use the time to raid their villages with small forces.

Option - you click on the unit icon to train unit and get it instantly - It's just 25% filled with men but you are free to go and it gets filled up to 100% automatically - no need to stay in the castle.

Edit: Alternative option - you get the unit 100% filled with men but with 0 Morale

Edited by BC Knight
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18 hours ago, William Blake said:

Unprotected land is meaningless in KoH. What enemy can do to my land? Raze some settlements? I can't care less. Start a siege on a city? Well its a lot of time you lock an army into a siege for my blob to come and crush it.

That is a game flaw, one that I hope they will address.

I think it's been mentioned that sacking provinces yields little benefit.  There needs to be a reason to protect your province features other than a minor, non-noticeable penalty.

18 hours ago, William Blake said:

Loosing a single marshal on the other hand is a significant blow.

Depends.  I use throwaway marshals to control the rebels.  As they gain in experience, I promote them to attack my enemies.

No one is suggesting you use a maxed out Marshal to go against two maxed out Marshals.  But it remains a strategic choice to concentrate your forces or spread them out.

5 hours ago, William Blake said:

And they will not be constantly in a battle somewhere I honestly don't understand why adding few clicks or orders per battle would be such a burden.

Because that crosses my line of micromanagement for too little benefit.  It's subjective.  You like it. I don't.

3 hours ago, Ivory Knight said:

Fear of driving the gameplay towards players trying to attain all 65 resources.  

I think getting rid of the minor victory will help with that.  Though all the resources have value, and in the end you want to acquire them.

 

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Excuse me Ivory Knight, but I maybe miss one thing: you say that micromanagement during the battle (even if very simple) would be too much for the player (honestly I imagined something like 15 to 30 seconds, very few buttons to push and very few choices to make (attack/attack until annihilation/retreat ecc...5/6 options at max). It seems that this kind of solution appear to you and other people in the topic very "scary" (I read about 15/20 minutes to 1 hour to prepare a battle? Seriously nobody would expect/hope something this long).

Then you say " Would you consider army attrition, flank composition, high ground bonus, defensive bonus, reinforcement lines, surprise/ambush advantage, food attrition, climate attrition, and skilling of the marshals. " How theese solutions are going to be manageable in less time than the proposal above? Unless you think that this kind of aspects are going to be considered/evaluated and aquired for your army 1 time for all, and never touched again, which is quite limiting.

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2 minutes ago, BC Knight said:

Option - you click on the unit icon to train unit and get it instantly - It's just 25% filled with men but you are free to go and it gets filled up to 100% automatically - no need to stay in the castle.

No, I don't like that.

3 minutes ago, BC Knight said:

Someone can say that's realistic - the marshal is in the castle and trains people

That's not realistic.  Marshals don't train recruits. They have sergeants for that.  Marshals come and scoop up those who are ready to fight.  (And sometimes those who aren't.)

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8 minutes ago, Ivory Knight said:

"ALL battles would have no player input." I think you need to be more specific with that statement. Cause things that happen outside of the battle specifically can be very interesting and might give enough depth to satisfy players in multiplayer (consider battle engagements in EU4 where you tehcnically have no mechanic to do other then retreat once a battle starts, but before the battle you can do soooo many different things to increase your odds of winning that battle).

Well sure, I can give you a very concrete example.

Lets say we play against each other, start of the game, I have 3 provinces, you have 3 provinces. I build 8 peasants 1 marshal you build 8 peasants 1 marshal. We go into a battle on autoresolve. Tell me who should win and why? Some autoresolve magic happens, but players have no control really. If we do that 10 times in a row with variable results 50 - 50 win loss rate do you know why or what you are a player could do to change that?

 

Let's say we start building some units. You go with spearmen for instance. And I have archers. If it was RTS battle you will charge me and it would be right play. Or you could stand your ground and take my arrows and it would be a bad play. Now in autoresolve, how do you know what autoresolve would do? Could you change that?

 

Let's say  we have multiple unit types each, if you were playing RTS in a singleplayer you would not charge your cavalry on my spears and wait for my cavalry to crush your archers. But autoresolve would do something and now "you have lost" and I "have won", As a player do you even know what happened? Was there too little cavalry on your side? Was there too many archers on my side? You have no idea, so you have no idea how to fix that next time. If you had any control during a battle you could at least try to direct your army in a direction you might think is better or next time you would try another way.

 

Lets say we are playing multiplier 2 on 2. And your ally is coming to help you, but he needs time. Can you engage in a battle and hold, just hold to gain time? No. Can I engage in a battle and make it faster disregard my losses but I need to end the battle before your ally comes in, no I cannot do that too. If I find that I need with my army full of spears press your cavalry so my other army with swords will later has less trouble with your cavalry I cannot do that to, because I cannot target your specific units no matter what since autoresolve has no idea about positioning of units or selective targeting.

No matter how you look at it, composition of an army is a long time consuming process, starting from buildings you have up to the chain of events before a battle which lead you to have this specific army in this specific condition. But in terms of appropriate battle orders same army sometime should hold, sometime should push, sometimes need to be cautions. Sometimes you sides are getting flanked, sometimes you center might fail and all other combinations you can think of if you look at RTS battle dynamics, but it is all completely lost in a multiplayer with full autoresolve. 

 

 

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20 hours ago, BC Knight said:

 

 

Recruitment time may fix some issues but also might create annoying situations just because units attached to a marshal. Imagine you  send the marshal to a town to recruit and click on the recruit buttons. The marshal would be stuck to stay physically in the town until the process is complete.

Someone can say that's realistic - the marshal is in the castle and trains people

Other people may say it's annoying because it might become exploitable as well. You see that the AI or Other player is recruiting and use the time to raid their villages with small forces.

Option - you click on the unit icon to train unit and get it instantly - It's just 25% filled with men but you are free to go and it gets filled up to 100% automatically - no need to stay in the castle.

Edit: Alternative option - you get the unit 100% filled with men but with 0 Morale

You can make it so when you recruit they will travel to your army once they are ready.  Also I dont see your exploitable problem as that big a problem. Yes players could do that, but then you as a player should know when it is safe to recruit and when not to. If anything it just adds strategic planning to the game of when you should recruit and not. Also I state again that the point is to prevent army spam.

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6 minutes ago, Ivory Knight said:

. If anything it just adds strategic planning to the game of when you should recruit and not. Also I state again that the point is to prevent army spam.

In a context of multiplayer it is somewhat dangerous to add time delays, it can make the game overall too slow and require too much time for the game state to progress.  Just saying. 

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20 hours ago, William Blake said:

Well sure, I can give you a very concrete example.

Lets say we play against each other, start of the game, I have 3 provinces, you have 3 provinces. I build 8 peasants 1 marshal you build 8 peasants 1 marshal. We go into a battle on autoresolve. Tell me who should win and why? Some autoresolve magic happens, but players have no control really. If we do that 10 times in a row with variable results 50 - 50 win loss rate do you know why or what you are a player could do to change that?

No matter how you look at it, composition of an army is a long time consuming process, starting from buildings you have up to the chain of events before a battle which lead you to have this specific army in this specific condition. But in terms of appropriate battle orders same army sometime should hold, sometime should push, sometimes need to be cautions. Sometimes you sides are getting flanked, sometimes you center might fail and all other combinations you can think of if you look at RTS battle dynamics, but it is all completely lost in a multiplayer with full autoresolve. 

 

 

Sorry if I didnt make my self clear or if I still dont understand you, what I was arguing for is an auto resolve system similar to EU4, where All of the battles outcome is determined by interesting effects prior to combat. In your first example, depending on how you take the engagement would change the outcome. See my comment above about, weather, surprise, hills, defense stance ect.... You can have very deep and dynamic engagements without having to micromanage the auto resolve EU4 and HOI have this. I believe KOH 2 should also follow suit, because as you mentioned above during multiplayer deep management within battle engagements, can easily become too much. Yes, it is possible to have, and might not be too much once all is said and done, but I think at the present moment Apriori bonus before engagements seem to me to be where the game should focus. If they add a few internal battle mechanics, I will be fine with that, but in truth those mechanics cannot go very deep without it becoming taxing. While mechanics before combat, which effect combat, can go very deep, because of all the DEAD time between engagements. 

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Just now, William Blake said:

In a context of multiplayer it is somewhat dangerous to add time delays, it can make the game overall too slow and require too much time for the game state to progress.  Just saying. 

Obviously there is a balance for how long a unit should take to build.. To not slow the pace of the game. But its clear that the unit build time should be w.e time it takes to prevent army spamming, in the circumstance when 1 huge army stack wipes you (battletime) and then goes straight for the town center (travel time) and seige time.  So rough estimate ( battletime+traveltime to town+siege time = time to build units)

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Actually, wait for a second.

You are describing a potential problem - A player goes to a town and spam-recruit units in a matter of seconds(or something like that). But is it the recruitment time the source of the problem really? Or is manpower issue - like having too much manpower and not enough ways to use it. 

Is that really a problem-spam-exploit or a strategy. If I am neighbouring my enemy the most logical thing would be to keep my neigbouring provinces 100% full with soldiers and manpower. I would even move soldiers from another towns if I have to, to be prepared for emergencies.

Was this one of the problems that you discussed earlier or I am missing something, because it's getting hard to keep up with this topic.

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18 minutes ago, BC Knight said:

Actually, wait for a second.

You are describing a potential problem - A player goes to a town and spam-recruit units in a matter of seconds(or something like that). But is it the recruitment time the source of the problem really? Or is manpower issue - like having too much manpower and not enough ways to use it. 

Is that really a problem-spam-exploit or a strategy. If I am neighbouring my enemy the most logical thing would be to keep my neigbouring provinces 100% full with soldiers and manpower. I would even move soldiers from another towns if I have to, to be prepared for emergencies.

Was this one of the problems that you discussed earlier or I am missing something, because it's getting hard to keep up with this topic.

I think ur absolutely correct. It may even be balanced by simply having larger consumptions on manpower. More then 1 way to skin a cat.

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5 minutes ago, Ivory Knight said:

More then 1 way to skin a cat.

If you are about to lose a province you will use all available manpower to build up an army all you can. As I said in a cost analysis it appears that cost of units is negligible compared to cost of buildings, and if you lose a province it would be better to use up all people resources so enemy would have less people in captured province. So the only reasonable defensive play is to spend all possible men and gold for maximum amount of units you can possibly fit.

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43 minutes ago, Ivory Knight said:

. Yes you may be able to squeeze out a unit more or two, but that doesnt equal huge army spam. 

 

Well, depends on your perspective, but for instance:

 

1.png.c00af97d03b94af54fbfd7a37c94b72b.png

 

at a very start of a game from video you can make only peasants but your city is 4 out of max 11 population. And this is practically as basic a city can go with very little upgrades and buildings. Which is easily a full army of 8 units other than peasants, each non peasant unit is 1 population. Even a +6 units out of the blue will be more than 50% of an marshal army, so in my mind it would shift an outcome of a battle for sure.

 

Edited by William Blake
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On 5/2/2021 at 10:17 PM, DoVlaLegend said:

Yes they did. But I hope they add it in later updates or maybe as an DLC (for a reasnoble price).

That's a big minus in my opinion but I also hope that it could be added in a DLC-

P.S - Can you share a link where they said that or a video?

Edited by Gile
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2 hours ago, Gile said:

P.S - Can you share a link where they said that or a video?

Did you watch all dev streams? If not you can start watching them all from the beginning and you may find it, of course if yo know where are the videos...

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY7YOSaI0JANgn1V_B6WhiU_4vyBNhsI- 

Videos are not visible for some reason. I found this playlist of 14 videos, but only the first is not private... weird.  

About that question, Brad said that seasons may be added as dlc in one of the first streams, nothing more or less..

 

 

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On 4/23/2021 at 7:51 AM, William Blake said:

"There’s nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery." 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

If you expect a slight remaster of original KoH in 2021/2022 to be a good deal, you are very easy to please. For me personally that would be a failure because I want to see much better and much more successful game. Original KoH was a fresh interesting take, but it was not a hit. Making the same 20 years later with slightly more polish would likely to have same result.

Do you see KoH2 to be top streamed game on twitch? No. Can you imagine people taking hours and hours making youtube videos about KoH2 opening tactics? No. Why? Because there is no variety of actions and there is no action/reaction in the game. There is no awe, there is no strong emotions. You won't see an amazing play you never thought possible and moves which explode with new possibilities. 

You tell me "this is a game about medieval kingdoms" and I imagine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtbbIB776ks

When I look at KoH2 autoresolve battles 2 blobs of peasants on some poor AI. This does not connect.

You tell me "this is a game about economy" and I see "here you go, Bosnia, 3 provinces, fixed resources, fixed settlements, you can build an upgrade in 15 minutes". This does not connect. I can hardly imagine anyone replaying this over and over again because "oh my god, so many possibilities, I might have played better". Not gonna happen.

You tell me "this is a game about grand scale diplomacy" and I see "oh here, a pop up, someone wants a peace pact with you, yes|no". There is nothing to play, there is nothing to replay, there is nothing to master.

You tell me "this is game about huge medieval Europe and around with global trade" and I see "drop down, select which is the max gold from 10 same choices, trade done".

You tell me "multiplayer is essential part of the game we build most mechanics with multiplayer in mind" and I see... well I see 3 people waiting for 30 minutes for another 2 to start a match because no one is playing it in a month.

You tell me "well it is a casual game" and I see gazillion of sliders, numbers, indicators, some notification feed on the bottom showing messages non stop, event pop ups interrupting whatever a player was doing... it does not connect, honestly.

 

There is notable history to many games and many franchises, it does not matter. Firefly just made Stronghold Warlords and it is pathetic game and it flopped. Because just following a list of features which could work 20 years ago do not make a good successful game today. What we see today in the KoH2 gameplay video is a heap of very contradictory appeals crammed together to appeal to no one. I can't see how this can be a competitive multiplayer game, I can't see how this can be a deep economy/trade game, I can't see how this can be a casual experience game EVEN on the level of Civilization games. And it makes me very upset because for my own personal reasons I want this particular developer to have a solid hit, a game new people would love for what it is, not for some memories of 20 years old past.

 

Lets face it. This site is running for over a year now. 17 dev streams or whatever the number is. The potential audience is global. How many people we have? Around 5 writing on forums regularly and 300-ish watching a stream once a month or two? Is this appeal you expect? Is this excitement you wish to build up? If you want to tell a friend about KoH2 what you are going to say? "you click on a marshal and then on an enemy and then you select "all in" they start fighting animation on the small strip at the bottom and then you take you second marshal and click on the same battle so the fighting strip on the bottom will have more of your guys fighting air"?

People come to this forums imagining all kind of amazing things, like debating if a cavalry should be able to dismount and fight on foot in a middle of the broken walls, and you show them autoresolve battle with an option to retreat. You make units with variable number of men per unit, but 60 peasants are still 1 food upkeep as 40 men swordsman unit, as we all know if you carry a sword you eat 50% more for sure. 65 types of produces goods. Sixty five! Why? What for? How you can possibly role play England or France or Germany or Italy with 3-4 provinces at best and have sixty five types of goods in the game. What for? For a game where a trade is a selection of exchange of sacks icons for gold from a drop down?

I look at this and I forget all the good things - the art, the ui, the music, the setting, the map details. Because I see a shadow of a game which attracts no one and is played by no one, yet possibly has a bunch of good reviews and some nice screenshots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agree with you... Still played KoH 1 for huge amount of hours with these mediocre systems. So, there's a chance, still going to love KoH2. Though would love some big improvements....

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10 hours ago, Battousai said:

Though would love some big improvements....

So far I've been seeing a lot of changes.  KoH2 is definitely going to be worth looking at.

Diplomacy has changed.  Princesses have changed.  Those were my two biggest pet peeves about the original.

Combat was never my specialty.  I just go in and whack things.  But there are a lot of changes coming to that.

What specific "big improvements" are you looking for?

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On 4/23/2021 at 3:51 AM, William Blake said:

"There’s nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery." 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

If you expect a slight remaster of original KoH in 2021/2022 to be a good deal, you are very easy to please. For me personally that would be a failure because I want to see much better and much more successful game. Original KoH was a fresh interesting take, but it was not a hit. Making the same 20 years later with slightly more polish would likely to have same result.

Do you see KoH2 to be top streamed game on twitch? No. Can you imagine people taking hours and hours making youtube videos about KoH2 opening tactics? No. Why? Because there is no variety of actions and there is no action/reaction in the game. There is no awe, there is no strong emotions. You won't see an amazing play you never thought possible and moves which explode with new possibilities. 

You tell me "this is a game about medieval kingdoms" and I imagine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtbbIB776ks

When I look at KoH2 autoresolve battles 2 blobs of peasants on some poor AI. This does not connect.

You tell me "this is a game about economy" and I see "here you go, Bosnia, 3 provinces, fixed resources, fixed settlements, you can build an upgrade in 15 minutes". This does not connect. I can hardly imagine anyone replaying this over and over again because "oh my god, so many possibilities, I might have played better". Not gonna happen.

You tell me "this is a game about grand scale diplomacy" and I see "oh here, a pop up, someone wants a peace pact with you, yes|no". There is nothing to play, there is nothing to replay, there is nothing to master.

You tell me "this is game about huge medieval Europe and around with global trade" and I see "drop down, select which is the max gold from 10 same choices, trade done".

You tell me "multiplayer is essential part of the game we build most mechanics with multiplayer in mind" and I see... well I see 3 people waiting for 30 minutes for another 2 to start a match because no one is playing it in a month.

You tell me "well it is a casual game" and I see gazillion of sliders, numbers, indicators, some notification feed on the bottom showing messages non stop, event pop ups interrupting whatever a player was doing... it does not connect, honestly.

 

There is notable history to many games and many franchises, it does not matter. Firefly just made Stronghold Warlords and it is pathetic game and it flopped. Because just following a list of features which could work 20 years ago do not make a good successful game today. What we see today in the KoH2 gameplay video is a heap of very contradictory appeals crammed together to appeal to no one. I can't see how this can be a competitive multiplayer game, I can't see how this can be a deep economy/trade game, I can't see how this can be a casual experience game EVEN on the level of Civilization games. And it makes me very upset because for my own personal reasons I want this particular developer to have a solid hit, a game new people would love for what it is, not for some memories of 20 years old past.

 

Lets face it. This site is running for over a year now. 17 dev streams or whatever the number is. The potential audience is global. How many people we have? Around 5 writing on forums regularly and 300-ish watching a stream once a month or two? Is this appeal you expect? Is this excitement you wish to build up? If you want to tell a friend about KoH2 what you are going to say? "you click on a marshal and then on an enemy and then you select "all in" they start fighting animation on the small strip at the bottom and then you take you second marshal and click on the same battle so the fighting strip on the bottom will have more of your guys fighting air"?

People come to this forums imagining all kind of amazing things, like debating if a cavalry should be able to dismount and fight on foot in a middle of the broken walls, and you show them autoresolve battle with an option to retreat. You make units with variable number of men per unit, but 60 peasants are still 1 food upkeep as 40 men swordsman unit, as we all know if you carry a sword you eat 50% more for sure. 65 types of produces goods. Sixty five! Why? What for? How you can possibly role play England or France or Germany or Italy with 3-4 provinces at best and have sixty five types of goods in the game. What for? For a game where a trade is a selection of exchange of sacks icons for gold from a drop down?

I look at this and I forget all the good things - the art, the ui, the music, the setting, the map details. Because I see a shadow of a game which attracts no one and is played by no one, yet possibly has a bunch of good reviews and some nice screenshots.

That's why we have Crusader Kings 3 for and KOH 1 or 2 is just for fun

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/23/2021 at 7:13 PM, Ivory Knight said:

I actually have thought of going in the other direction. Instead of giving more building depth to settlements, maybe just take all of that out of the picture, and just have the settlements improve themselves automatically over time (reducing the micromanagement there).

^ hey devs!  

If you do that, I am not buying this game. Even from the bargain bin, several years down the road. 🙂  😛

 

It seems we're in that phase where some people are very upset the game is not exactly the one they dreamed up in this pandemic, after watching just short clip. And by invoking their wishes the game to do well, they think that throwing near tantrums and acting entitled, is the way to go.

 

To devs: the best way to hurt your game is designing it by "forum commission".

My advice to you is not about gameplay mechanics, but to stay true to your vision, listen to constructive criticism only from players that play the beta (but do not stray too far from the vision), and don't ever think that the silent majority is somehow beneath a very vocal minority.

 

PS: I've played Knights of Honor for the first time ever early this year (after 17 years since launch... mkay?) and the first thing I did, after completing it, was to buy a physical copy to add it to my games collection. But somehow the author of this thread wants me to believe that this game is s4#t!

I can attest your game withstood the test of time really well (yours and MechCommander 🙂 ) and you can take my vote and take it to the bank in 2021.

 

PS2: For the love of God, leave the "building depth" aloneee!

image.png.924ad227fc4bac95dfd4f32fdff0fbcb.png

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Zaza
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