First impressions and reviews

[ReptilePZ]

I thought it might be nice to have a general thread for people to share their first impressions and/or reviews of the game.

 

I'll start - very early impressions, as I've only been able to play for about 3 hours so far.

As a KoH1 player, the game feels immediately familiar so it's very easy to pick up, but of course as you get into it, you begin to discover the new additions in the sequel. So far, it's been a very pleasant learning curve, playing on Hard, where I've felt challenged enough in the first few hours, having successfully defended a war against Wallachia and Bdin as Bulgaria, and eventually pushing back and conquiring my enemies with the help of my king's diplomatic work in bringing in Serbia as an ally (admittedly, Serbia did the heavy lifting in the offence, as it took me a while to recover and raise a solid army after defending on my own for such a long time against the invaders).

It's early to get into specifics and give any deep assessment on how the new systems work or how they compare to the original, so what I will say is that the game has felt more involved than the original in these early stages, with more things to try and keep track of. In KoH1, the early game always felt a bit empty since there wasn't much requiring your attention, but the first few hours here have felt much more eventful.

I can see the various ways the the devs have tried to balance some of the things that felt too easy in the original, like introducing commerce and global food upkeep to deal with exploive commercial/military growth when you should not really be able to support it yet and giving you more reasons to defend your towns/provinces from rebels/foreign forces, as those now contribute even more to your kingdom-wide economy. Like I said, it's too early to give any meaningul assessment of these, but so far I can see what their purpose is and they've certainly made the early game more challenging and interesting to manage. I do worry though that people - especially those unfamilair with the first game and how recruting worked there - may find local vs global food and levies confusing, as it's not a particularly intuitive concept and the difference is not obvious at a glance.

I am also unsure how I feel about the new town building system. I feel more limited in terms of space compared to the original, which is probably a good thing. I also don't know what I think about the idea of upgrading a building once and those upgrades applying everywhere. On one hand, I can see how this will make things much smoother in the late game, as you simply need to build your base structures in new territory instead of needing to spend ages on getting all the upgrades too. On the other hand, it makes the early game more cumbersome, as upgrading a building means you will need to collect more gold before you can start constructing the base structure in other territories, since it now costs more, slowing things down a bit. Overall, it probably adds to the early game challenge while streamlining the late game, so I will likely end up liking the system in the long run.

The game map looks beautiful and it's nice to see some of the small touches from the original, like peasants storlling around the kingdom, have been kept, as they help bring life to the world. The political view is equally nicely done and just as intuitive to use as in the first game, if not more so.

The strategic battles may need some further optimisation though, in terms of performance. There is a noticable drop in framerate as you enter and play them, and I don't believe that drop is justified, given the fidelity on display. That isn't to say that the performance is really bad, just that it can likely be further improved.

One thing I noticed is that there doesn't seem to be a proper tutorial for the game, which might turn off some new players. I remember playing the first game and finding it quite overwhelming at first, and the sequel has even more layers to it but with less of a tutorial, it seems to me. If this is meant to be an accessible grand strategy, I fear that it may only be so for those already familiar with the franchise, like myself. What I will say is that once you do know what's what, the UI and UX feel very elegant and intuitive.

Overall, those first few hours flew by and I can't wait to continue playing. The game is a ton of fun, you can very clearly see the passion that was put into it, so thank you devs, you've done an excellent job!

Edited December 7, 2022 by ReptilePZ

[CodeBlack]

Great Idea!

I do have the same doubts regarding all buildings of the same type getting upgraded simultaneously, but i guess its the best solution...
Aside from that i actually am pretty happy with the changes done to old Systems and i really like how the game plays...BUT...


My Feedback is a bit more specific and less general. I didnt have any major Problems with the games mechanics rather than a lot of small things that bugged me.
The following things are not sorted in any specific order...its just off the top of my mind, after pulling an all nighter to play the game.

-Adoption/ some way to influence heritage. I had 3 kings in a row die with no one to take their place because they had 4 daughters. Its 100% random and luck based. This had already bugged me in KoH1 though...
-If my king dies and has no heir, but one of his daughters is married away to a prince/king somewhere, why do i get one of my random lords set as new king instead of letting me play the actual heir through marriage? Right now making a daughter marry someone does just one thing: making people declare war on me because i dont give them what they think is theirs. I just dont do it. I dont gain anything of substance by marrying away my daughters.
-Resupplying troops in the territory of an ally. If you march long distances to support an ally, you should be able to get new supplies from their towns. Maybe at increased gold cost?
-Why is there no button to break contracts? In KoH1 i was able to cancel my trade deal whenever i want.
-I guess its just part of the new skill system (wich i really like btw), but why do my marshalls not gain any experience from battles? Maybe add some form of percentage stat boost based on their battle experience in addition to the skills i buy with my books. (Or incorporate a way to level with battles if you know how to pull that off without breaking balance)
-Why can i still not select multiple armies on the overmap to send them somewhere?
-Possible Zoom out distance should be at least doubled. (In battles AND the overmap)
-Where did the KoH1 army stances go? why cant i build fortified camps anymore?
-Event explanations. Even after triggering events multiple times i still dont know what some of them do. Bribing an enemy lord for example... If there is one in the ingame encyclopedia i couldnt find it.

-Why is there no search function in the ingame encyclopedia?

-Is there a window where i can see another countrys trade value or their relative troop strength? if no maybe add that as information a spy gathers for you. I resorted to clicking on every single town of another country and check their trade value to find out if a trade deal could be worth it or not... thats annoying as hell.
-Late game needs some more complexity/new systems. Once you are done upgrading your buildings (wich happens really fast if you earn 1k+ gold) theres not much to do anymore. Same goes for game politics.
-Realtime battles feel really unpolished performance wise as well as player controls/inputs. It doesnt feel like a state of the art RTS and in some points even feels worse than KoH1. This is probably the biggest problem in my eyes. I only played two battles and then started avoiding playing them myself, while in KoH1 i played nearly every single battle.

TL;DR:
The Game is great and perfectly catches the KoH feeling, but it still needs some love. Please listen to the feedback of your community!
I really LOVE knights of honor and nothing would hurt me more than seeing this game fail after waiting so long for a sequel.

[Mattie44]

Thanks for starting this thread!

It felt great to feel familiar with a new game straight away, because it's so much like KOH1, but it does indeed have alot more depth to it, for which I'm really happy.

In terms of battles however, I do follow the above here... No expierence from battling at all anymore (except for the skills through books, but they're not won on the battlefield) feels a bit odd. I also made the very bold statement to start immediately on very hard with only 1 province, which I already regret now...

All in all I'm super happy, but hoping for a few adjustments along the way 🙂

I've yet to try out the multiplayer mode, something which I'm also looking forward to!

[CroatianKnight]

3 hours ago, ReptilePZ said:

The game map looks beautiful and it's nice to see some of the small touches from the original, like peasants storlling around the kingdom

I fully agree with this. I really like the looks of cities and nature. It just has a feel of KoH I but better. 

3 hours ago, ReptilePZ said:

The political view is equally nicely done and just as intuitive to use as in the first game, if not more so.

This I completely disagree. I personally find the political map very much an eyesore when it comes to province borders. First KoH had more realistic borders. 

[Lighthope]

8 hours ago, CodeBlack said:

I dont gain anything of substance by marrying away my daughters.

I have been screaming about this for a long time.  lol

[ReptilePZ]

20 hours ago, CroatianKnight said:

This I completely disagree. I personally find the political map very much an eyesore when it comes to province borders. First KoH had more realistic borders. 

Hmm, I haven't really paid too much attention to how realistic the province borders are - I was referring more just to the UI looking and feeling nice. There's some small improvements over the original like allowing you to toggle on/off the visibility of certian elements and being to select them directly from the political view, a new Audinece button next to the king protrait, whereas in the first game you just kinda had to know that the portrait is clickable to open the Audience panel, etc.

 

Anyway, a few more hours in and I've managed to establish my kingdom as the greatest power, although it's still very close and based mostly on trade, which is unusual for me compared to the original. I've also been able to do some proper conquest now and the siege mechanic I think makes more sense than in the original. Previously I would often end up having the upper hand in Sieges because my martial had a 50% boost from his siege skill, whereas now a siege does feel like more of a boost for the defending side, as it should.

I like the mechanic of hiring extra men for your squads for a large amount of food upkeep as well as having the ability to take more food with your marshal. I ended up using these as temporary boosts rather than permanent features of an army, due to the high upkeep amount, and it works great in my opinion. If an army is passive, I can disable the troop boost and maybe export the food I get back from that for extra profit. However, if I am about to go on the offensive, I can reroute the food to get the extra troops, and if a siege is coming - get some siege equipment and extra food carts in preparation, it's a really nice system.

One complaint I have with it, though, is that those slots are really well-hidden - I only noticed them when I started looking to get some siege equipment, I had no idea I could boost my squad size or get extra food carts until that moment. And I only knew to look for extra slots because of my knowledge of the original title. If I was new to the game, I likely would have missed them entirely.

I also appreciate that the trading/diplomacy systmes have gotten more attention compared to the original game. It really feels like you can just create a trading or a diplomatic powerhouse of a kingdom rather than conquest really being the main focus.

Edited December 8, 2022 by ReptilePZ

[CroatianKnight]

3 hours ago, ReptilePZ said:

Hmm, I haven't really paid too much attention to how realistic the province borders are - I was referring more just to the UI looking and feeling nice.

The UI is alright in my opinion. Interesting, the first thing I noticed is the map... I think it is because I spent a lot of time looking at political view in the first game. 

 

3 hours ago, ReptilePZ said:

Previously I would often end up having the upper hand in Sieges because my martial had a 50% boost

I still did not buy the game but I would give it a try. In the first game it was perhaps a bit too easy to conquer a town with just 2 knights with good amount of archers and swordsmen and a few bonuses. So I never really had a reason to put a long seige as it would just end up damaging my soldiers more than direct attack on a city 

[CroatianKnight]

Just now, CroatianKnight said:

I think it is because I spent a lot of time looking at political view in the first game. 

To elaborate I generally liked maps and some things are just impossible not to be noticed. And I am not even watching mapping videos. And especially in grand strategy games the map should aim to be close to reality as possible. 

[finnmaccool]

Playing aragon... Almohads have 6000 peasants in one army, so two their armies full of peasants win a battle (on autoresolve) against my two full armies of exprienced two and three-star spearmen, swordsmen and archers. while my third army not allowed to join a battle. This is just so stupid i don't even want to know why its going like that. and thats on normal difficulty. Whats on hard, peasants will defeat heavy knigts?

[DoVlaLegend]

20 hours ago, finnmaccool said:

Playing aragon... Almohads have 6000 peasants in one army, so two their armies full of peasants win a battle (on autoresolve) against my two full armies of exprienced two and three-star spearmen, swordsmen and archers. while my third army not allowed to join a battle. This is just so stupid i don't even want to know why its going like that. and thats on normal difficulty. Whats on hard, peasants will defeat heavy knigts?

Did they have lvl 15 marshals, because they make big of a difference and traditions too. 

[ReptilePZ]

So, a bit more feedback... I don't know what causes it exactly - I know spies can do it if they bribe a cleric, or maybe it's just peganism being pegansm - but paganims seems OP and AI kingdoms (at least on Hard difficulty) don't seem to be too bothered about it 😅

 

 

Anyway, the game continues to be super addictive!

[CroatianKnight]

20 minutes ago, ReptilePZ said:

So, a bit more feedback... I don't know what causes it exactly - I know spies can do it if they bribe a cleric, or maybe it's just peganism being pegansm - but paganims seems OP and AI kingdoms (at least on Hard difficulty) don't seem to be too bothered about it 😅

 

 

Anyway, the game continues to be super addictive!

Oh wow this is exactly what I was worried will happen when I read dev diary about paganism. Paganism acts like some Christian heresy here spreading easly or like some new organised religion. I can understand if newly Christianised provinces suddenly revert to paganism in some sort of revolt but it is a bit ridiculous to think it can spread easly to places where organised religions existed for centuries. 

 

[CroatianKnight]

1 hour ago, ReptilePZ said:

I wonder what was the reason for switching the colours of islam and paganism? Because catholicism and orthodoxy stayed the same colour like in the original game, just lighter in case of catholics. 

[Lighthope]

9 hours ago, CroatianKnight said:

I can understand if newly Christianised provinces suddenly revert to paganism in some sort of revolt but it is a bit ridiculous to think it can spread easly to places where organised religions existed for centuries. 

This is one of those "it's just a game" things.  The game doesn't take into account how long the religion has been in place, afaik.  Unless there is some sort of counter in there.

[ReptilePZ]

46 minutes ago, Lighthope said:

This is one of those "it's just a game" things.  The game doesn't take into account how long the religion has been in place, afaik.  Unless there is some sort of counter in there.

I think the issue is that the AI kingdoms don't seem to really care about converting their provinces, which has a direct impact on province stability. Yet I get clerics from foreign kingdoms trying to (and failing! To the dungeons with the heretics! 😛 ) convert the provinces inside my kingdom into their religion when their own lands are full of paganism (or a different religion in general). It just appears to me like the AI doesn't understand religion, so it seems like an area that could use some love in future patches.

Edited December 11, 2022 by ReptilePZ

[CroatianKnight]

2 hours ago, Lighthope said:

This is one of those "it's just a game" things.  The game doesn't take into account how long the religion has been in place, afaik.  Unless there is some sort of counter in there.

I think it should be tied to culture for sure. Even if cultural power is low I don't see the reason why would paganism spread all over Europe unless you conquer Europe as Lithuania and enforce it or if you convert to paganism (which is impossible for the some reason, probably because of the reason I started in my post above!) 

 

I honestly hoped religion will be much deeper than it was in KoH I. But however I was disappoined as it did not change much. Why is there no Coptic Christianity? Because the first game did not have it. Even tho KoH I with more religions would be so good to play and I would say everyone would like it. Of course not every single religious movement that existed in medieval era should be in game but just 2,5 Christianities, 2 Islams and generic Paganism is not really enough for a sequel game. 

 

So I will probably install many mods if I buy KoH II. Especially for map and more religions.

Edited December 11, 2022 by CroatianKnight
Grammar

[Tempest]

My first go at the game was actually quite frustrating.

The fact that I have played KoH before actually worked against me I think, for I played it exactly the same way and did not generate any gold at all.

I thought they had nerfed the merchants and just made the game incredibly more difficult by that, while in fact the main problems were that I did not assign governors to my provinces and did not build the right buildings first.

What added a lot to my anger was the game constantly spamming me with requests to build more stuff and sending my knights on missions, something I could not afford at all and which I did not see the benefit of.
This is actually a complaint that I still have even after getting more familiar with the game: There really should be a customizable "spam filter" for all these "opportunities", especially those that you can't even afford when they come up.

Another thing that I still find frustrating is some of the quirky interface. For example, all the knight options, overlays and menus have a nasty way of getting in the way of each other. Pathfinding for marshals is weird, especially on water (mostly they just try to get back on land ASAP, even if it means huge detours). And I find switching between the political map and the "main map" (3D terrain) extremely clunky.

I generally like the game now, but there's definitely still room for improvement.