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  • DevDiary 1 - Game Vision

    Hello friends, and welcome to the first “Knights of Honor II: Sovereign” DevDiary!

    The DevDiary is a place where we can discuss specifics about our game, share some insights about the development process, and offer perspective on what game-shaping decisions we make and why. We’ll do our best to talk about cool, interesting topics, of which we’d love to hear your suggestions! Hearing your feedback will help us make the best game we can, and also understand what our fans care about.  

    It was really hard for us to keep silent for so long, since there’s so much we want to share about the game. We’ve also noticed the fan questions pouring in too, and while we can’t answer everything right now, we’re anxious to answer the ones we can! It may go without saying, but thank you for all the love and patience, we really appreciate it!

    “Knights of Honor II: Sovereign” is a real-time grand strategy game set in the medieval times. Players will lead a royal court of honorable knights, build prosperous cities, assemble mighty armies, and find trustworthy allies to crush their enemies, striving to become the ultimate emperor of Europe.

    KoH2-DD01_A.thumb.jpg.2d8874152e70ae119ee8167ff98824c3.jpg

    The first game was released nearly 15 years ago and in order to make a sequel for today’s gamers, we needed a clear and up-to-date vision first. Questions like “what makes the Knights of Honor franchise unique” and “what do grand strategy players want today” were big conversation topics for us. It’s critical for us to keep the spirit of the game intact – an easy to get into and immersive experience, instead of a numbers-heavy simulation that takes dozens of hours to begin understanding how things work. We also want it filled to the brim with interesting decisions for players that require strategic thinking and planning.

    Another key vision statement that was important for us to clarify, even though it may seem obvious, is to put the fun of the gameplay before historical accuracy. Now, this doesn’t mean we’re creating a fantasy version of the world – “Knights of Honor” is grounded in historical facts and we’re huge history buffs ourselves! But we do not hesitate to represent complex activities in a simple manner in order to make it fun, even if this means using a little creative license here and there.

    KoH2-DD01_B.thumb.jpg.2c275e24f74ed33a2fb615405d6eab44.jpg

    Finally, we had to decide whether most of our players would enjoy single player or would they rather play with friends online. We couldn’t rule out either of the groups as minority, so we decided both modes are equally important and we shouldn’t save any effort on their development. Thus, when designing a feature, we try to pay attention to the implications it brings and handle it differently in each scenarios so the fun and excitement is maximized however you choose to enjoy the game.

    To summarize, we’ve set those three rules as pillars in the development process and from then on, we refer back to them regularly as guideposts:

    • We are making an immersive, easy to learn and hard to master game
    • Fun gameplay is our top priority, even above historical accuracy
    • Both single and multiplayer modes should be well addressed for every feature

    We are very interested in what you think! We’ll be hosting a DevStream this Thursday, Dec. 12th, 2019 @ 3:00 PM GMT / 10:00 AM EST where we’ll talk about the vision of KoH2:S in more detail and discuss your comments to this DevDiary. The Twitch stream will be hosted on the THQ Nordic channel: http://twitch.tv/thqnordic

    Heck, we’re going to host DevStreams after each DevDiary from here on out, so get excited!

    KoH2-DD01_C.thumb.jpg.5050d81a6f27ce1ed757074606d2853d.jpg

    It would be great to hear what your thoughts are on KoH back in the days, and what you liked and disliked about it, or even what you like and dislike about other grand strategy games you’ve played recently. Do you prefer single player or multiplayer? What are some classic mechanics that are important to you and what new features would you like to see in the game? Who knows, your replies and questions may be directly mentioned during the DevStream!

    Next time we will shed more light on the world setting – what time periods can you play in and what makes them so interesting and challenging.

    Until then, we can’t wait to see all the exciting things everyone talks about in the forums and hope everyone can join us for the upcoming DevStream on Thursday. You can also join us on Facebook and Discord as well!

    We bid thee farewell. Go forth and conquer!


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    THQN Brad



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    Dont ask me questions, just take my money!! I just dont want to see Dragons over Europe! And sadly i will not join you at that time on Thursday, i work... Will i be able to watch this in some kind of video?

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    • Developers

    Indeed, it should be recorded. But that's a good question! I'll shrug our colleagues to make sure it will be...

    P.S. No dragons over Europe this time 🙂 🙂

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    1. What will be the map size?
    2. What is max size of royal court?
    3. Are there any additional types of 'knights' - knights, merchants..
    4. Do you plan any DLC's for the game?
    5. How does game difficulty works? Is it based on AI intellect or some kind of game bonuses for AI?
      For example, in Total War game series the higher difficulty is, the bigger income and other stats bonuses AI gets.
    6. What game modes do you plan to make for multiplayer? Custom battles or full support of Europe conquest as it was in single player?
    7. What will be the amount of players in multiplayer sessions?
    8. Any new major mechanics will be implemented?
    9. Do you plan to implement the interaction between the characters at least at the minimum level, for example, as it is implemented in the Paradox Interactive series of Crusader Kings games.
    10. Any global or local country events?
    11. Are there any global region upgrades? For example, roads - better roads so armies in this region could move a bit faster?
    12. Do you plan to add a system of the seasons that would affect the movement and general parameters of the armies, and possibly entire regions, for example, the receipt of food?
    13. We will be able to build our own cities or upgrade-develop already existing?
    7 hours ago, THQN Brad said:

    build prosperous cities

     

    Suggestions:

    • There should be an option to chat, pause the game and rejoin if you get disconnected for any reason in multiplayer;
    • If there will be full Europe conquest in multiplayer, there should be an option when AI takes control of abandoned player's slot (country);
    • For the DLC you could make some regions, for example, Asia as new map to play on so you don't have to rewrite whole game.
    • Global rating system for the multiplayer battles.

     

     

    Edited by Norbik
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    9 hours ago, THQN Brad said:

     

    It would be great to hear what your thoughts are on KoH back in the days, and what you liked and disliked about it, or even what you like and dislike about other grand strategy games you’ve played recently. Do you prefer single player or multiplayer? What are some classic mechanics that are important to you and what new features would you like to see in the game? Who knows, your replies and questions may be directly mentioned during the DevStream!

     

     

     

    Some features that I like and I miss in KOH:

    • Kingdoms have custom, regional or default mission trees
    • In order to declare war a kingdom has a legitimate reason such as a claim on a province, holly war for neighboring heretics/heathens, rival nations
    • Provinces are not annexed until the end of the war
    • After the war there is a truce between the participants, If the truce is broken should be penalties , the same goes for declaring a war without a valid reason
    • Allies to be asked automatically to join a defensive war - they would accept or decline depending on their strength at the moment.
    • Vassals join wars automatically, could be diplomatically annexed or created
    • Have different types of governments with different features - elections, royal marriages, also have dynasties and repeating ruler names (i.e. Simeon I, Simeon II etc.. 😂)

     

    I am looking forward to see more updates soon 😀

     

    7 hours ago, Alexis said:

     just take my money!! 

    Please!!!!

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    First off all, very excited for this game! Played koh through my whole childhood and love the idea of a sequel 15 years later:)

    I think a lot of things already got mentioned by others except one thing that made koh so unique and incredivble to me personally. I love how you could spectate your cities growth in - for the time there - great graphics and detail. How you could literally feel your city grow after building some buildings and see more people walking from the city to nearby farms/churches/mosques. Would love the ability to be able to watch the cities growth from closer up in the sequel. I know this one might not be very "useful" as it doesent affect the gameplay but well, was a big reason for me why I loved conquering, trading and expanding my land:)

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    Omg man this game was the shit when i was younger.

    There's just one thing i want, engagements beetwen units should last longer, in the original KOH they die so quickly, you know just to give it a more realistic feel, as battles were won by morale not by destroying the other army...

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    Guys, I wanted to share an idea with you... This idea is like 15 years old 😄 Ever since I started playing KoH back in my teenage years,  I wanted to be able to stimulate rebels with gold... So if Im playing with Bulgaria and I see that there is a byzantine rebel plundering the province of Solun, which is part of the Latin empire, I would love to be able to give him X amount of gold, so that the rebel army would get stronger and might capture Solun, restoring the Byzantine empire, which would weaken the latin emperor. Now, there are many ways for this to work: I imagine it this way - I should have a spy at the Latin empire working for me and I should ask him to make contact with the rebel for me.
    Just thoughts, you know best!
    I cant wait for KoH 2 !

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    Iam so Happy that KOH is Back after 15 Yeahrs 💘

    This was my First Game as i was a little Teen and this Game chose me to Play Computer Games and to Play RTS Games 🙈

     

    In KOH was my Favorit part that i have the Freedom in this game to make so many chocies in the Game^^

    I can hire a Spy for my Questionable Neighbor Province and to watch his steps and finaly to ATK in the best moment to Conquer his Land 😝

     

    The HUD in KOH was so Friendly and was easy to Learn so i can make my Strategy experience from Zero.

     

    My Wish is another KOH where u can feel the Love of the developer and his Team 😍

     

    Anyway its a Buy.

    Whatever it cost.

     

    Good Luck and have Fun ^^

     

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    KoH still is one of my all time favorite games. I loved it for being real-time and easy to get into. Epic strategy game sin history settings were always interesting to me but the Total War series and similar never appealed to me for their turn based mechanics and steep learning curve. KoH for me was the perfect balance between all the things.

    And it was simple amazing to conquer all of Europe has the highlands (of cause never re-uniting Scotland). The nations felt distinct which made multi play throughs fun. I also loved how the map evolved over time, you could see empires rise and crumble, all while waiting for the perfect opportunity to trade or invade. 

    Personally I only ever played solo using the base game (no mods). And that was already fun for ages. Also picking the game back up again about five years ago for nostalgia was a great experience. It was super easy to get back into and I immediately felt the urge to get the map and production graph back out again that came with the original game. (I think there was something like that 🤔, would be embarrassing, fi not.)
     

    Anyway, can't wait to see how KoH2 will turn out and get back to conquering Europe. the first images and videos from in-game looks super familiar and refreshingly new at the same time.

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    11 minutes ago, HoverBaum said:

    KoH still is one of my all time favorite games. I loved it for being real-time and easy to get into. Epic strategy game sin history settings were always interesting to me but the Total War series and similar never appealed to me for their turn based mechanics and steep learning curve. KoH for me was the perfect balance between all the things.

    And it was simple amazing to conquer all of Europe has the highlands (of cause never re-uniting Scotland). The nations felt distinct which made multi play throughs fun. I also loved how the map evolved over time, you could see empires rise and crumble, all while waiting for the perfect opportunity to trade or invade. 

    Personally I only ever played solo using the base game (no mods). And that was already fun for ages. Also picking the game back up again about five years ago for nostalgia was a great experience. It was super easy to get back into and I immediately felt the urge to get the map and production graph back out again that came with the original game. (I think there was something like that 🤔, would be embarrassing, fi not.)
     

    Anyway, can't wait to see how KoH2 will turn out and get back to conquering Europe. the first images and videos from in-game looks super familiar and refreshingly new at the same time.

    It's a dream come true for all of us certainly.

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    On 12/10/2019 at 4:45 PM, THQN Brad said:

    It would be great to hear what your thoughts are on KoH back in the days, and what you liked and disliked about it, or even what you like and dislike about other grand strategy games you’ve played recently. Do you prefer single player or multiplayer? What are some classic mechanics that are important to you and what new features would you like to see in the game?

    I always loved that even as a really small kid that doesn't speak English I was able to learn how to play KoH I and that it was really fun I tried a ton of other strategy games but most of them are way to strategic/complex I mean I don't want to learn a game for 200 hours just to play it another 200 I always missed how easy of an good experience it was playing KoH I the most complex thing for me as a kid was to understand the importance of thinking ahead what to use the building slots in a city for, and even that wasn't too big of a hassle since I decided first build everything you can build with special resource's of the city and then build generic stuff to make people happy (I always went with an merchant approach)

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