[Gameplay video impressions]

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....

[Getting to know you!]

• Name/Handle: M A Rahman
• Country: Bangladesh
• Games I like to play:Generally open world rpg's. Used to love strategy and Fifa. Now I am very picky about strategy games. Games I love, would be age of empires 1,2, Rise of nations, Civilization V, VI, Dota 1,2, Age of wonders 2, Skyrim, Fable, Dragon Age Series, Saints Row IV, Mad Max, Max Payne series, Commandos 1,2,3, Desparados 1, The Outer Worlds, KoH😊
• Pets: No Pets

[Favourite nation in KOH1]

First time conquered the whole world is with Scotland. Favorite nation for me is Golden Horde. Those steppe and mongolian cavalry was too op 😋 

[What did you enjoy most about the KoH series so far?]

Mix between combat and the grand map choices. Generally I can't cope with so many choices of other grand map strategy games. KoH had enough choices but not very complex, which helped me a lot. Also I liked the environment a lot. I loved the design of city, village ,sea etc. Battle was pretty basic, which is the only complain I could have of KoH. But again, I liked that I didn't have to fight always.

I hope to see a little bit more complex choices, but not too much like Europa series, a better battle system, where troop combination mean something. Cause you could have pretty much rekt anybody with all steppe cavalry in KoH. And a more rewarding religious system would be like a prize to me. Cause playing with almost all nation, It felt to me, only christian religion was rewarding, others felt like a hindrance.

Finger crossed. I played this game too much.