Zerg

No, keeps are just additional points of interest within the province. It was already hinted in the gameplay trailer. What we learned from this dev diary is, that invading others provinces will be more dynamic than before, with more possibilities to choose from. But it seems to be mostly the same. Politically, I expect it to stay the same for the most parts. I think it's very likely that if someone is called into war as part of an alliance, and the realm that asked for help from his ally can end the war for both. But it is only speculation at that point. This was kind of answered if the dev diary aswell.. My guess is that every war will have an invisible tracker, which tracks what kingdom contributed to the war and then will split the spoils of war (gold, population, provinces, etc.) accordingly. Greetings

Thanks for sharing another dev diary with us! I do think the mechanic to drive back invaders will be a great addition to the game. I'm also very excited to see how the new joint occupation with allies will play out, especially in multiplayer with friends 😁. About the feedback you asked for: For me Knights of Honor was always superior to other games from the genre because it was simple. It didn't throw hundred dialog boxes and tables at you where you had to micromanage everything all the time. I just had a great time enjoying my kingdom, developing my realm, sending my armys and sometimes jump into battles. And just to be clear, simple does not equal simplistic, so there can be deeper, more complex mechanics. They just should be easy to grasp and control. So for me, everything I read is great. Bonus-Question: Will/can you give us information about how the development of provinces will look/work like in the new game? Are there any big changes in this area? Greetings!

I don't think that there is a historical person who did, in an honest way, land 2 different council spots on the same council, since the people giving advice to the king were pretty much always the best in their respective area. But I still think your idea is neat. Having the possibility of a skill tree branch out into a different field of skill but with a higher cost could be a lot of fun. The developers already announced somewhere that modability is a big goal of theirs, so I'm convinced that modding of the existing skilltrees will be possible and we can implement such hybrid classes ourselves. This would certainly increase the flexibility without making everything overcomplicated and if the costs of diversifications are high enough, the game won't be too easy aswell. I still firmly believe that increasing the size of the royal court would be a mistake since it would be hell to manage. I always preferred KoH over Crusader Kings 2 or Total War games because it was just a light, entertaining expierience with a very special flair. Greetings!

But having an answer to every problem/opportunity would be very boring, wouldn't it? Strategy games specificially are always about managing opportunities and risks. In Age of Empires, Civilization, Total War, whatever game, you name it, you always have to decide if you want to focus on building your economy or your army, you can't have everything. I just think in KoH the Royal Court should be the thing that forces you to focus on a particular thing. If you have a lot of trading potential, like the kingdoms in the mediterrian had, you should probably have 2 merchants and a diplomat to get some trading agreements. Of course we can't tell exactly what options we will have since the skilltrees and actions aren't revealed yet, but I doubt the developers will repeat the mistake with the builders and farmers. Greetings!

I have to disagree with what you said. While being part of the community in the last 15 years there were always two major complains about the first installment. First, the game is way to easy, make it harder. And second, the court is way to small make it bigger. I always thought it is strange because one thing tried to fix the other. Also, gameplay-wise it is way more fun to control a small group of armys on the battlefield. Where would the limit end? If we would be able to create, say 20 armys, it would be one big mess. The game wouldn't be fun anymore but just tedious to manage. Also, many of the improvements in the 3rd dev-diary did act upon the implications you mentioned. All member of the royal court can now have armys, so you can at all times have up to 9 armys on the map (which in my opinion is too much, especially for smaller realms). Only if the member is a marshall, his army can be bigger. So you can have your diplomats and spies and merchants with small armys defend the realm from lower threats (e.g. rebels) while the marshalls gos into battle with the best army. So, i think we will see games having 1 king, 2-4 marshalls (big army) and 3-5 others. Since they can have armies aswell, the can protect the realm behind the big city walls while the marshall will meet the enemies on the field. That should do great for the diversity of games. For my part, I just hope that there is no spy-action that instantly lets your whole court revolt. But as far as I can read between the lines, they fixed that aswell by implementing a loyality-system so that only some of your men will turn into rebels, but we'll have to see. Greetings!

Hey there, 1. In the gameplay-teaser we could see that the world map is a lot more detailed than it was in the first game. We also could see that rivers are now shown more explicit. Will there be any special interaction with rivers regarding army-movement? 2. We also could see the pyramids of gizeh in the gameplay-teaser. Are there any other such buildings visible in the world? Do they have an effect or are the just visual? 3. Will the city-building mechanics return? In the teaser we only saw cities which looked pretty similar to each other (and exclusivly had walls already). How would you compare the depth of developing your province/city to the first game? 4. Will the dynasty/family have more impact on the gameplay? The first game basically ignored relations and such? 5. Will members of the royal court be able to die of old age?

Thanks for the answer, that's great news! I'm looking forward to any information you will share with us.

Hey there, I just wanted to ask if you (the developers) could reveal if you are planning to support modding? If so, it would also be very interesting if modding will be possible right from the release and what parts can be modded? I'm interested in the answers because I'm planning to create a mod for the game and would like to know if we can, for example, use custom 3d models. Thanks, Zerg