14-Oct-2004 If it's the 'honor' bit of this medieval RTS that attracts you, pack up your plate mail, put away your livery and leave right now. Knights Of Honor is an empire builder that requires you to be more devious, dastardly and deadly than a door-to-door salesman. Your task is to vanquish all those around you and be crowned Emperor of Europe, using means fair and foul. Predominantly foul though, seeing as the only way to finally overcome your neighbours is to put them to the sword.
Starting from either the 11th, 13th or 14th centuries, you are given the choice of any of the kingdoms on the map, ranging from the mighty Byzantines to the lowly Welsh. (Obviously, starting out as a pan-continental empire rather than an impoverished, oppressed principality has an impact on how hard your task is.) Apart from some quick practice battles using the simplistic combat engine, the full-on conquest mode is KOH's only gameplay style. There are no scenarios, no missions, no levels. Needless to say, this is more than a little limiting to the game's longevity.
Serf's Up Though KOH is a detailed game, it's not so much realistic as merely medieval-themed. The units are all faithful to the era, as are the dispositions of the kingdoms, but most other factors, such as the spread of resources and who hates whom are randomised for each game.
The game area - which looks like it's been lifted directly from Medieval: Total War - is divided into 150 or so territories. Each territory is governed by a town, and to conquer the territory, you capture the town.
Graphically, it's by no means unpleasant. Birds fly about, serfs push carts from village to village and animals rut heartily in the woodlands. Unfortunately, this is all just window dressing, and the only thing you can interact with is the town that controls the region (apart from your armies of course).
Armies, as well as towns, spying operations and trade routes, are each managed by a single Knight. As you can only ever have a handful of Knights on the go, the amount of said armies, spies and trade routes you can operate is constantly limited, forcing you to focus on specific goals. This is good for making the game manageable, bad for strategic scope.
In each region's town, you have the familiar gamut of RTS building options. The pattern of the game is familiar: gradually build up the structures in your towns that permit them to grow and prosper, which in turn allows you to build up your armies and your other methods of influence such as espionage and diplomacy.
Once push comes to shove on the battlefield, you can choose to take control of the fight or leave it for the AI to sort out. At first, you'll want to dive right in and direct the combat yourself, but once you've become frustrated with the simplistic and limited combat engine, you'll probably prefer to keep out of the blood-letting entirely. This may sound ridiculous to fans of Total War, but then this is no Total War.
At first appearing more confusing than the Hampton Court maze and more detailed than the Domesday Book, like a village idiot dressed in the finery of a Baron, Knights Of Honor soon reveals itself to be extremely simple. Once you've got the flow of money, piety (what your churches 'produce') and books sorted, then you're pretty much in business.
Royal Pain In The Arse There's also the intriguing matter of Kingdom Power to worry about. As you do reckless things such as declare war, this power decreases, meaning your population is more likely to revolt and you suffer a dip in income. Spending money and piety tops it back up. While this is an interesting concept, it ultimately adds little to the experience other than having one more thing to have to splash cash on.
The problem with Knights Of Honor is that getting your money/piety/kingdom power economy working is a slightly laborious process, and one that doesn't vary much from game to game. It's one of those games where mastering the system is more important than a mastery of strategy. Even when you do set off on conquest it's no better. As there are only ever a handful of armies under your command at most, it's never a war of manoeuvre, it's a war of having the most, and best, men.
In all, KOH is a studious and elegant RTS that benefits from a smooth interface and a balanced system of game mechanics. But sadly there's only one way to play the game: slowly. It's really quite a sedate experience, in fact too sedate, and after a few plays, only the committed will want to stay with it.
PC Zone Staff
// Overview
Verdict
Not a knight to remember (sorry)
Uppers
Intricate yet simple to play Plenty of diplomacy and espionage options Massive, real-time game area
Downers
Only one mode of play Combat system is weak Gameplay can drag
While covering the development of Knights Of Honor, our very own Jamie Sefton was offered the chance of featuring in the game, an honour which he gallantly accepted. One look at the screenshot reveals how accurately they have captured not only his heroic visage, but also his complex psychological makeup. Indeed, the triple traits of 'greedy', 'timid' and 'ungrateful' perfectly describe this wonderful human being. Duly immortalised as the King of the Highlanders, his presence adds numerous gameplay dynamics. Playing as the Irish, I first tried to persuade him to marry one of my sons. He refused. When it came to my firstborn daughter, however, he was in there like a shot, despite the fact she was an outright minger. After this sordid matrimony was completed, of course, we crushed him - and his stupid kingdom - like a bug. That'll teach the big Northern jessie.
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Intricate yet simple to play
