Knights and Merchants

Knights and Merchants is a great game if you understand it. The biggest problem with this game is the lack of helpful instructions. Once you know how to play the game right, the slow speed isn't a problem. In fact, I don't have enough time to do everything! The original game would only earn 3 stars or so in my opinion, but once you buy the game you can download the remake for the game (google KaM Remake). The Remake allows multiplayer without gameranger or any other client (there are dedicated servers for the game). The Remake also fixes lots of clumsy AI problems and makes the game easier to play and learn. If you are worried about this game being too slow or that the combat is bad-- don't worry. The Remake is free and makes everything so much better.

This game is really a time killer if you are accepting its high difficulty. It is like "the Settlers", but more focused on battling. Lets call it the "Battle Settlers" ;) Sound and Graphics: I won't tell about graphics they are charming but outdated. Highest resolution is 1024x768 or 800x600. No more Options. Even nowadays I like the building animations of this game, strange thing. Everywhere something happens around or in the buildings, so you want get bored buy observing the game ;) The ingame music is catchy in my opinion. The Story: The Story... well... summary: you are the only hope to... destroy all... bla bla ;) well in this kind of game I think most people don't care about great story telling, its more about build your buildings and recruit troops, so its ok. You may notice that this game is called Knights (ok there is Medievaltroops fighting including Knights ;)) and Merchants. But why? You can't trade in this game, so I wonder why they called it Knights and Merchants. Something about economy: In almost every mission you are totally outnumbered in the beginning. So you start building your economy and try to gain as fast as possible troops. Sounds simple? Yes and no. The production chains are mostly self-explanatory, but it takes time to build effectivly up. For example: you want bread. So build one or two farms, place some acre around it, build a mill and finally a bakery. But it takes time for the corn to rise. So the first minutes, nothing happens. The farmer is going on the acre and "planting". Meanwhile the mill and bakery are just idling. T he economy is focused on gaining food for your servants (all people under your command including your soldiers need food or they starve!) and building weapons, armor etc for recuiting troops. Every building needs wood and stone. All your buildings must be connect with a street to your main storehouse. You can't build buildings without. Because the Servants won't carry any wood or stone to the building if there is no road to the storehouse. Your servants etc. are builded in a school house. Every servant costs one box of gold. Controlling servants, worker, baker, farmer, etc: You can't controll them at all. They work automatically when they have work. For example: your place a building and a street directing to it. Your workers will now notice that there is work and will do the job. Your servants will notice that the worker need stone/wood and will bring it from the storehouse or directly from the quarry or sawmill. Another example: when a building has goods that need to go to somewhere else or it needs goods to produce something, a servant will come and bring/get the things. This works most the time surprisingly pretty good. But sometimes you will get mad. If there is anywhere a street, acre or vine to build your worker will do that first until all is done and not till then will they build a building. You can't even influence which building should be built at first, sometimes that is really frustrating. And if you have damaged buildings that need to be repaired: do not build anything, because that is the last thing they will do on their task list. The Servants do their job quite better, they bring and carry things when they needed or are ready to get carried to the storehouse or barracks. But they are a bit clumsy, if there is much traffic around a building they are walking like it was a slalom. The rest justs walks automatic to its building after recruiting them in the school, no more controll options. So the baker will walk directly to the bakery or mill, when nobody is already in there. Recruiting and controlling your soldiers: When you have enough weapons and armor in your barracks, you build a recruit in the school that walks to the barracks and then, dependent on what weapons and armor you have there, you can build a axe fighter for example. Diffrent from recruiting in the school is that recruiting in the barracks has no building time. Just click axe fighter and it will come out. Your troops can be arranged in diffrent fighting formations like all troops in one line or two lines etc. you can join two small fighting troops to a bigger one. What troops you use is important! A lance fighter is not really effective against axe or sword fighters, but highly effectiv against Scouts and Knights. Just a tip: the ranged units in this game are really strong. Just place them behind your close combat troops and everything will be fine ;) but don't let them attack in close combat, because they can't do anything, really nothing, in close combat. The controll overall is ok and working, but not great. Sometimes it really makes you want to smash your mouse against the screen when your bowmen walk straight into axe fighters instead of shooting them from the distance. Overall it is really an entertaining game. Easy to learn, hard to master. If you are used to frustrating moments and you like games like the settlers then give this game a chance! PS: sorry4my english ;)

I was first introduced to this game via Demo Disc and loved it so much I just had to find it. Although long due for a reincarnation I can still play this game for hours on end. Knights and Merchants is a meticulously detailed real time strategy game. It's so fun to build your village that some times you forget that you have to defend yourself against enemies. A must have for any fan of the Castle age and Real Time Strategy. Thank you to GOG for adding this hard to find treat. For those of you who think this game takes too long to play 'F8' speeds up time. Also if you would like a better Icon for the game one can be found at http://shoedude.deviantart.com/art/Knights-and-Merchants-142302896. It's a .png so it will work as a dock Icon and with Windows Vista.

I originally played this game in german many years ago. When I found it on GOG, I was ecstatic. This is definitelly a unique one especially as in came out in the same era Age of Empires 2 (the GOAT). Imagine that style game, but with looong build supply chains, complex battle mechanics, and greater attention to detail. How do you create a new worker? At the school with a little gold. Now what? Well, he eats pertiodically. He generally only walks on roads. They are the only ones that can carry supplies. Want to build an army? Well you need wood and leather. But you have to grow the pigs, tan the leather, and eventually make armor. Now you have an army. But wait, it can only be as big as your village can supply. They EAT and will die without a proper supply chain. This means you can't just park your units across the map, you have to work in battle columns. This game is really a gem. If you see any review here with less than 5 stars, it's because they did not pass the initial learning curve. If you like the 2000s RTS genre, do yourself a favor an buy this.