Knights and Merchants

...The pace. Knights and merchants is an enjoyable and fun RTS experience set in a medieval world, with a fitting story (and a repeating soundtrack!). Now, without any nostalgia for the game, I can safely say: it has a slow pace. Mortally so. even for its day, actually. Putting the game mechanics of the settlers in this kind of game was overall a good Idea... but they could adapt it better. Another flaw, already mentioned in the other reviews, is the A.I., which will lead your army and citizens to do a lot of illogical things which involves a lot of boring micro-management that definitely feels more like a chore.... So, worth it? Now, believe it or not, it's not a bad game, and if discounted I say give it a try. It's not perfect, and required patience could be rewarding. Just don't expect a masterpiece, but an almost calming experience.

Let's start with positives: When it comes to city builders, I dare to say that you won't find a better game where you pimp out your economy and slowly create a giant living village with dozens of buildings and hundreds of citizens walking around. Perhaps only Settlers 3/4 come close to what you might expect here. You construct the entire town, placing down adjacent buildings (farm - mill - bakery) and connect them with roads. All produced goods are manually transported around by carriers, which creates feel of big, living city. Also, every building is "showing" you it's production (you see baker actually bake the bread, or pig farmer feed the pigs etc.). It's very detailed and fun, once you construct a big town, whatching the screen tickles all the right spots. I still can't give it a 5 star rating though. The combat is where this game falls on it's face. The base game is almost unplayable (unit pathfinding is probably the worst I've seen in any game). If you use "KaM Remake" mod it will fix a lot of problems, but even then - you CANNOT control your units when they engage with enemy forces, so the outcome of most battles is only about luck and who brought more troops.

KnM is a RTS that takes a LONG time, but being the fact that it challenges both resource gathering AND logistics (for the slower ones that's moving supplies around) it demands a different play style. AI's don't attack (cuz if they did you would be swamped every time. Units follow a basic rock paper scissors comparison. But its complexity is more managing your town then fighting. If you die, raise more troops and fight again. Now on to the real review. Back in the day I only played the demo and remembering hanging out on message boards getting reviews. It's still stellar. There is a mod out there (on how I found this game and site) that allows basic manipulation of the game speed. If you don't wanna wait an hour to get good units that dominate the feild, I suggest downloading the Knights and Merchants Remake. It will modify the game to 'update' it to an RTS with more manipulation. Unit travel, fast forward, stopping, quick saving. But if you want the full experience. Just play. Its a great stress reliever, until famine hits and your frustrated at yourself for building that store house or inn in the wrong place.

Back in the end of 90's, Knights & Merchants used to be one of the most fantastic strategy games of glorious RTS era. The typical "build your economy and then - army" system works there fantastic. Watching how the merry workers carry wood and bricks, work on a field or inside their houses, is extemely enjoyable. The variety of buildings isn't that great, but it's always fun to observe how the city grows. The military part of a game is even better. We manually order certain amount of swords, axes, shield, bows and crossbows and then recruit soldiers: footknights, distant fighter and cavalry. A possibility of forming lines, using "rush" mode and pros and cons of each unit type, gave us an advanced form of fighting, in comparison to other RTS games of that time. Also the graphics and music are better than in Settlers III, and the campaign gave us a good, medieval story. So where are those major flaws? Well, the German developer never supported the game with and adequate patch, so you would see how your workers get stuck and don't build a structure, they're supposed to. It's really annoying. And double-annoying is a fact, that Peasent Rebellion as a second version of a game and it lacks this patch too. The second thing is a difficulty level. Your enemies are always a big-army badasses and on the levels 7+ there are is no space for mistakes. What's more - building a city that's able to create weapons for lots of soldiers and feed them take hours. Sometimes 1 mission could ate even 10h! And last, but not least, it's fine that you got 2 campaigns and some scenarios, but it's simply isn't enought. Nevertheless - if you're a fan of RTS games and classic economy/military strategy games, you can't miss it. But brace yourself it wouldn't be a sunday walk!

First thing, game works on W10, no major issues and show stoppers. However from time to time there's a 'freeze' and you have to restart the game (very rare) - 2 times within like 7 missions. Is ok. If you haven't played it as a kid - you won't probably enjoy so not sure if to recommend unless you like classic games. Why? Because unit control is not perfect and gameplay isn't fast. But if you enjoy classic games - try it out, this is not about get more units than your enemy, you have to plan the attack and have certain units to counter. Game gives chill when it comes to building your city, making supplies and planning the area. Hint: F8 speeds up the time. I cannot image playing without it : ) For some people it's difficult, there are solutions over the internet (at least on Polish sites, just use translate) - type "Knights and merchants solucja". Good luck friend