Knights of Honor

Full disclosure here: Knights of Honor is my absolute favorite game and I might look at it with at certain bias. Still I hope that this review can be helpful for some. Starting of, the visuals are absolutely timeless. Black sea studios made the right choice in choosing drawn artwork for the icons, maps and infoboxes, as well as going for 2D, rather than 3D visuals for the world-map, unit sprites and battle-maps. Thanks to this, the game never really looks outdated. The colors pop and the castles, forests, units etc. look straight out of a picture book. And just like those picture books from your childhood KoH invites you to loose yourself in its visuals: Birds fly across the map, ocean waves and whales can be spotted at sea, carts and wagons move from town to town...visually it is an immersive experience that is complimented by....: ...The fantastic soundtrack. The music is more than fitting and exceptionally beautiful. Just looking at the worldmap, managing your castles, economy and troops while "Where my heart is" or "Handful of Sorrow" are playing, might be the most relaxing gaming experience you'll ever have (no exaggeration of course) . On the battlefield the music switches from peaceful to epic and gives every battle a certain weight and importance. The soundtrack is so good, that it will be hard for you to ever forget. The Gameplay of KoH is pretty good but also where most of my criticism lies. At first, the game has everything you would want from a "global" strategy game. Economy, warfare, city, dynasty and troop management, diplomacy, trade, espionage etc. etc. creating a fantastic and satisfying mix of kingdom management and strategy game. BUT!!! if you expect deep mechanics like in a paradox game, you won't find them here and managing your troops in battle is a nightmare. Which could make KoH disappointing for veterans, but a perfect entry game for beginners. If atmosphere and immersion are the things you seek, then KoH is THE game for you!

Released in Europe less than 10 days after Rome Total War, and a year later in North America, this is a forgotten game. There are few strategy guides and few pieces of supplementary information of any kind to be found. There's little youtube content, and you won't likely find someone hidden forum that's been busing discussing the games nuances for the past 20 years. In some ways, that's a shame. There are nuances and interesting management mechanics to be found here. Fortunately the game has an adequate tutorial to explain itself, and that leaves it something of an undiscovered country for new players. On first glance, one would be understandably fooled into thinking this game primarily shares design DNA with games like Crusader Kings and the contemporary Total War Games. You're managing settlements, developing royal families, organizing armies through generals, and can manually control pitched battles. All of that is true, but it would not include the heavily randomization of starting position. For the provinces: The starting city buildings, village type (which determines what they produce), and even the provincial resources are heavily randomized. One start could have 4 villages, a developed city, and horses, and another start could have none of those things. Additionally, your dynasty and diplomatic standing are randomized. You could be at war or trading with the same kingdom depending on your start. The biggest issue with the controls is you'll constantly be wanting to zoom out the camera. Everything is 40% too zoomed in. You can't even always see all of your villages in a province, let alone multiple provinces. Other than that, I find the game controls quite well. It's not a masterpiece, but it's worth playing to see the different ways real time strategy were still approaching historical content at the turn of the century.

A first glance, Knights of Honor may seem unimpressive, like a pound-shop knockoff of Medieval: Total War. However, such an assessment would sell this indie gem seriously short. Knights of Honor is a real-time grand strategy game where the player takes control of a medieval kingdom and attempts to achieve domination over Europe through either conquest or diplomacy. To aid players in this, they have access to a royal court consisting of the titular Knights, who can perform various tasks such as leading armies, spying, or conducting trade. This sets the game apart from other medieval strategy titles, adding a welcome dose of personality and light role-playing gameplay to the mix. Gameplay is varied and challenging, with the player switching seemlessly between kingdom management. ordering their royal court around, and commanding tactical battles. The game also features a surprisingly deep economic system in which long-term development of resources is crucial, as it is impossible to build everything in every city, necessitating careful forward planning if the player wishes to construct powerful advanced buildings such as cathedrals and trading guilds. The hand drawn artwork looks magnificent, and has aged wonderfully compared to the by now clunky-looking 3D graphics featured in many other games from this era. The game's soundtrack is also a standout, and would be an excellent piece of music even without being attached to the game. The only real downside to this game is the clunky combat controls, with battles more often than not simply devolving into a disorganized scrum where any attempt at tactics goes out the window. This is the only real part of the game that truly feels limited and primitive, as there is no way to do things like place units into complex formations or to skirmish with archers. Overall, Knights of Honor is a legitimately creative, well-made, and fun medieval strategy title. Highly recommended.

Never even heard of this game until i saw it on GOG, but glad i bought it. This is my first grand strategy game and its amazing. The interface is quite good for an old game, and it has a well done tutorial at the beginning. It seems complicated at first but once you start playing all the parts make sense and it becomes rather easy to understand. Lots of simple ideas working well together to make a deep strategy experience. It very addictive. My only gripe is that it would have probably been better as a TBS rather than RTS.