The concept of the game is that you loop in pre-determined circuit that changes due to the map and the terrain placements the player adds. It takes a little getting used to it, but once you do it's easy to understand and play around with it. It's interesting and fun for around 2 to 3 hours but it really gets repetitive afterwards. There are upgrades and changes, but due to how the core game logic works it's more or less the same and after some time you get tired of it. The pixelated graphics are also an issue. Some people like it, but I felt it degraded the overall experience. They could have just added cartoonish graphics and it would been much better, The pixelated graphics gives a cheap feeling to the overall experiene, but your mileage may vary depending on how much you like or not pixelated graphics. Overall it's a nice experiene, albeit with a short life circle. It's not that expensive and if you get it on sale it's probably worth it's money. But it's a kind of game you will play for some time and never came back to again.
It's a very nice strategy game. It's not as crazy complicated as most paradox games, but it has enough systems and points you can min-max if you want to go in deep with micro and optimazation. It has the option to fight battles like Total War, although it's not as fleshed out or good as total war. The option feels like something players would do if they have tiny kingdoms, or want to win a battle that would otherwise be hard or impossible to win. All in all you would probably not be using this option later on in the game, as the scope of your army and battles make it really tedious. The game focus isn't solely on battles like Total war, neither is on relations like Crusader Kings. It has people in it (knights) that act as an adviser or general. For example if you want to make an army and fight you need a Marshal. If you want to make money you need a trader, if you want to convert or change culture you need a priest etc. Diplomacy exists, although it's not very complicated. The main goal of the game is either victory through score or world conquest. All in all the game has a little bit of everything, but doesn't excel in anything in specific. It is a good step between a simple strategy game and a paradox game. It's fun, has a lot of replayability even if you pick the same nation due to the way resources are randomized, and both small and big nations have different but interesting gameplay. If you played the previous game and like it, you would probably like this one as well. It has the same feel with a bit more complexity than the previous one. It might feel like Knights of Honor 1,5 than Knights of Honor 2 if you wanted more from the sequel though.
