KoH vs. RTW

[Borgcube]

Hi all

I have RTW and played the demo yesterday from KoH.

I like deep strategie games like civ3, europa universalis 2 and the battles of RTW are great. I think the battles in KoH are boring or are there some special units which make fun?

How long does it take to real know about the gameplay?

And what do you think are the main differences vs. RTW

I'm at the moment not sure if i want to buy this game maybe your feedbacks will help.

Thanks in advance.

[Martinus]

I think it's a case of comparing apples and oranges (but not as much as, say, comparing Europa Universalis to Medieval Total War as some people did :p)

Since you know Europa Universalis, I would say that Knights of Honor is like a middle ground between EU and R:TW - and quite succesful one at that.

I liked Civ3, EU, Crusader Kings but didn't really like the Total War series - and I like KoH. :)

[stainless]

yes, there are special units :)
and while i enjoyed the R:TW demo, when it comes to deepness KoH is the winner :)

[fluffy_ferret]

Knights of Honor should be the deeper, more rewarding game in the end.

About Total War i think Shogun was a fun game, not very deep but the gameplay was pretty fun. Medieval was a step down IMO. Rome is a huge step up over the other two. Very good game so far, but i've only played it about 10 hours.

I think you should play the demo more and decide later. Also, don't trust reviews. Critics tend to rack down on this game because it has "bad graphics", but also reward it with high gameplay and tilt values (which is more important). Well not so, the graphics are very good, some of the best i've seen, for a 2d game. All the art appears to be handpainted too, and handpainted very well i should add. This is also a a part of the graphics which the critics never mentioned. Overall the graphics are very complete and atmospheric.

[Sir Jurand]

RTW is a great game as long as it could run a bit better(without crashes etc) but I would buy KoH as well

[Ulfang]

Well in my humble opinion the best two games mentioned here are Medieval Total War and Europa Universalis. KoH is closer to EU than Total war but looks nicer and plays well but not as deep. I also have RTW and its not anything like that lol Battles can take a while if you command them and the enemy troops do tend to rout and then rally a lot even if theirs just one man left so it can drag on a bit. The games not as tactical as TW but as i say still a lot of fun. Its kept me off RTW for three days now and I love the TW series (except for Shogun).

[dearmad]

KoH has some really bad diplomacy problems that make the game like playing a game of whack a mole- you get one thing done another AI decalres war- you get instant peace with them the other AI declares war- make peace- someone else declares war... it's sort of silly as it is now.

And the people who declare war can't even DO anything about it... they're too far away or too weak... so they just hurt themselves, and then the AI become a simple pushover.

RTW feels a lot more deep to me in its economy and battle tactics. KoH COULD be a deeper diplomatic game IF the developers patch the silliness of it as it is now.

[Crushyerbones]

Can someone describe the Rome total war campaign? I know KoH has a good one, and the epic battles to match it, but all I've seen from Rome is the battles... I'm quite undicided on wich to get first (if something better doesn't come up in the next 2 months that is)...

I think this belongs on the official Rome forum but I don't feel like registering yet: Has anyone noticed some issues on Rome retail? I get some weird graphical glitches on far away mountains in the demo (purple squares, etc). And a lot of bluriness on almost everything, I'm not sure if it's my graphics card (Radeon 9000), my monitor (TFT, from LG, resolution limit of 1024) or a combination of both, since it works on my other computer...

[Arcador]

As every game different people find different things good or not. A friend of mine thinks the murders in Rome are weak, I find them too strong and so on. Better go to the Rome's forums and fansites to findout more.

[Cork2]

Can someone describe the Rome total war campaign? I know KoH has a good one, and the epic battles to match it, but all I've seen from Rome is the battles... I'm quite undicided on wich to get first (if something better doesn't come up in the next 2 months that is)...

Well the campaign is 2 games, first part is turn based were you build building, recruit units, set taxes, make diplomicy, move troops, invade and a whol lot more. Each turn is 6 months it starts around 270 b.c. and i think it ends around 17 a.d. so bout 500+ turns. There are two season winter and summer. you can select to micromanage all cities yourself or let it be done by the a.i. if you don't have a family member in the city. The second part are the battle. you can let them be done by a.i. wich doesn't always have the out come that you want or you can command it your self for the better out come. You start out as rome but after you conguer a faction you can play it. In my opinion this is a great game and i can't stop playing it. But still Knights of Honor is better so i recomand you get that first. You would have to go to the official site or search the forums for mor info on it.

[DruStorm]

RTW's campaign board works alot like Civ 3: the farther away a city is from the capital, the more corruption and unhappiness there is. As a result, conquering the world becomes quite a task, but it's mainly one of building the right things in the right cities at the right time. The more you spread out, the more rioting and rebels your armies have to deal with until your empire is nearly paralyzed by unrest and your income takes a big hit every turn from corruption and the cost of gladiator games to keep your populace happy. Which means you have less money to spend on armies to fight unrest and repair damage done by rioting, ad nauseum.

Frankly, I find this predictable and tedious after awhile--Just like in Civ 3. You know it's going to happen, you know pretty much when it's going to happen, and you know there isn't too much you can do about it.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of RTW is the development of your faction. By marrying your daughters well and by nurturing your scions through wars and governorships, you can build some powerful characters. They die, of course, so you always have to make choices about who is going to do what and properly prepare the next generation to take over the reins of power. If you have a powerful, influential family member in a key city and he dies witihout a suitable replacement available, your city and your empire could take a serious hit. You really can't ignore this aspect of the game if you wish to win the long game and become Imperator of Rome.

Spies, assassins, and diplomats are readily available to carry out their obvious tasks. This is a far more active and effective part of the campaign board play then any other similar game, including previous TW titles. You could conceivable rule the world through subterfuge and rarely, if ever, field an army, if that was your style. You still need an army, though, to occupy the cities you've taken over through bribery and you still have the same growing unhappiness issue, so you still need to have a robust economy.

Fortunately, getting a good economy going is much easier to do than in previous TW titles and most other similar strategy games: Build it and they will come. Unlike Medieval Total War, your entire economy will not go into the toilet if some burg on the opposite side of the map with one ship somewhere critical to your trading lanes declares war on you. War does affect the economy, but does not completely destroy it.

You can play a short game or a long game. But be forwarned, the long game is REALLY long. You need the stamina and courage of the Athenians at the battle of Marathon to get to the end of it.

There's no doubt about it that the battle map is incredibly well done. They've made significant improvements to troop movement and commands since MTW. If you like commanding on the battlefield, you really don't want to miss this. But as I said, the campaign map gets extremely tedious after about two or three hundred turns. Fortunately, you can play the short game, which only requires that you take a very doable 12 regions to win. And if just like the whacking, there's always skirmish mode.

You decide.

[Cork2]

Well i don't know about you but i am not having trouble with rebels and stuff, i don't even need daily games. I have them on Yearly games, low tax and am building building to increase happiness and have a huge garrison. After that i try to get the economy up. Don't worry bout loosing money, as long as you do mission the senate gives you they will mostly give money and if they stop then ingore them for a few turns and then do their missions again and they should be giving money again.I make about 11k per turn, thats not counting what the senat gives me.

[Hector]

i get million a year trade rulez

[Ulfang]

Can someone describe the Rome total war campaign? I know KoH has a good one, and the epic battles to match it, but all I've seen from Rome is the battles... I'm quite undicided on wich to get first (if something better doesn't come up in the next 2 months that is)...

I got RTW same day as Knights of Honor and haven't played RTW yet (over a week ago now) tho that might be something to do with the fact I can't play the bleedin thing lol There's a number of issues with RTW which seem to depend on your equipment (oo'er) and whether you like crashing to the desktop a lot. Personally i wasn't able to install it for a week because it didn't agree with my DVD Drive or my CD Drive. It didn't recognise the 3rd disk or 1335 errored.

I borrowed a DVd drive of my friend last night and installed first time. Some of the protection on the CD's can affect older drives apparently. Anyway ran the game and it immediately crashes to desktop as soon as you start the campaign. This maybe the fact that i don't have the most up-to-date drivers so will try again tonight. Saying all that I do love Medieval Total War so am sure i'm gonna love RTW to. I already played the Demo. With KoH tho i'm not bothered if i'm not playing RTW. I also got Fable on Fri but KoH has kept me off that as well lol

[rado907]

RTW kinda bores me. I like KOH much better.
That said I do like MTW and Crusader Kings a lot.

KOH, CK and MTW are very similar games... Of the three, MTW and KOH are rather simplistic and more readily played, whereas CK is more complicated (and buggy). All 3 rock though.