Questions after playing Demo

[superbox]

I have played the Demo twice, once as Scotland and once as Bohemia. I must say it's been very enjoyable but I have a few comments/questions:


1) Screen Resolution
Is it possible to play in screen resolutions other than 1024x768? I hope to see more options like 1280x1024 and 1600x1200... it will result in bigger map views ;)

2) Kingdom Power
Shouldn't this dilute as your kingdom size increases? In the Demo, I pumped up to KP 5 when I had 2 provinces, and then took over enemies' provinces. Even when I have expanded to 6 provinces, the KP still remains 5... as a kingdom grows, the KP should dilute, and then you should need to invest more peity and gold to increase back again...

3) Age
Does age of the monarch matter? When I played as Bohemia, his age was stated as "Juvenile", but he already has a Queen and a Prince (whose portrait looks older than the King)... quite funny, don't you think?

4) Passage of Time
How do we view the passage of time? What year is it? How far are we from night/daybreak?

5) Diplomacy
As Bohemia, I proclaimed independence from Germany. Well, they are angry, but I managed to get a White Peace immediately without offer of any gifts, etc. This is rather unrealistic...

6) Revolt Risks
The rebels are quite easy to put down yeah? Allowing you to train your Marshals. I am wondering if the Revolt Risk/Happiness level affects your Provincial Income? It should to a certain degree (even when a revolt has not occurred). Otherwise, I really don't mind having rebels around in a province to help promote my Marshals.

7) AI
KoH will probably benefit greatly from the AI from Europa Universalis... it would be so cool to have KoH as it is, but with better AI!


Cheers!

[Ldvs]

I can't answer most of your questions since I've only just recently ordered the game.

4) Time
There's no clock, so you don't know what year you're in. It was done on purpose to avoid incongruous situations such as fighting with men-at-arms in year 1990, or so I've heard. Personally I think it doesn't really matter unless you want things to be absolutely realistic.

5) Yes, sometimes it's weird but most of the time the diplomatic part of the game is good. Better than all the games I've played (including RTW), at least.

6 and 7) The AI is far from being stellar, but don't forget you played the demo, which means the unpatched version of the game. Moreover, several mods enhance its behaviour so that the game becomes harder (check the mod section).

[Elvain]

hi superbox :cheers:

I will not help you with everything, but few things I will comment
2) this you will find very thankfull in longer lasting games. When 2 of your allies go to war with each other and one invokes alliance so you have no choice than break alliance (one or the other) and your KP drasticaly drops. And when having 15 provinces it's very hard then to rise the KP from -5 :go: eventhough your kingdom may be very wealthy.
3) the aging matters mainly in older ages. When king claims throne he mostly is older than juvenille
4) by pressing F11 you can see time elapsed from the gameplay. From my experience at gamespeed 2.0 one year (of king's life) lasts 3 minutes aproximately. But there's no year counter. You'd be either forced to stop playing in some year (say 1492) or will fight with knights even in 20th century. Both is not good.
Day/night changing is, of course much slower than in reality. Yet I haven't manage any way how to expect the night comming. It just comes :smile:
5) this is solved in the patch :cheers:
6) yes, the patch makes them harder to beat, especially when the kingdom is very large :go:
7) unfortunately AI is one of the weakest parts of the game. Many people complain it's dumb, but also many people say that in comparison to RTW AI it is really smart :go:

[Angryminer]

Welcome to the forum, Superbox! :halloha:
1. Changing the screen resolution is not possible, because bigger map views are not intended.
3. The medieval era was a different time. 14 was the age to think about marriage and children.
4. You can't do that. If there was a year-counter it would be possible to play until the year 2000 and you would still lead cavalry units around the place...
5. In the patched version of KoH this is not possible.
6. Of course peasants are easy to slaughter. That is quite realistic, in history uncountable uprisings were put down by very few better equipped troops. But once your empire grows you will find it hard to deal with rebels on your own territory while leading a war.
When the rebels plunder villages the bonuses from the village will be gone for some time. When a costal village is plundered that can mean a penalty of about 10 gold each economic turn.
7. Despite the fast that EU and KoH are different games and that exchanging the AI is technically completely impossible, I think the AI of KoH does a very good job when one take the complexity of the game into consideration.
Please note that the AI was improved in the patched version.

Angryminer

[Ldvs]

Many people complain it's dumb, but also many people say that in comparison to RTW AI it is really smart :go:
Yes that's the least we can say. The AI doesn't use any tactics in Rome Total War. Its armies can wander without attacking you when you're at war, even though your towns are easy prey. Let's not even talk about the AI on the battlefield that just tosses its units one by one so you can finish them off before it sends another one.

[superbox]

Thanks guys! Glad to hear that the AI has been improved with the patch (the NA version will ship patched) ;)

1) It's disappointing to hear about the lack of screen resolutions options though. The only thing that needs to be changed is the "window", the map does not need to change at all, since basically the map is within the window, and when the screen resolution is increased, the window size changes, not the map...

3) I know... but to be married at 14 AND have a prince who can perform as a knight? Even if you let a child be knighted at age of 12, and you are fertile at 12, it would be 24 years old before you can do that...

4) Judging by the day/night cycles, I think it would be a long LONG time before the game gets to year 2000. Furthermore, we can always place a time limit, just like EU does. In EU, the winner is the one with the highest score when the game ends.

Anyway... waiting for the game to arrive...

[superbox]

Oh, btw... I won't compare the AI in KoH with RTW. But would like some of the AI from EU gets into KoH. Why compare with the bad? Better to learn from the smart ;)

Furthermore, I think the game plays out more like EU than RTW (if you don't lead any of the battles personally, it's VERY MUCH like EU, in that everything happens in real time on one big map).

[Angryminer]

4. In fact I never played EU again once I reached the time-limit. It's so very disapointing to stop playing because of a damn counter. That feels like playing a demo.

Angryminer

[superbox]

4) Just an idea, let the counter runs until the time limit, then let the game goes on without any counter (your score is fixed at that time) ;)
It's like Civilization, you can stop playing after you win the game (your score is stored), or you can continue (without scoring any more points).

[Elvain]

but if following day night cycle, your king woudl die after 5-10 days what would be very sad. Also travelling would be quite unrealistic - from Armenia to Constantinople in 3-4 hours with peasant army.

No time measuring is the best IMO. i also dislike restricting the game by time limit. Conquering Europe takes time. Blitzkrieg is for diletants. Diplomacy and wedding policy takes houndreds years if you want to conquer Europe :wink:

[superbox]

It's a matter of game design. EU has day/night cycles as well, and has a time counter. Would you call travelling in EU unrealistic? Time counter is important IMO, because it adds meaning to the Age attribute of the monarchs and other game elements. Without a time counter, and with stupid mistakes as mentioned in (3) above, might as well remove the Age attribute totally.

[Picotrain]

Being married at 12 or 14 wasn't that far-fetched in the time of the Crusades. Having children at 12... I'd say that would be highly unlikely.

[Quickening]

I like KoH just the way it is. A time counter would be nice but Im not crying over its absence, I cant really see what purpose it would serve except aesthetically. Like Angryminer said, given what the AI has to deal with it does its work well :cool: As for the RTW AI; it isnt so much bad as it is non-existent to be honest.

[Elvain]

juvenile prince/king married was not normal in middle ages but it happened. In all my games my kings had first child mostly after being very young or older.
F.i. When John the Blind became king of Bohemia in 1310, he was 14, his first child was born when he was 17.

You can have your personal year counter as I have it. Every 3 minutes new year starts in gamespeed 2.0.

[superbox]

Just to clarify... I do agree that it is possible to have a juvenile married at 12, but to have a juvenile to have a child ready to be a knight... that is crazy! Even if the King is 17 years old, and even if you assume he had his firstborn when he was 12, the child would only be 5 years old. To be able to get a 5 yrs old be a Marshal, Merchant, Cleric, Spy, etc. is crazy...

In any case, please pardon me if the above sounds like nitpicking. It definitely doesn't make the game less enjoyable - I am only pointing out some stupidity in the game ;)

[Elvain]

I understand you. During writing of my AAR at paradoxplaza I realized few things:
children grouw up at the age of 4-7 so boys then are assingned as marshalls. It's very unrealistic, but for the game purpouse it's good as the princecan't have own children before he becomes king (whet was possible in reality). Anyway it never happened to me (or very rarely) that the prince really was under 15 when he "made" children. Mostly he was about 15 when he claimed the throne, he just was wtitten as juvenile. But in fact the new king is always at least very young (if counting his age by minutes)
I think I'll edit this in my mod....

[Illuminatus!]

What about the graybearded portraits of "juvenile" kings? - Could portraits progressively change in-game to reflect the age of the ruler?

[Elvain]

I think it would be too complex thing for just a very unimportant (but also very nice:go:) detail...

EDIT: ooops, 1100 posts :blush:

[Gustavus Adolphus]

3) I know... but to be married at 14 AND have a prince who can perform as a knight? Even if you let a child be knighted at age of 12, and you are fertile at 12, it would be 24 years old before you can do that...


I think that the prince is really the kings brother. It makes perfect sense, your king is just older than his brother.

[Sir Sigmund]

First off like to say thanks so much to Elvain and Angryminer for taking all the time to answer all the questions. Gave out some very good information for those of us new to the forums. Good to see folks that care about the newest members to KOH.

I just played the Demo and I can tell you I hate it when any game just shuts off due to a timing limit or other issues. So even though we might not know the year, I think its good idea not to deal with a year. Beside we trying to pretent we living in the Middle Ages, so from that respect, I dont care about the year.

On the age of being 12-14 that was a common pratice of ancient Greece and even Rome. Sorry once girls had their cycles they old enough to start breeding and marry them off. Look at it this way, that one less mouth the father/parent has to feed. Back then living was hard and not easy, less food someone eating from your table meant more for you to eat. So yes I do think that realistic as well. I think the game just goes thru a random selection of pics and just snags on. Does not pay attention to how old the pic is, and just inserts. I had a few times where the father is way younger than the child, but I just chalk that up to random generator for all these pictures of the people.

As for juvenile Kings that very believable as well. In the year 1185 or so Baldwin IV (Leper king) inherited the throne of Jerusalem and won a major victory of Saladin and he was only 16 years old. So its happen in the past, no biggie.