Capital

[Kuno of Gersenau]

Hi
Excuse me if this was asked before:

Has your Empire a Capital, if yes, can you change it? For ex. you think Rome isnt a good capital anymore, can you change the capital to Milano?

thx for answers

[Elewyn]

I guess you mean Holy Roman Empire. I think Rome is beter capital, but probably some german town will be better.

But WHAT? if HRE didn't have any.

Btw, I don't thing that kingdoms need capitals. only realm capitals are important. But the devs will answer really better than me :)

[Frujin]

From a technical point of view - yes. But from gameplay point of view - no. We are wondering to make it or not to make it. I know it is cool to have one :) but so far it appears that defining capital city tends to bring more complications than fun for the game.

If it is only to have "some" capital - it's easy. But it is hard to give it some "real" meaning in the game which is not artificial.

Do you know that very few countries had capital towns in medieval? The most often the capital was "wherever" the King is located in the moment.

[Elewyn]

I also don't see any meaning of capital in KoH. The only is that you start the game in that town. But that's all.

Probably it can be filled by king's court, but I don't think it is in KoH and if yes, it will probably acompaign the king, at least most of the court, as it was in reality.

Capitals were in medieval, but not before 13th century with real meaning.

Btw, when there was question about HRE. Is it simply one of the kingdoms or is little different? We know about many changes from original concept, that's the only reason why I ask.

[Kuno of Gersenau]

Ok I didn't know this with the capitals in Medival, thx for answer.:)

Another Question :D :If you want to oblige new knights you must look where the king is or how does that work? (If you can already say it;) )

*edit*thats one of the reasons why I asked for the capital...

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Frujin
From a technical point of view - yes. But from gameplay point of view - no. We are wondering to make it or not to make it. I know it is cool to have one :) but so far it appears that defining capital city tends to bring more complications than fun for the game.

If it is only to have "some" capital - it's easy. But it is hard to give it some "real" meaning in the game which is not artificial.

Do you know that very few countries had capital towns in medieval? The most often the capital was "wherever" the King is located in the moment.

That's true Frujin - Denmark's capital Copenhagen was first established as a the nations capital in:confused: ...gee, i'll have to get back to you on that one. Anyway it is like you said: the capital was "wherever" the King was located.

[Bora]

frujin is right, the capital is there where the king is.

its maybe a bad example, but some of youi know the movie "airforce 1"
so at the end the aircraft called airforceone got destroyed and the u.s. president was safe in a millitary transport aircraft, at that moment the millatary aircraft bakme the name airforce 1, cause the u.s. president was in there. also an example for "capital is there where the leader is"

[Kuno of Gersenau]

Ok, thats all right, it's more logic if capital=leader, but what's with my second question?

How do you oblige new knights, if there's no capital where they can introduce themselves to the king? or is it so, that you get a message if a new knight will offer his sword to you?

[Frujin]

Well, That's also VERY good question Kuno!

Hm .... it is even more deep questions than you suspect I guess.

I believe there are two possible "concepts" for such game feature like "having Knights doing things for you". The first one: there are plenty of Knights and you choose those who you think fits best. Second: you pick someone and then develop it in the way you think it's suitable. Of course, I can imagine something in between as well.


In Knights of Honor we had "first" approach long ago, but we found out it was not fun at all.

So, we changed the game design dramatically and aimed it purely on "second" approach. Right now you can place in the "slots" on top of the screen (visible on recent screenshots) 9 Knights (or your King, or a Prince, or even more). Currently each one of them can be one of these - Marshall, Trader, Cleric, Spy or Governor. There is no something like "pile of Knights" waiting for you to choose the best one. You just say "I want Spy here" and you will get one. But, after that, it is up to you to handle it and to develop your new Spy skills, and to use it wherever you find suitable.

OK, I know it is not enough on this topic. But that's all I can reveal at this stage.

[Henrik]

hmmmm, if we take this approach, the i fear that we'll run the risk of having a "super" Marshall, Trader, Cleric, Spy and Governor at the end of the game who are able to beat everything else :eek:

I would prefer to have a selection of Marshalls, Traders, Clerics, Spies and Governors appearing at my court offering their services - each with their own charateristics - then it should be possible to specialize them to certain tasks.

I can promise that if it's possible to make super Marshalls, Traders, Clerics, Spies and Governors, then this WILL kill the gameplay at the end of a game, because it will just be to easy to beat the competition - there are so many games which has fallen into this pit - i'm quite sure that lots of users inhere will agree with on that one.

I sorta finds the idea: "pick a Marshall, Trader, Cleric, Spy or Governor with these XXXXX charateristics and then you just have to get use to his funny ideas also" - quite tempting - it's a package deal like in the "real" world where nobody is perfect.

[Elewyn]

I'm not sure if what Frujin wrote is connected closely with your worry, Henrik(as far as I understood it), but I agree with you in the point of not having super knights.

Btw, I wonder if also governors are one of those 9. I thought they became different category - those who stay in realm, and the other 4 categories are up to us if we'll have 9 marshalls, or some marshalls, traders, clerks and spies.

I also think knights offering you their services is little better option. But you have tested it, so...

So then no taverns where knights and mercenaries are available?

No court?

[Frujin]

Yes, the key is: Nobody is perfect. You can develop you Knights but I can assure you that there is no perfect Knight. Let me give you an in-game example, something which happend to me.

I was playing with France. I decided that England became too strong recently and as I did manage good relationship with them, I suspected that they can turn against me anytime. So, I hired a spy and send it to "infiltrate" in England. it took quite some time, but finally he was hired as Marshall there. But surprisingly, the English King had only one Price who died in a battle in Scotland and I saw my chance. After eliminating Scottish threat England declared war on me (France) and they even sent my Spy with some army to fight against me. At this moment I had the choice to order my Spy to "defect" (i.e. to leave his army w/o Leader) or not to interfere (i.e. to treat him as real English army Leader). As I saw their King landing in Normandy, I decided not to interfere. I avoided battles with my spy as much as I can, but the guy finally besieged Brettany. OK, I lost the Castle in Brettany and all the province. But I trained some fresh troops at Paris and marshed against English King in Normandy (knowing he has no heirs at the moment).

There was some quick battle in which I didn't care about victory - my aim was to kill him - English King. And I succeeded. Because there was no heirs available, one of the Knights of England was choosen to become new King (luckily there were no big Kingdom splits or something due to lack of heir). And I was so happy when my Spy was elected as a King of England. When I selected him in my Court (the 9 Knights on top of the screen) I saw "Spy Gille, Puppet King of England". Puppet King means that "I control him" and I have the option to ask him to "hand over the crown" - means to join all his lands to my Kingdom.

Well, I did so. And was REALLY mad when this poor guy told me "Sorry, Sire, but I feel much better as King of England as a Spy of France" or something like this. Actually, he rejected to hand over the crown and I lost a very experienced Spy.

Well, I realised that he was quite well developed. He was a veteran in his job. That was good for him making his way to the crown, but also .... he apprantly got his own agenda because of his experience from the past . :)

[Henrik]

@Frujin - that story simply:

ROCKS ! :go:

I didn't realize that the characters was so "intelligent" - one could almost use the word human player to decribe it - this remind me of that we haven't really been told much about what the AI are capable of, but this sure as hell give a good ( and somewhat scary ) insight to its capabilities - i really think that your little tale will amaze quite a few in here.

btw, who's doing the AI programming ?

[Bora]

sounds nice frujin! but could it also had hapen that your spy is giving you the crown of england? and could it also had happended, that your spy is tuerning the english army he was commandig on your site?

[Elewyn]

Great story, Frujin!!!!
I really like it. It looks like the knights are real human beings, behaving unexpectably(however when your vassal became powerful king of England, who would expect him, offering you his new crown instead of being souvereign) like real people. Great AI, agree with Henrik and subscribe under his questions, as many times before :)

...but I also want to remind you my post sent just before that awesome story

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Bora
sounds nice frujin! but could it also had hapen that your spy is giving you the crown of england? and could it also had happended, that your spy is tuerning the english army he was commandig on your site?

I'll continue the row of questions:

Wwhat make him decide what to do ? - is a "pure" coincidence or is there a some erm...parameters built within the AI that decides that "this is the best way for me to do it" :confused:

It also seem like the AI are capable of "planning ahead" - like a chess computer.

[Frujin]

Well, I want to be honest ... it is not just AI.
Hm, the AI is good ... but that's not the point. There are just some game rules related to it. The player if you ask me must be in control (or at least must know what can/may/will/would/won't/etc. happen.

Well, you tell me if you are going to scream if that happens to you? I know the game well (hell, I work on it) and I knew this is possible to happen. I even know the almost exact odds for that - but I still felt really baddly betrayed. Guess what was my next action - I fired some of my Knight (damn good ones), just to open up few slots for more Spies. Which I immediatly sent after that traitor.

Pst, don't ask me what happened next ... game crashed :( :( :(

And AI is done mostly by two guys - "Mishony" and "The Mage". But, this part was done by "Otto".

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Frujin
Well, I want to be honest ... it is not just AI.
Hm, the AI is good ... but that's not the point. There are just some game rules related to it. The player if you ask me must be in control (or at least must know what can/may/will/would/won't/etc. happen.

Well, you tell me if you are going to scream if that happens to you? I know the game well (hell, I work on it) and I knew this is possible to happen. I even know the almost exact odds for that - but I still felt really baddly betrayed. Guess what was my next action - I fired some of my Knight (damn good ones), just to open up few slots for more Spies. Which I immediatly sent after that traitor.

Pst, don't ask me what happened next ... game crashed :( :( :(

And AI is done mostly by two guys - "Mishony" and "The Mage". But, this part was done by "Otto".

So it don't run stable yet :D - thamks for "revealing the "truth" about the AI ie. it's "just" following a few "simple" game rules - but that don't matter, coz i still think that it can be made so we will think that when we gets beat up time after time it's because the AI, has materialize into a little Kasparov, when we installed the game, who sits and hide on our harddrive making all the brilliant strategical and tactical decissions ;)

And please don't fire "Otto" it was probably not his fault alone :D

[fallen_saint]

great story and except for the ending :( :cool: but my own spy betraying me, i sure am glad revenge is possible :cheers: so the there was odds that your spy wasn't going to betray you? was there a chance if you didn't try to rule both countries that your former spy would have been your puppet and followed your orders?:confused:

[Frujin]

Hehe, no Henrik ... it is pretty normal for a game to crash during the development. It's part of our everyday's life actually. The problem is when it crashes when it's released.