Knights of Honor (computer game)
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| Knights of Honor | |
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| Developer(s) | Black Sea Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Sunflowers Paradox Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | Europe: October 2004 US: May 2005 [1] |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E) |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Media | CD |
| System requirements | 1.0 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM |
Knights of Honor is a real-time strategy computer game developed by Black Sea Studios. It was published by Sunflowers GmbH in Europe in 2004 and Paradox Entertainment in North America in 2005. Knights of Honor takes place in the medieval era, spanning the first centuries of the second millennium. Players are given the ability to play as the ruler of one of many nations located in Europe, and are given the ultimate goal of world domination from Moscow to Morocco and from Scotland to Sinai. The player can then choose themselves how they decide to undertake this task, whether by blood and sword or by diplomacy and espionage.
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[edit] Gameplay
Knights of Honor is played on a large map of Europe spanning from Ireland to Georgia and from south Scandinivia to the northern coast of Africa. The map is divided into parcels of land called provinces. Each province is governed by a city and contains several "Rural Areas" which can be towns, farms, mines, monasteries and coast towns. These rural areas can't be altered and are placed randomly across the map before each game. The city, however has room for several buildings which can give bonuses to the rural areas or the city itself, such as more piety in the monasteries when a church is build or a higher income from the towns when a market is present in the city. Other buildings are needed to recruit certain units (such as a swordsmith for sword-wielding units or a fletcher for bow-wielding units) or to defend the city such as walls and towers. A city only has limited room for buildings. In other words, not all buildings can be build in a city so you have to consider what you want to build in that particular city.
Resources
There are three kinds of resources which can be spend: piety, books and money. Money speaks for itself, it's needed to recruits units, build buildings, etc. It's among other things earned taxes, trading and kingdom power. Piety is used for increasing your kingdom power and converting provinces to your religion. Books are used to educate your knights and adopting provinces.
Religion
Religion plays an important role in Knights of Honor. There are 4 different types of religion. The Catholic church, which is the most prominent religion and is represented by the Pope. Next are the Orthodox church, which can be found in east Europe and the Islam, which can be found mainly in Africa from Marrocco to Israel. The last, and in this case least, religion is Paganism. The Pope has much influence in medieval Europe. He can excommunicate catholic kingdoms and call for crusades against non-catholic kingdoms. When the Pope dies, his successor is chosen among several clerics throughout Europe. If you happen to have a very experienced cleric, there is a chance he will be chosen as Pope. From then on, you control the Pope (since it was your cleric) and you can choose to excomunicate kingdoms and call for crusades. This gives you a useful advantage over the other kingdoms which can help you in becoming the most powerful kingdom.
Trade and Exotic Goods
Provinces can have up to three attributes called "province features" which allow the construction of certain buildings. For instance if a province contains fertile soil, an apiary can be built in that province. These buildings give access to "trade goods" which have a number of positive effects on your kingdom. For example, "horses" allows you to build mounted units for example, wine makes your population happier and silver brings in some extra money. Controlling such provinces is the key to success in Knights of Honor. Besides trade goods, which can be obtained in provinces where the right province features are present or by importing them from other kingdoms, there is another type of goods called "exotic goods". These goods can't be produced within a province but have to be imported by means of an admiralty, the upgraded version of a harbour. Examples are ivory, gems and spices. Exotic goods, together with trade goods, are needed to activate so called "kingdom advantages". There are ten different kingdom advantages each requiring a different set of trade and exotic goods and each giving a different advantage. For instance, the kingdom advantage "Secret Order", which gives your a bonus to your spies, requires the follwing trade goods: columns, statues, silver and dyes and the following exotic goods: ebony and ivory.
Controlling many provinces certainly gives you an advantage over other kingdoms not only because of more income but also because of the goods and eventually the kingdom advantages. However, larger kingdoms are harder to maintain and defend. Fortunetely, your king isn't on his own.
[edit] Knights
Special units known as "Knights" are what make the players' kingdom, besides himself. Every kingdom has a "Royal Court" which can contain up to eight knights. The player can hire the royal dynasty, consisting of the King himself and up to three heirs, to become knights. The advantage to this is that these four are completely free of charge and have no wages. The only problem is, the King or one of the heirs could possibly die. For this reason it's wiser to hire knights from outside the royal dynasty, specially if you need Marshalls or Spies which usually operate at the front.
Six different types of knights can be hired.
Marshall: The Marshall is basically a general that is needed to command the armies conscripted by players. They are the only other way to gaining more territory besides diplomacy. The Marshall will gain skills by being in and out of combat. Such skills could be simple, like being skilled as a Naval Admiral and building boats. However, some skills will reduce the enemys morale and attrition damage during city sieges. Marshalls have a food capacity which, when it runs out, will cause army morale to plummet. However, it is regained by going back to towns the play owns.
Spy: The Spy is a tricky sort of knight to learn. Usually, spies will attempt to infiltrate the rival kingdoms by posing as a knight. Depending on what job he is hired for, the spy can do a many number of things. For example, if the Spy is hired as a Marshall, he can instigate a army revolt against their own kingdom. Of course, spies do not always succeed. If a spy is caught he will be locked in a prison, where the player can either bail him out for a rather high amount of gold or leave him to rot in a dungeon. The other thing a spy can do is to stay in the players' kingdom and conduct counter-espionage. If another spy is detected, the player can lock him away and can either let him go, execute him, or demand a ransom from their employer. Of course, the latter doesn't always work...
Merchant: The Merchant is a trader who can bring in some extra money or certain resources by conducting trade with other kingdoms. For this both kingdoms need a trade agreement. When a merchant is trading with a kingdom he can be ordered to simply bring in some extra money or importing a kind of trade good. For example, if you need the resource "horses" to be able to make mounted units, the merchant can be ordered to import horses from a kingdom with which you have a Trade Agreement.
Cleric: The Cleric is your religiously dedicated knight. He can fulfil several domestic, social purposes. The cleric is a knight who can govern a province, like the builder and landlord. When ordered so, he will start writing books increasing your "book-income" with one. Besides sitting inside writing books all day long, he can also be ordered to do two things in the province. The first is adopting the population. When a province is conquered, the population is usually loyal to the kingdom they belonged to. By adopting a province they give up their loyalty which decreases the chance of rebellion in the province. The second is converting a province with a different religion into your religion. This is extremely costly though, and can be a dangerous job for your Cleric. Other knights which can be hired are landlords and builders.
[edit] Goal of the Game
The main goal of the game is to become emperor of Europe. However, you are free to do whatever you wish. There is no set time limit or whatsoever. There are two ways to eventually accomplish the goal. The first, and definitely the more fun way, is to conquer everything from Dublin to Antioch. This can be done completely by military power but there are many other paths to go by, such as inhereting land because you married one of your princesses to the prince whose father passed away. However, given the fact that it is very hard to watch after an empire as it grows, the player can simply "Claim the Title" if he thinks he's powerful enough to become emperor of Europe. This means that the player will be voted for or against other major powers in Medieval Europe to become the supreme king of Europe. However, if your proposal is shot down rather fast, every major power will declare war on you for attempting to take the Supreme Throne.
[edit] References
- ^ Interview with Vesselin Handjiev. GameZone (April 20, 2005). Retrieved on October 26, 2006.
[edit] External links
| Paradox Interactive games | |
|---|---|
| EU line | Europa Universalis | Europa Universalis II | Europa Universalis II: Asian Chapters | Europa Universalis III |
| HOI line | Hearts of Iron | Hearts of Iron II | Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday |
| Victoria line | Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun | Victoria: Revolutions |
| Other | Crusader Kings | Crown of the North | Two Thrones |
| Third party titles | Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (Europe) | Knights of Honor | Rush for Berlin | Heart of Empire - Rome | Take Command: 2nd Manassas | Perimeter: Emperor’s Testament | Silent Heroes | Sword of the Stars |
