Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom

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Knights and Merchants:
The Shattered Kingdom
Developer(s) Joymania Entertainment (since changed to Joymania Development)
Publisher(s) NA Interactive Magic (WIN)
EU TopWare Interactive (WIN)
Linux Game Publishing (LNX)
Designer(s) Peter Ohlmann, Adam Sprys
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, MorphOS, Macintosh, Linux
Release date NA October 1, 1998 (WIN)
EU September 18, 1998 (WIN)
JP September 18, 1998 (WIN)
March 13, 2007 (LNX)
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer (IPX, TCP/IP, Modem)
Rating(s) ESRB: Everyone (E)
ELSPA: 15
USK: 12+
OFLC: 8+
Media CD (1)
System requirements P100 MHz CPU, 24MB RAM, 80-90 MB HD
Input methods Keyboard, mouse

Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom (abbreviated TSK) is a medieval-time based Real-time strategy game. It has been developed by Joymania Entertainment (since changed to Joymania Development) and published by TopWare Interactive in 1998. You take the role of the captain of the palace guards and lead your soldiers and citizens to victory. The game did not receive a strong critical or popular reception in the UK and the US, but elsewhere it was more popular, consequently a follow up game was released called Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion. Recently it has also been made available in the US as a value game.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom has a single player campaign that consists of 20 scenarios with scenario length ranging from around 30 minutes up to 7 hours depending on its difficulty. There's also a pair of tutorials. One that teaches you how to build and manage your base and also a battle tutorial which teaches which units you should use to counter each other.

The game is not without its flaws. The road system gets easily congested, leading to deadlocks lasting for several minutes. Unfortunately this usually occurs near resource points meaning porters with critical goods ( food , weapons ) cannot get to their destination on time. In addition, the dragging pace of the game cannot be altered which greatly extends the time spent on the resourcing part of missions.

The game also offers a multiplayer mode by using either IPX, TCP/IP or Modem where up to 6 players can play. There's 10 different scenarios to choose from including a number which focus specifically on the combat element of the game.

[edit] Economy

The economy is very complex in Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom, more so than most other RTS games, with a greater range of resources and a need to combine basic resources in a number of ways to create a functioning economy. For example, in order to get loaves you must build a farm to get wheat, then a mill to get flour and a bakery to bake loaves of the flour. The many different resources in the game require a large amount of corresponding buildings and units in order to fully utilize them requiring greater than usual micromanaging for an RTS.

Every citizen and soldier must eat in the game meaning that you need to produce a great deal of food creating a more naturalistic limit on army size. There is no population limit in game, instead population is limited by how much food you produce. If a unit is not fed for a sustained amount of time it will die.

The every day life aspect of this game is considered a notable feature. You can place many different structures, forcing the player to consider where and when to place each structure. However for new players this greater complexity can lead to a process of trial and error but once experience has been gained it becomes an interesting take on RTS economics.

[edit] Technology

While you are playing the campaign you'll constantly gain knowledge on how to build new buildings. In the first mission you can only create militias because your citizens don't know how to build armory workshops yet, but they gain the knowledge when you advance to the next mission, so you get new buildings over time.

Usually the opponents have better technology than you so you'll have to think a bit how to beat them as they have more powerful units. However the AI is not very intelligent so it shouldn't be any big problem to defeat them.

[edit] Battle

The battle-aspect of this game is not designed really well, the units are controlled rather awkwardly. You cannot, for instance, select more than 1 group of units at a time, and in battle this can really limit your ability to micro-manage your army. Also when your units get to a fight you can't retreat as all their commands get disabled. There is not much variation in units either. Also its very difficult to make even the most simplest units in the game. Thats almost every unit needs at least 3 different resources. And it takes a decent amount of time just to get these resources, so building an army takes a substantial amount of time.

The strongest type of soldiers in the game are the crossbowmen, and attacking without them is useless as you will lose more soldiers than your opponent. Infantry and cavalry are mainly used for killing your opponent's ranged troops and defending yours.

[edit] Sequels

Knights and Merchants: The Peasants Rebellion (TPR) (2001)

[edit] External links

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