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King Arthur - The Role Playing Wargame

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Stalin said:
Stalin said:
having tried it i muist say its crap few units on battleground no unit balance whatsoever crap camera: i uninstalled

No linking to torrents you stupid fuck ~Jarl
Unless the game is from a major developer then its ok? douchebag pseudo intellectual: Its like telling your mates not to talk shit about your sister while shes fucking the entire school

No, you stupid fuckstain. It is never ok.
 

Burning Bridges

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Count me interested. Is this a new game or a re-release of the previous one? I'd die to see a well done crusader game.
 

CrimsonAngel

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I will give it a shot when my finances are more in the "you have money" and not in the "Pay of your bills or we break you knee caps" side of things.
 

Burning Bridges

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Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade Features:

Play through two single-player campaigns – Crusader and Saracen
Oversee hundreds of soldiers in real-time epic battles
Command your forces, conquer territory, and expand your realm on a fully 3D map
Strategically manage your army between missions
Rewrite the past by playing as famous historical characters serving as the main heroes

it says "between missions", so it looks like there will be only a basic linear campaign.
 

Darth Roxor

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God, magic is so ridiculously overpowered in this game it's not even funny.

In the later parts, almost every enemy hero you'll encounter will have either Curse of Shadows or Lightning Bolt at at least level 4. Both of these spells are basically 'I win' buttons that the enemy loves to use on your regiments of veteran archers that you've kept since the beginning of the campaign, which pretty much vaporises them in a matter of seconds.

And the best fun is when you meet armies that have MORE THAN ONE hero, and all of them have BOTH of these spells, which means you can kiss your archers goodbye, unless you exploit the stupid AI, because there's not a lot you can do to protect yourself from enemy magic. There's one passive ability that gives enemy heroes a 10% per level chance to fail casting, and another spell that protects a single unit from enemy spells, but what is its use, when you have four regiments of archers?

Pretty much the only thing you can do is hide everyone inside forests and then start running around with some junk squad like footmen to provoke the enemy to use magic on them so he runs out of mana.
 

Burning Bridges

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I see. I guess then I will wait for a mod that fixes the gameplay. I already had exactly that very same concern from watching the videos: magic looked mightily overdone. which is a pity, since almost everything else looking damn right already.
 

Darth Roxor

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But don't get me wrong, I still like it, I even ordered it today, 'cause it definitely deserves the cash, and while the magic issue might be irritating, you can get around it or take your beating like a Real Man (TM), because while the aoe spells won't really win whole battles for the enemy, they'll seriously cripple some of your regiments.
 

Burning Bridges

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Sure, I hear you. But when it comes to tactical battles my standards have become pretty high, areal magic effects just won't do it for me. I'd even hope someone mods this stuff out altogether and lets me concentrate on pure infantry tactics. But I hope to get this game sooner or later, that's not the question. Response so far sounds really positive, even here at the codex.
 

Darth Roxor

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Well, removing magic completely would cripple the gameplay, though, since that would pretty much remove all differences between hero classes, and some interesting ideas like summoning fog or nightfall to screw up archers.
 

Zyriak

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I ended up here when I searched for the game after I bought it earlier today. It caught my interest yesterday after I saw the trailer and as I love both Total War kind of games and fantasy turn-based games like HoMM I thought I give it a go.

I was never as hooked on Empire Total War as on Medieval Total War II, so seeing a game that offers a bit similair gameplay was promising.

What did strike me first was the quality of the game and even more the atmosphere, I love the look of it, the choice of colours and how you can feel those who worked with the game really put in a big effort and passion into it. This is even more impressing as it comes from a smaller studio that doesn't have the resources bigger companies have.

The strategic map is beautiful and goes so well with the rest of the game, it's much more inviting than the ETW map that I never liked.

So the battles then? What can I say, it's stunning, the scenary is really nice and detailed and the game controls are easy to deal with. The camera is okay, but could have been better and the pathfinding is a bit so-so at times. Other than that I have no complains, the tactical aspects are there and the introduction of heroes and magic really does spies it up. The magic might be a bit overpowered, but Neocore seems quick to fix and adjust things (unlike Bioware x.x), archers have already been balanced and the magic isn't much of an issue yet.

I like how the units have different faces are of different length etc, makes it feel less cloned and the variation of units is really nice.

The music really sets the mood right and while the voice acting isn't the best, it doesn't spoil the game.

Hard to give a fair verdict after one day, but I love it and don't regret I bought it (on steam) the game just gets better and better and im really impressed by neocore, cause this is a gem that I hope will do well!

Summary:
+ Beatiful grahpics
+ Great atmosphere
+ Music fits in very well
+ Quests, heroes and magic gives the game depth
+ Fun battles with lot of variation

- Camera controls could been better
- Some minor balance issues
- Voice acting isn't as good as the other parts of the game

Will add some stuff after I played it for a week or so, now I need to get back :D
 

Burning Bridges

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Here little synopsis of what I found at the official forums, concerning my most important questions:

A demo will be available soon.
http://www.kingarthurthewargame.com/for ... ?f=30&t=40

The English language version of King Athur will be released very soon on Impulse and GamersGate, and it will be available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well.
http://www.kingarthurthewargame.com/for ... 6&start=10

Moddability: unanswered

Expansions and "DLC" are being worked on
http://www.kingarthurthewargame.com/for ... 3&start=10
 
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Despite its shortcomings in terms of balance and battlefield map design (not much room for serious tactics) I already like this game better than the TW series because of the additional visibility options it offers for the battle view, as opposed to the mess that is TW.

If they could just apply a transparency to the trees that obscure one's own units, that would complete the UI evolution from TW's mess.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
Just completed the game. Dammit, I was expecting the Hadrian Wall and the regions beyond to open up after defeating the Sidhe, and not left for an expansion. I feel disappointed. :(

Game's pretty well done though, for a small developer with little resources.
 

Burning Bridges

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In case you haven't noticed, we now got a 2Gb demo.

I have downloaded and played it today, so I can provide a mini review, while YourConscience is working on a full review.

Battles

battles use mechanics and control very similar to TW. You can form groups, and most keyboard mappings are familiar.
However, battles are more fuddly than in TW, some controls are missing, for example:
- no LMB + drag to control formations
- no option to assign multiple waypoints with LMB + click
Morale seems not to be modeled at all, so units will not rout, and fight to the last man!
Ammunition isn't modelled either.
Then there are some similar problems which are as old as the TW series, e.g. if several units engage in combat they turn into a single goddamn cluster. I don't think you can (or should) disengage units when this has happened, so I usually had to let them fight until the bitter end

Overall I would rate the battle engine as no more than average, probably I would not even play the game anymore if it were only for this part individually. But on the other hand, I had expected it would be much worse.

It turned out entirely rateable as a game that needs to be played strategically, although a bit cluttered.

Campaign

If the battles are soso, it's the campaign map that makes me want to play this game another time. Screenshots already show that you get a very beautiful map, with a lot of options that you would expect, and quite a few fresh ideas. There is a lot of RPG elements, like levelling up the round table knights, and solving quests.

First the bad news. As it was hinted at in reviews, the campaign is really linear. It's separated into several chapters, with scripted, sometimes branching objectives (some of them optional).

But from what I have seen the story and the scripted parts are very well done. Neocore seem to have done their homework and captured the spirit of the Arthurian Legend. I'd wish they'd turn down a bit more the cheesieness. But if you consider what we usually come to expect from Eastern European developers, they did a marvellous job.

My concern is, since you only have one faction (King Arthur), and one scripted story, is there any long term appeal? Or will most people shelve this after one or two playthroughs?

Overall

My impression is good, if you have the bandwidth you should really download this. PC gamers must be thankful if we get such a game once in a while.

It's also a well designed demo. The tutorial is very long and lets you play through the first chapters of the game. Amusingly it does not waste any time with obvious things. Often it tells you what to do next, but not how it is done. You must have learned it somewhere else, and figure it out :)
 

Darth Roxor

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So I guess I'll just repeat what I said in the other thread:

GlobalExplorer said:
First the bad news. As it was hinted at in reviews, the campaign is really linear

Disagree. I played the full game two (well, one and a half) times now, the first time as a rightful pagan lord, that I abandoned somewhere half-through, because I screwed up pretty badly in various fields, so I started another one with a lot better grasp of the mechanics as a tyrant pagan, and I must say the difference really is there, and I didn't even explore the christian storyline yet.

For example, there's the quest that's a fusion of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with Tristan and Iseult. If I count correctly, there are about 5 different outcomes of that quest, with 3 different potential heroes and various long-term consequences you can get depending on your choices.
 

Phelot

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Yes, I noticed quite a few differences in my two playthroughs. The first I was a righteous Christian and the other a righteous Pagan and you really get a nice set of different quests.

Not to mention the really awesome adventure text games you go through. A lot of them have some major differences depending on your knight's skills and what options you choose. What you say determines what you get, there is no railroading or fake choices. If you tell Dagonet, that Arthur is fighting for Christianity, he politely gives you the reward, but won't join you. You can choose to pay off foes or can duel them to avoid a fight. At one point, a lady asked that I execute her kidnappers, if you do so she will join and you get +1 Tyrant, if you don't then she won't join.

Things like that really made the game a blast the second time around, though I will say I noticed that a lot of the supposed random quests, showed up at the exact same time as the first time through. I was hoping it would be a bit more random considering all those sites that claim "+50 % chance of adventure related quests" and so on, which I have yet to see any change since my last play though.

All in all, a good game.
 

Burning Bridges

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I admit, I didn't get further than the beginning of the campaign, the tutorial stage, but I did not find it very felicitous, since I am only expected to execute predefined actions. So far it has been no fun at all.

When I said it's linear I didn't imply it's bad. But it's obviously a linear storyline (branching). The UI even has predefined slots for the story ..

I ntried to give a first impression, but since I am not really in a position to review the game, we need to to hear more detailed impressions. I think this is really a game that deserves at least some discussion.

But what I can say already, I have already played a couple of battles, and see a big problem with the lack of morale effects, and other things. As you can see in this screen the other side was completely annihilated. And it seems this is always the case.



I expected a little more since this was done 10x more convincingly a decade ago.

Another thing is I don't see if it's worth using proper tactics. In the next screen you can see I do everything as in a totalwar game, occupy the position higher ground, attack some units with mobile units from the side / rear. but I am getting the impression it doesn't matter (I am the blue guys).



Ok I admit I made a terrible mistake, I completely forgot to use my heavy infantry :) they were still behind the mountain.

One thing I like in theory is the ability to level up troops and leaders. But unfortunately the units cards don't show the particular upgrades, which invalidates the feature to a large degree. Isn't it entirely confusing to keep every unit/leader abilities in memory, or click through them all them time?
 

Sovard

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The battle against Balan in the demo whooped my ass. I only have Kay, and I wasn't able to reinforce prior as I did it before the Lady mission.The Gryphons can survive 3 heavy infantry/3 spearmen/4 foot? conscripts? and the wasteland folk in melee. Even with flanking...

The in the middle of things bit is a walk in the park since you have so many knights at your service, however.
 

Darth Roxor

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GlobalExplorer said:
As you can see in this screen the other side was completely annihilated. And it seems this is always the case.

Lad, this is like the second battle in the game, what did you expect?

Another thing is I don't see if it's worth using proper tactics. In the next screen you can see I do everything as in a totalwar game, occupy the position higher ground, attack some units with mobile units from the side / rear. but I am getting the impression it doesn't matter (I am the blue guys).

Occupying victory locations is pretty important not only because of the bonuses they give, but because having more of them than your enemy decreases enemy morale, which makes it possible to just get the majority and wait for the battle to end, since the AI sometimes gets wonky and the enemy troops won't move even if it's 5:2 in control points. Besides, capturing the VLs makes you achieve victory faster.

As for higher ground, I didn't really notice any difference between high/low ground for archers which is a shame.

And units... Well, to put it simply, in the first stages all you need to win is a bunch of archers, but later on, clever maneuvering with infantry and (especially) cavalry plays an important role, because you'll meet armies with 3+ enemy heroes with funky spells, like curse of shadows, that can eliminate a squad of archers in a matter of seconds, so unless you have the spell Bonds of Magic (which is exclusive to rightful christian) that prevents a single enemy hero from casting, you'll pretty much need to use either a lot of cannon fodder to provoke enemy spellcasting, or quickly charge the enemy heroes with elite cavalry in hope of eliminating them in a hit-n-run manner.

One thing I like in theory is the ability to level up troops and leaders. But unfortunately the units cards don't show the particular upgrades, which invalidates the feature to a large degree. Isn't it entirely confusing to keep every unit/leader abilities in memory, or click through them all them time?

When you play for a while, you'll probably memorise what all your units do.

The battle against Balan in the demo whooped my ass. I only have Kay, and I wasn't able to reinforce prior as I did it before the Lady mission.The Gryphons can survive 3 heavy infantry/3 spearmen/4 foot? conscripts? and the wasteland folk in melee. Even with flanking...

The gryphons are high-end heavy infantry, they're pretty much untouchable by your beginning melee units.

But that's why you get Balin to join you in the battle - he has the Dragon's Breath spell which can decimate squads of high armour/hp regiments. And whoever survives you just take out with the archers.

pipka said:
Can someone make mini-LP of this game?

I've started a new Rightful Christian playthrough lately, and I've even been thinking about a LP, but I believe it would be... too massive.
 

Burning Bridges

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thanks for the information

Darth Roxor said:
Lad, this is like the second battle in the game, what did you expect?

I made it no secret that I am still at the beginning. But what do you mean? There was clearly no morale modelled in the first battles, and armies always fought until they were annihilated. Does it change later in the game? Does the game use a different setup in the later parts of the game or how does the change come about? Specifically: do units rout when morale gets low? do armies retreat from the battlefield?
 

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