Crown Wars: The Black Prince - historical fantasy turn-based tactics from Naheulbeuk devs

[Hellraiser]

We wuz (black) princes and sheeeit.

 

[Pyrite Pachyderm]

Yeah, but unless they completely change the char creation/recruitment from how it worked in the demo, you can simply filter out all the stronk wahmins and niggers - all this retardation will likely be optional. In any case that isnt an excuse for having this shit in the game at all though...

You can filter your ranks, but there will be wombyn and nogs among hostile factions. Wasn't in the demo, but i saw it in the factions trailer.

Meaning you get to kill them?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Parsimonious cook]

10/10 accents from the devs. Still not convinced about the game though.

 

[Infinitron]

Launch trailer:

 

[Lacrymas]

I am probably going to try the demo today and report my impressions.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, it's out:

 

[Tyranicon]

Not off to a great start :/

 

[Lacrymas]

It's mostly technical issues as far as I can see.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yeah... I will be waiting for a discount and few patches, that´s for sure.

 

[Lemming42]

The price tag on all these indie/low-budget tactical games is just too high. I appreciate that £35 is comparatively cheap given that AAA games cost insane amounts these days but it's still too much for something with low production values and the level of jank you'd expect from a small team, to the point where it probably hurts the game's sales. The Lamplighter's League is the most obvious example of recent times, there was just no way people were paying like £45 for that.

Played the demo of this one and thought it was a lot of fun, the usual nu-XCOM by the numbers stuff but that's what it's going for and it's very competent at it. The possibly-AI voice acting is a treat as well, "WE MUST PROTECT OUR DOCUMENTS". Waiting for a sale I suppose.

 

[Lacrymas]

I unexpectedly received guests yesterday and didn't have the time to properly get into the demo. Now I see it is no longer available. Shame.

 

[Nortar]

The price tag on all these indie/low-budget tactical games is just too high.

Welp, they already have a discounted bundle with Mutant: Year Zero of all things.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/41508/Mutants_and_Knights_TurnBased_Tactics_Bundle/

I liked MYZ, but I doubt that half-a-dozen years old game would be enough to serve as a crutch for sales.

 

[Fargus]

There are very few user reviews and mixed score. Guess this will be 50% off in a few months, i will pick it up then. Maybe lol

 

[Kruyurk]

It is already discounted at -23% on some legit stores https://isthereanydeal.com/game/crown-wars-the-black-prince/info/

So the full price on steam is to take advantage of people who don't know any better?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

What I find especially sad about this is that the release was pushed back several times (obviously because of the technical state of the game) and even so it apparently released in a shitty state that is getting the devs shit reviews. Doesnt speak well about their competence, tbh fam.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I played the first few missions since I had an order I forgot to cancel. So you're welcome as I take one for the team.

It's... ok. Sort of the definition of a 6-7/10 tactics game. The character graphics are sort of PS3/Solasta tier, but environments look nice enough.

The missions so far have been pretty small, generally 4 PCs vs. waves of 4-6 enemies, sometimes with the possibility of aggroing more than one group at a time. I think this may expand a bit later, but that's what the first few are like. As I recall, I think later you may get the ability to field 5-6 characters instead of only 4, but this could be me mixing up different games.

There are 5 classes with different trade offs and those are well done enough. The classes are Crusader (tank knight), Alchemist (basically archer/mages), Duellist (basically a medium armoured fighter that can swap between two weapon loadouts), Beast master (medium armoured fighter with a fighting pet), and ... I forgot what the last guy's called, it had a weird name. Basically a skirmisher/archer class.

There are characters of both genders and the game can be reasonably challenging at the highest difficulty levels, but depending on how this ramps up, may not be enough for some people's preferences. Each level up provides a choice of two skills that will change how the character plays. There are also a variety of weapon choices that have various bonuses (improvements to defense vs. accuracy, armour piercing, armour shredding, etc.) and each weapon type and armour type is upgraded separately.

A significant part of the gameplay seems to revolve around improving your base and your gear and the presentation is pretty much as described elsewhere (medieval nuXCom).

Other than that, the setting is a low(?) fantasy riff on the 100 Years War which I understand is reasonably historically accurate though with fantastical leanings into the occult and alchemy.

Probably worth it somewhere around 40-60% off, depending on your preferences and whether the setting appeals to you.

I should add that I've had no performance issues, but also that with how this thing looks, it probably delivers fewer frames than I'd expect with my hardware, so YMMV.

 

[Lacrymas]

It is already discounted at -23% on some legit stores https://isthereanydeal.com/game/crown-wars-the-black-prince/info/

So the full price on steam is to take advantage of people who don't know any better?

This is normal for releases and I've taken advantage of it many times. I don't know exactly how legit third party retailers work, but I'm assuming they don't take the 30% cut Steam does, so devs can afford having surprisingly high discounts on such sites, especially releases. This is true even for major games like Total War Warhammer 3. It doesn't mean the game is underperforming or anything.

 

[Elttharion]

It is already discounted at -23% on some legit stores https://isthereanydeal.com/game/crown-wars-the-black-prince/info/

So the full price on steam is to take advantage of people who don't know any better?

This is normal for releases and I've taken advantage of it many times. I don't know exactly how legit third party retailers work, but I'm assuming they don't take the 30% cut Steam does, so devs can afford having surprisingly high discounts on such sites, especially releases. This is true even for major games like Total War Warhammer 3. It doesn't mean the game is underperforming or anything.

My mind is a bit foggy but afaik places like greenmangaming still take a 30% cut of every sale. IIRC the difference is that they negotiate with publishers to offer biggers discounts at the cost of their own profits/their cut of the money. The publisher still gets 70% but GMG will get like 15% or less depending on the discount they are offering. Basically they eat the difference to bring more traffic and users to their site.

 

[Trash Player]

The price tag on all these indie/low-budget tactical games is just too high. I appreciate that £35 is comparatively cheap given that AAA games cost insane amounts these days but it's still too much for something with low production values and the level of jank you'd expect from a small team, to the point where it probably hurts the game's sales. The Lamplighter's League is the most obvious example of recent times, there was just no way people were paying like £45 for that.

There are big differences between AA and shoestring indie. The Lamplighters League actually has a budget of 30m USD. Smaller AA can still cost a couple at least. They have to charge that much. Whether they have enough audiences to support them is a different matter.
It is the ages old AA conundrum. Not as many audiences as AAA but much bigger cost than a skeleton crew. Only the luckiest few hit big like Larian. Even the ones who simply survives to another project are considered lucky.

 

[Galdred]

The price tag on all these indie/low-budget tactical games is just too high. I appreciate that £35 is comparatively cheap given that AAA games cost insane amounts these days but it's still too much for something with low production values and the level of jank you'd expect from a small team, to the point where it probably hurts the game's sales. The Lamplighter's League is the most obvious example of recent times, there was just no way people were paying like £45 for that.

Played the demo of this one and thought it was a lot of fun, the usual nu-XCOM by the numbers stuff but that's what it's going for and it's very competent at it. The possibly-AI voice acting is a treat as well, "WE MUST PROTECT OUR DOCUMENTS". Waiting for a sale I suppose.

The thing is, from my game developer perspective, the niche itself is a bit small to begin with (I was actually in the process of finding a right price for mine), and a lower price is unlikely to sway people who require AAA fidelity in the first place.
Most games in the niche are priced 29.99€-39.99€ (Wartales, Battle Brothers, Xenonauts 2, King Arthur: Knight's Tale, Chaos Gate).
Also, a lower price of entry won't change the fact that most players will still wait for a discount to buy anyway (many games end up being 50% off in less than a year).
The issues with CW:TBP are more that the game would have needed a few more stability balancing/updates, but that would still be an issue at 19.99.