Knights of Honor Preview

Knights of Honor has you conquering empires throughout medieval Europe, with your ultimate goal being to rule all of Europe. Knights of Honor covers all aspects of conquering, from diplomacy to economy to military.

To make managing your provinces easier, there are separate battle and world views. World view allows you to see all the land you have and all that is still to be had. You can scroll across the entire country and check on the status of each area. It’s even possible to conquer two countries at once. Battle view is zoomed further in for easier access to your units. You can control each unit during a battle or have the AI handle it for you. You can even pause time whenever you like so you can check on any other wars you may be waging.

There are over 150 provinces and over 150 kingdoms overall to conquer, with the help of your knights of course. You will be able to have 9 knights that can be any one of 6 jobs, aiding you in different ways. Each knight levels up too, so for each successful endeavor they gain experience and when they level up they get a star. Your knights can get up to five stars each, and every star heightens their ability to do their job. Knights will also gain experience in combat, which can then be used to buy new abilities for that knight.

Different factors come into play when building and upgrading your towns and villages. Economy, religion, and gold are your biggest influences, and they will affect various things like how fast buildings are built, how well your soldiers perform in certain tasks, and how quickly you make money.

There are also six land formations that will allow you to expand into certain directions. You can excel in things like hunting and fishing if you build around the right resources.

To enter into combat you must wage war with a province you have not yet conquered. In fact, diplomacy in Knights of Honor is very deep. You can ally with other provinces through treaties and pacts, and you can also breach those pacts and declare war. Each battle begins and ends with a cut scene and after-battle stats.

Prisoners can also be caught during battle, and you decide whether you let them go, torture them, whatever. You can even send a knight as a spy to sabotage or gain intelligence…but the enemy can do the same. If the enemy spy is caught, you can let him go or torture him to find out who his leader is. You can then kill him or even sell him back to his leader as ransom.

What I saw of the game was 95% complete, and it’s apparent that a lot of work went into the playability and detail of Knights of Honor. Right now it is planned to be released September this year for the PC.

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